Comment by llm_nerd

Sucrose is 50% fructose, 50% glucose. HFCS has from 42-55% fructose (there are grades), the rest being glucose (well some 25% of HFCS is water, but simplifying to the nutritive parts)

In the body it's literally all the same with minor variations in ratios. Indeed, the revered Mexican coke with cane sugar...the sucrose is broken down to component glucose and fructose in the acidic environment [1], exactly as happens with HFCS variants, and it would have been the moment it hit your digestive tract anyways.

There is zero scientific justification for the weird focus on HFCS. Yes, glucose and grossly excessive amounts of fructose are a serious problem. Especially in forms that rapidly get absorbed and go off like a glucose bomb -- our bodies are not adapted to the extremely rapid intake of glucose forms of food we eat now, including ultra-processed foods fill with refined carbs.

The #1 source of glucose in most diets is white breads, rices and so on. White flour is 60-80% starch, while white rice pushes 90% starch. Starch is strings of glucose molecules, and indeed enzymes turn that starch to free glucose almost immediately when eaten. So from a glucose perspective flour is much worse than an equal amount of sugar.

And of course nutritive sweeteners in all their forms should be avoided. But table sugar isn't more wholesome or better than HFCS.

[1] - Fun video about the sucrose in Mexican coke - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo