I'd like to make some granola/muesli bars, and I want to make them as healthy as possible. I made up my own recipe before, which was very good, and it used corn syrup (NOT the high fructose kind) as a binder. I've seen other recipes that have used honey or sweetened condensed milk.
I did a little investigating, and it seems that corn syrup contains glucose. Sweetened condensed milk contains sucrose, and honey contains glucose and fructose. Since sucrose is basically just a refined version of the latter, the honey is clearly the least unhealthy option of the two. But what about the corn syrup? Is it better to have a mix of glucose and fructose or just the glucose? While the glycemic index of fructose is substantially lower than glucose, I've read that recent studies have shown that it may cause an increase in triglyceride and cholesterol levels. In addition, the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in the US is correlated to a sharp increase in obesity.
Can anyone shed some light on the matter?
Edit: I just thought I'd add that the one problem with honey is that it doesn't take heat so well, and I prefer to bake the bars.



