THE SWEET-EATING WORLD — Leave aside the more devastating issues that so many have to worry about (war, danger, disease, starvation). 

We lucky ones can consider the cost to the planet of our collective sweet tooth. 

This does not make it a matter unworthy of thought, though.

Sweet deal

Humans like sugar. And we’re just past the holidays, when the baked goods run rampant and people joke (sort of joke) about the 10 pounds they need to lose yesterday. 

Search on “impact of sweeteners” so you catch all the sweet stuff, not just table sugar. You’ll reap many stories on what eating sweets does or does not do to your health. Warnings of danger and reassurances about moderate consumption. 

This is not one of those stories.

Carbon footprints

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) gets a footprint of 1.0 kg CO e/kg (kilogram carbon dioxide equivalent) from carboncloud.com. The emissions come largely from agriculture and processing. Cane sugar rates 0.66 kg CO e/kg (agriculture and transport), and whole, unrefined brown sugar has a carbon footprint of 0.47 kg CO e/kg (agriculture, transport and processing).

CarbonCloud is a Swedish climate-tech company that focuses on the emissions from food products. The CO e/kg measurement means that the activities that went into that food caused “emissions of different greenhouse gases that, when combined, affect the climate equally to [what] a given amount of carbon dioxide emissions would, during a timeframe of 100 years.”

(To learn about the company’s methodology—which you should do—visit www.carboncloud.com/extended-methodology/.)

HFCS’s 1.0 rating is far from the highest. Ranch dressing, CarbonCloud notes, comes in with 3.0 CO e/kg. Bacon and palm oil are each 10.0 CO e/kg. Beef is 25. 

That’s a very short story

Saying that HFCS has more emissions than cane or brown sugar? Well, yes, but you can’t really stop there. 

Because corn—and especially cane sugar—takes a toll on the people who grow, harvest and process it. See “The real sweet story."

Know your sweetener

Start with anatomy. Or maybe chemistry.

“Sucrose (table sugar) is produced from sugar cane and sugar beets,” according to the food scientists at the  Institute of Food Technologists. Brown sugar, molasses and cane sugar come from sugar cane.

Other sources of sugar include maple syrup, malt syrup, agave syrup and fruit juice concentrates, the group adds.

What’s in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)? We’ll let the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explain.

“HFCS is derived from corn starch. Starch itself is a chain of glucose (a simple sugar) molecules joined together.

“When corn starch is broken down into individual glucose molecules, the end product is corn syrup, which is essentially 100 percent glucose.”

To make HFCS, enzymes are added to corn syrup, converting some of the glucose to fructose, the FDA said.

“The most common forms of HFCS contain either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose.” (The former is named HFCS 42, and the latter HFCS 55.) “The rest of the HFCS is glucose and water,” said the FDA.

“HFCS 42 is mainly used in processed foods, cereals, baked goods and some beverages. HFCS 55 is used primarily in soft drinks.”