[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Here's a new way the government may confuse you into getting diabetes. President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. are praising the announcement by the Coca-Cola Company that they will start using more cane sugar and less high-fructose corn syrup. Trump explicitly pushed for the change. We'll explain why. We'll talk to the dean, the queen, perhaps the greatest of all time on the intersection of public health and US food politics, Marion Nestle, in just a minute.

I'll just mention that the Coca-Cola CEO, James Quincey, announcing the move to US-produced cane sugar, acknowledged that the Trump administration pressure was a factor in the decision. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health emerita at NYU, and the author of many books, including the forthcoming, What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters, joins us now.

Her website is foodpolitics.com. She has been on the show many times, going back to at least her classic book food politics in 2004, and I suspect that wasn't the first time, but my database doesn't go back any further than that. Marion, always great to have you, and thank you for all the education and enlightenment you've given our listeners over the years. Welcome back to WNYC.

Marion Nestle: Thanks, and thanks for the lovely introduction.

Brian Lehrer: What is high-fructose corn syrup?

Marion Nestle: It's a sweetener produced from cornstarch. You take cornstarch and treat it with enzymes to turn it into glucose, and then you take more enzymes and turn some of that glucose into fructose. You have a liquid sweetener that resembles cane or beet sugar, sucrose, because both of them have glucose and fructose in slightly different proportions, but I don't think meaningfully different.

Brian Lehrer: Why the tag "high-fructose"? What does high mean?

Marion Nestle: Well, it actually means lower sometimes than the amount that's in table sugar. Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. High-fructose corn syrup can be as high as 55% fructose, but that's as pretty much as maybe a little bit higher. That's usually as high as it gets, so the difference isn't very great.

Brian Lehrer: When did it start being used in a widespread way in this country, and why?

Marion Nestle: Well, for one thing, it was a lot cheaper. At the time that it started being used in the early 1980s, the cost of high-fructose corn syrup was about a third of the cost of table sugar. Companies quickly discovered that they could substitute it for cane or beet sugar in Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Nobody would know the difference because they're both glucose and fructose, and pretty much the same amounts. They started using it for cost purposes, and also because high-fructose corn syrup dissolves better in liquids. It's liquid, so it has some properties that make it a little bit better to use.

Nobody could tell the difference, so it used it. Then high-fructose corn syrup started getting put into absolutely every food on the market. It kicked off the development of ultra-processed foods because it was cheap. We subsidize corn in the United States. That ends up making it cheaper, largely because farmers produce so much of it. Although the price differential has changed, it's smaller now that we use half the corn supply for ethanol. That's raised the price of high-fructose corn syrup a little bit, but it's in the food supply. It's everywhere. It became a marker of junk food.

Brian Lehrer: Why would the government have subsidized the production of high-fructose corn syrup if it's going into highly profitable products that private industry is making?

Marion Nestle: Well, you have to understand that it's only a tiny fraction of what the government subsidizes. If you look at the corn supply in the United States, which is something like 12 billion bushels, a completely unimaginable amount, nearly half goes to feed animals. Half or more goes to produce ethanol for automobiles. Don't let me get started on that one, leaving a tiny fraction of corn for food for people.

Corn on the cob is practically a rounding error in the corn supply. Very little of it is used to feed people. Somewhere on the order of less than 10% goes either for corn on the cob or for corn ingredients. I believe that high-fructose corn syrup is on the order of just a couple of percent of what's made. The subsidies are going to the corn producers that are feeding animals and fueling automobiles. That's where the money's going.

Brian Lehrer: I guess as a tangent, it's an indicator of how environmentally inefficient eating beef or dairy products is, right? If we're growing a lot of agricultural food, if we're growing a lot of corn in particular to feed the animals instead of just growing a lot of food directly to feed the people, then there's this extra step that results in a lot more farming, a lot more emissions, et cetera.

Marion Nestle: Absolutely. That's why beef is considered to be the single food component that generates the most greenhouse gases. It's not only because cows burp methane. It's also because they eat a lot, and their feed is no longer grass. It's corn and soybeans. We subsidize corn and soybean production. This keeps the cost of the feed for animals and, these days, the cost of fuel for automobiles down to a level that people are willing to pay.

Brian Lehrer: Now that we've said a lot of pretty bad things about high-fructose corn syrup, you wrote on your website, foodpolitics.com, that this change that President Trump wanted and Coca-Cola has now accepted to some degree to more Coke products with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, that the difference is "nutritionally hilarious." Now, I know you don't think it's funny from a public health standpoint, but why is it nutritionally hilarious?

Marion Nestle: Because they're basically the same biochemically, and they have the same physiological effect in the body. They've got the same calories. It's still 39 grams of one kind of sugar or another in a 12-ounce Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola makes a cane sugar product in Mexico. It's sold in the United States. What they've said is that they will now make a cane sugar option for people in the United States and make that available. I bet it'll cost more. If that's what people want, that's fine. From a biochemical and physiological standpoint, these things are the same.

Brian Lehrer: Listener asks in a text, "I had always been told that your body metabolizes high-fructose corn syrup differently from cane sugar. Is there any truth to that?"

Marion Nestle: How could it? High-fructose corn syrup is glucose and fructose. Cane sugar is glucose and fructose. What kind of difference could there be? The only difference could be if there was vastly more fructose in high-fructose corn syrup. There's some more, but not vastly more. Then fructose is metabolized in the liver, but the fructose that comes from cane sugar is also metabolized in the liver. It doesn't make any sense to me to think that these are substantially different.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take more texts and phone calls for the dean, the queen, maybe the greatest of all time when it comes to the intersection of nutrition and national politics, Marion Nestle at foodpolitics.com, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, with this announcement that Coca-Cola is going to move away from as much high-fructose corn syrup and more to cane sugar in its Coca-Cola drinks at the behest of President Trump. Now, one person who apparently does think there's a difference between the two is Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. We should say in fairness that he is not for sugary drinks in general, but he seems to think cane sugar is less unhealthy. Here's one little clip of him.

RFK Jr.: High-fructose corn syrup, that is poison.

Brian Lehrer: Here's another one.

RFK Jr.: If you're going to drink Coca-Cola, drink a Mexican Coke.

Brian Lehrer: Because, Marion, Mexican Coke has been made with cane sugar all along?

Marion Nestle: Oh, yes, all along. Again, I'll say that I don't see any difference. Both of these have calories. It's still going to be 39 grams of sugar in a 12-ounce Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola hasn't said it's going to substitute. All it said is that it's going to produce a cane sugar-supplemented Coca-Cola for the United States market.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, both versions will be available.

Marion Nestle: Both versions will be available. You get your choice.

Brian Lehrer: Those clips of RFK Jr. were from the show The Breakfast Club in 2023 to give that credit where credit is due. Here's Kennedy again in another clip, making a more blanket judgment about sweetened beverages.

RFK Jr.: Why are we paying for sugar drinks that are poisoning our kids and giving them diabetes? If you want a Coke, God bless you, go get one. As a taxpayer, you should not be paying that in a nutrition program.

Brian Lehrer: That was Kennedy from this year as HHS secretary in a news conference. Does that leave you confused, Marion, about where he is and where, therefore, US policy is on this issue?

Marion Nestle: Well, it's confusing. It certainly is confusing. His last comment was made with respect to the SNAP program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as part of an effort to control what SNAP recipients can buy with their electronic benefits cards. There are now several states that have said that they cannot buy sugar-sweetened beverages with the SNAP cards. Other states are thinking about it.

The Department of Agriculture, which has for years and years and years refused to allow pilot projects of cutting sodas out of SNAP, is now allowing them and encouraging states to do this. On the one hand, they're encouraging restrictions on sugar-sweetened beverages. By the way, cutting down on sugar-sweetened beverages is a really good idea. I'm all for it. It's the first thing you do if you're trying to control your weight because they have sugars and calories and no other nutritional benefit. Whether this burden should fall on SNAP recipients rather than everybody else in the country is something we can all argue about.

I think it's arguable, but the message is very confusing. On the one hand, it's turning Coca-Cola with cane sugar into a health food because it's supposedly healthier than high-fructose corn syrup. One of the political things here that just has me completely baffled is why they aren't talking about beet sugar. Beet sugar is just the same as cane sugar. Half our sugar supply is beet sugar. Somebody explained to me that the major owner of cane sugar in the United States, the Fanjul family, are friends of Trump's. That's why he's talking about cane sugar. That makes sense to me.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, do you think that President Trump, by explicitly posting that this is better, he used the word "better," is risking contributing to rising obesity or diabetes or other health problem rates in this country by confusing people into thinking that this is less unhealthy?

Marion Nestle: That cane sugar isn't. All of a sudden, Coca-Cola is a health food because it's made with cane sugar? I don't think so. It's a boon for Coca-Cola because I think people will be confused. They'll think, "Oh, I'll drink Coca-Cola, the Mexican type Coca-Cola, and I'll be healthier." I don't think so. These high-fructose corn syrup has just the same number of calories, or cane sugar has just the same number of calories as high-fructose corn syrup does. These are basically equivalent. That's why I said it was nutritionally hilarious.

Brian Lehrer: We have a number of callers and texters who did, at least previously, and maybe they still do, even after hearing you, think that high-fructose corn syrup is nutritionally worse. We're going to get to our next caller on that in a minute, but just explain what the Trump politics of this are to the best of your understanding. Why did President Trump want Coca-Cola, pressure Coca-Cola to start using more cane sugar and less high-fructose corn syrup?

Marion Nestle: Well, again, one of my informants said is because he talked to the Fanjuls, and they make cane sugar, and they want to get an edge on this. The people who are losing on this are the corn refiners. They're represented by the Corn Refiners Association, which is extremely upset about this. A statement from them said, "This doesn't make any scientific sense." It's not about science. It's about politics. I think it is.

I'm not in favor of high-fructose corn syrup. It's a marker of junk food. There it is. Physiologically and biochemically, it doesn't make any sense to make a really big deal out of it. The environmental implications may be much greater for high-fructose corn syrup because of the enormous amount of corn that's grown to feed animals and fuel automobiles, as we've already discussed.

For that reason, cane sugar may be better, but there are all kinds of problems with cane sugar that have to do with the treatment of workers and the way the land is treated and all of the other kinds of environmental problems that come with the pollution of water, that come with growing sugar cane. Sugar beets, if you want to substitute those, those are genetically modified if anybody cares. All of these are problematic in one way or another. Everybody would be healthier eating less of any of them.

Brian Lehrer: I guess, apparently, the question of whether high-fructose corn syrup is more unhealthy than cane sugar even divides married couples talking at their dinner table. Apparently, Herb in Greenwich Village is a member of one such couple. Herb, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Herb: Hello, good morning, and thank you for taking my call. Yes, my wife was leading the charge against high-fructose corn syrup, and I followed along, but then I got curious about it. I'm not a biochemist, but I do have a background in science. I understand what I'm reading. This is my understanding, which I think should clear some confusion. I'm going to get a little technical. Not too much. Sucrose. People may say, "Oh, sucrose is not the same. We don't agree with your guest. Sucrose is sucrose, and fructose and glucose are different sugars." Well, not so fast.

Sucrose is a disaccharide, and that means that it's two monosaccharides that are chemically bonded. Those two monosaccharides are fructose and glucose. When your digestive system enzymes process sucrose, it breaks the bond. You now have one glucose and one fructose. In other words, your body has taken the cane sugar, the sucrose, and transformed it into high-fructose corn syrup. Somebody disabused me if I'm misunderstanding this, but am I missing something here? There is no chemical difference after your enzymes attack the sucrose.

Brian Lehrer: Herb, Herb, I'm going to leave it there. Well, it sounds like he's agreeing with you, Marion.

Marion Nestle: That's why it's nutritionally hilarious. I would say that that split of sucrose into glucose and fructose happens almost immediately as soon as you eat it. It starts in the mouth, and it just keeps going. By the time you've got it, you've got glucose and fructose. Everybody would be healthier eating less of any kind of sugar.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of more texts indicate how many people have been told that high-fructose corn syrup is worse for one reason or another. Listener writes, "Isn't high-fructose corn syrup higher on the glycemic index? My dad was a macaroon baker and also said it was the cheapest, least healthy form." They're from somebody in the baking industry. Another listener writes, "My mom, the dietitian, would say it's better generally not to consume processed foods, so she'd choose cane sugar over high-fructose corn syrup."

Marion Nestle: They're both processed. Certainly, high-fructose corn syrup is processed more. I would agree with that. I don't know. Sugars are sugars. We'd all be better off eating less of them. I sure like them, though.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] Diana in Manhattan want us to make sure to get to at least one more stat before we end this segment. Diana, you're on WNYC with Marion Nestle. Hi there.

Diana: Hi. Can you please tell everybody, there are 10 teaspoons of sugar in one can of Coke? Isn't that shocking and horrifying?

Brian Lehrer: Another way to say it, I was looking coincidentally at a bottle of ginger ale the other day, one of those 20-ounce bottles that they sell as if they're an individual serving. I saw that it had 103% of the sugars in the Food and Drug Administration's recommended daily allowance. 103% in one bottle meant to be one serving. It says multiple servings. Generally, people buy those bottles to drink on the spot.

Marion Nestle: Yes, that 39 grams of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup that's in a Coca-Cola comes to 10 teaspoons in a 12-ounce Coke. It's pretty impressive.

Brian Lehrer: Can you, before you go, give us any quick take if you have one on the direction of the Food and Drug Administration, generally under the Trump administration and the new FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary? The Times had a story that I think you reposted about the dismantling of the FDA. Yet, you have RFK Jr., who makes a case over recent years that he's very interested in going after various kinds of processed foods for how unhealthy they are. On the food side of the Food and Drug Administration, are you seeing anything that you want to comment on?

Marion Nestle: Yes, Kennedy has made a lot of statements about what he intends to do and, for what reason, the food industry is poisoning us. We want to get rid of conflicts of interest in the FDA. His actions so far have been to remove artificial color dyes, to get companies to voluntarily agree to remove the color dyes. Terrific. It's about time, and also to close the Generally Recognized as Safe loophole, which allows food companies to determine whether the additives they're putting in the food supply are safe.

Those are two very good things that food advocates have been advocating for, for a very long time, but we don't actually know what Kennedy has in mind because we have not yet seen the second Make America Healthy Again report, which is supposed to come out sometime in August, I'm told, and will announce what the department's regulatory agenda is going to be. Until we see that, we don't really know what they're going to do.

The second document that I'm waiting breathlessly for is what Kennedy and Brooke Rollins, who's the head of USDA, have said will be the revised, much simpler, streamlined version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans that everybody can understand. It will be four or five pages. It won't pay any attention to what the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee said. I'm eager to see what it does say. I can make some predictions about it, but those are purely speculative.

The one really worrying thing about the FDA is the statement that they're now going to ignore science and pay attention to people's anecdotal evidence about how food makes them feel. Those are data points, Marty Makary has said. We're going to pay attention to them, and we're going to take them as seriously as we take real science. One of the purpose of science is to try to determine what's really going on with food and health, something that is extremely difficult to do. I'm not sure that having more anecdotal evidence is going to be helpful in this respect. We have to wait and see.

Brian Lehrer: This was going to be the end of the segment, but I can't resist to take a call from Gary in Montville, who's identifying himself as a biochemist and asking about another sweetener that may be nutritionally better. Gary, you're on WNYC with Marion Nestle. Hello.

Gary: Hello. Yes, I'm a biochemist and I'm a chemistry professor at a college. The pathways, when I studied them, indicated that sorbitol bypassed the number of the pathways that contribute to diabetes. I've always wondered why we don't shift to a sweetener like sorbitol.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Sorbitol, Marion.

Marion Nestle: Yes, we don't do that because sugar alcohols aren't digested. They go to the large intestine. The microbiome loves them and produces gas and other kinds of problems so that they cause digestive difficulties in a lot of people. In small quantities, they seem fine. In large quantities and substituting for sugar, oh, they cause a lot of problems, and that's why they're not used. The holy grail of the food industry is to find a sweetener that doesn't have any calories and doesn't cause any side effects. They're still looking for it. I prefer sugar.

Brian Lehrer: You prefer sugar, because the listener texts, and this will be our last question, "How much better is Diet Coke versus regular?"

Marion Nestle: Oh, good question. One of my food rules is never to eat anything artificial, so artificial sweeteners are off my radar.

Brian Lehrer: Because?

Marion Nestle: There's enough evidence floating around that they're not good for health. How bad they are is arguable, but there's very, very little evidence that they make healthy people healthier.

Brian Lehrer: Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health emerita at NYU, is the author of many books, including the forthcoming, What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters. Please come back when your book comes out.

Marion Nestle: I'd love to.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.