There are no Wheat Thins at PCC Natural Markets, no boxes of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, not even any Sara Lee whole grain bagels or Oroweat cracked-wheat hot dog buns.

What customers will find is almost unheard of: a supermarket free of products containing high-fructose corn syrup.

After years of winnowing out the ubiquitous sweetener, the eight-store natural foods co-op announced this week that the rout was complete. While the science behind the move is still the subject of hot debate, the scope is unquestioned.

“The next frontier is here,” said Bob Vosburgh, health and wellness editor for the trade publication Supermarket News, who called PCC an industry leader in such controversial topics. PCC apparently is the second significant organization nationally to take on the issue.

And its customers seem to appreciate the ban.

“I’m completely happy about that,” said Karen Hunt, 42, when told of PCC’s decision. She said it will makes it easier to pick out healthier cookies and chips for her two young children.

Like many PCC shoppers, Hunt is an avid label reader. She avoids all artificial sweeteners and trans fats as well as hormones in milk, and she steers clear of high-fructose corn syrup.

“I try hard not to add that to my family’s diet,” said Hunt. “I just don’t think we need to do that. I’m sure there’s a lot of arguments on both sides, but I just sort of feel intuitively that it’s better not to.”

After public outcry over health issues such as trans fats in food, high-fructose corn syrup is taking shape as “the newest health villain,” according to Datamonitor, a business industry analyst with U.S. headquarters in New York. The sweetener has been targeted on two grounds in the nation’s obesity epidemic. One argument suggests its cheapness and versatility have encouraged manufacturers to insinuate a tasty but unhealthful load of empty calories into goods such as packaged bread. The other, more controversial, argument is that the biological effects of HFCS are different from those of more natural sweeteners, particularly that it interferes with the body’s ability to alert the brain when it’s time to stop eating.

“Healthier alternatives exist,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC. “Part of what we try to do is push back to the manufacturer what consumers are saying they want, saying, ‘This is what people are concerned about, and this is what they would like to see.’ ”

Datamonitor reported in September that 146 new products were advertised as HFCS-free so far in 2007, triple the number released in all of 2006, with mass-market manufacturers such as Kraft and Dannon starting to join in.

What’s tricky, PCC administrators said, is that producers sometimes try to disguise the sweetener under other names, or rework recipes without notifying buyers.

Another question entirely is whether the ban will do any good. Some scientists say research suggests a link to problems, or that HFCS does have significant differences from other sweeteners. Others, including consumer advocates such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, believe the problem is the amount of sugar Americans eat, not the type. Swapping out HFCS for other sweeteners, they believe, is no more beneficial than the 1990s craze for fat-free (but still calorie-laden) snacks whose fat-free labels gave consumers a false sense that they could overindulge without harm.

A ban “sounds silly to me,” said Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and a top authority on the intersection of nutrition, science, politics and business.

“Why not ban all products with sugars (also silly) …?” she said in an e-mail. “It will be replaced with sucrose (table sugar) or honey or organic cane juice, all of which are basically the same as HFCS, or artificial sweeteners.”

While the body does process fructose differently, Nestle said, HFCS is 55 percent fructose. Table sugar, which does not inspire the same outcry, is 50 percent fructose.

“I don’t think the differences are worth fussing about,” she said, “but that’s just me.”

Others disagree.

Though she hasn’t read in depth on HFCS, Debra Boyer tries to avoid it.

“I’m not terribly radical about it, but I’m paying more attention to it,” said Boyer. Reading labels in the snack food aisle at PCC in Fremont Friday afternoon, she said it’s hard at other stores to find pasta sauce or breads that are free of high-fructose corn syrup.

Dan Gunderson also shuns it, but not for health reasons. He’s concerned about the environmental effects of genetically modified foods, particular corn and its by-products. Like many others, he hasn’t combed the scientific research in depth, but is still wary of HFCS.

“My understanding is that it’s a worse sugar than other sugars, but I don’t know if that’s true,” said Gunderson.

It’s not only PCC shoppers who are concerned about high-fructose corn syrup. Nathan Linn, 22, of Seattle, said his family changed its shopping and eating habits after his sister read an article that spelled out health concerns about the sweetener. As a diabetic, he closely monitors his sugar intake and buys products low in sugar.

“My family actually doesn’t buy certain brands of ketchup with high-fructose corn syrup in it,” he said. And he limits treats, but not all of them, sheepishly smiling at the diet A&W root beer and Nestle Quik strawberry milkshake in his arms at the Fred Meyer in Ballard.

Earth Fare, a North Carolina-based chain of 13 natural foods markets, banned HFCS from its shelves in 2004, but no other retailers of significant size followed in the years since, until PCC.

“Even back then, there was a buzz about high fructose corn syrup as possibly being correlated with the rise in obesity and the onset of diabetes in our culture,” said Troy DeGroff, director of sales and marketing for Earth Fare. “You look at that, you look at how pervasive it is, then you start asking yourself, ‘How is this stuff produced, anyway?’ It’s not in keeping with natural processes or the tenets of a healthy store. It’s our obligation to remove this.”

He applauded PCC’s move.

“We need more retailers who are willing to take a stand, to look out for people’s well being and not just wanting to make money at the expense of health and quality of life.”

Whole Foods Markets, which is known for product standards and has banned trans fat-containing hydrogenated oils, has not banned HFCS, but products with it are “the exception rather than the norm as in conventional markets,” a spokeswoman said. The company’s brand name sodas are made with cane sugar rather than HFCS, she noted.

Seattle’s Madison Market co-op, with a similar bent, has an HFCS-free deli and is currently evaluating an overall ban.

A ban is difficult, but possible, for specialty retailers that cater to a core market. It’s less feasible for the Krogers and Safeways of the world, said Vosburgh, of Supermarket News. While most large chains now think about these issues and even have dietitians on staff, they tend to leave it up to the consumer whether they want to buy what’s available.

“For all the talk of … better living and healthier living,” he said, “a lot of people still like their Coke and Pepsi and frozen dinners and everything that goes along with it.”

Still, the moves by smaller retailers inevitably influence the larger marketplace, he said, such as the creation of special aisles for products free of a given substance.

The HFCS ban is the latest in a series of hard-line commitments PCC has made in the past year on environmental and health issues. It has banned trans fats, it does not carry dairy products from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormones, and it recently announced it would no longer supply plastic bags to customers, relying instead on paper bags or customers’ cloth totes.

“The market is coming this way,” said Bialic. “It’s not hurting us in any way, is the point. You can do right, and do well.”