The Chemical of Evil...

[acroyear]

...continues to haunt me.

"High Fructose Corn Syrup".

Evil.

and Everywhere.

Its in all but 2 of the "nutritious snacks" that my company gives its employees for free.  And one of those two is "Cheetos".  Its in Animal Crackers.  Its in Nutter Butters.

The real pisser: its in the supposedly best for your health "Nutri-Grain" Cereal Bars from Kellogg's.  Three times.

"Ingredients: Filling (high fructose corn syrup, apple preserves [high fructose corn syrup, apples], ...)..., high fructose corn syrup, ..."

So its the #1 ingredient of the "filling", and the #1 ingredient of the #2 ingredient of said filling, AND it shows up in the main ingredients list on its own.

I just can't stand it.  I didn't used to care, but now that I do, I am still at that state where I am shocked at all of the food items that incorporated this processed calorie factory.

Someday, I won't be shocked to see it.  When that happens, I might as well just quit. 

I'm pretty sure its a key ingredient in Budweiser, only the mega-breweries refuse to submit to a "list your ingredients" regulation from the FDA, something the micros have been pushing for over a decade, for that very reason. ;)

Items that have that poison, and more of it than you might think...

• breakfast syrups are now more corn syrup / high fructose corn syrup than maple, and the major brands all have no maple at all.  pure maple syrup should have this as its one and only ingredient: "sap".
  
• whole wheat breads
• Caesar salad dressing and Yoplait Yogurt.
• every (non-organic) prepackaged sweetened tea (often its in the ingredient list above tea itself) including lipton and nestea
• peanut butter (not all, but the cheap stuff they stick in crackers from keebler or lances certainly does).  most american-made jellys, jams, and preserves.
  
• most condiments (ketchup, bbq, yellow mustard)
• white bread products like low-end hamburger and hotdog buns (particularly those used at McDonalds)
  

simply inescapable...but i'm gonna keep trying as best i can.  I won't worry about it in the things I eat in relatively small doses (condiments and salad dressings, and my favorite apple jelly), but otherwise if i see a snack that lists it as an ingredient (and certainly something that claims to be nutritious and yet lists it 3 times, including the first two items on the list), then its something I will, quite literally, live without.

Comments

[cyberkender.livejournal.com]

Yah, it is everywhere. It's really easy for manufacturers to use, far easier than plain sugar, and such large by-product of America's corn crop...
I know of a couple of people who order their soda from this one, specific processing plant, just because they still use sugar as the sweetener...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I rediscovered "sugar-coke" in the UK, where "HFCS" simply doesn't exist at all (except in what few products are actually imported from the states) and it just reinforced my commitment to avoiding coke (in america).

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the big problem is just that the body processes it FAR faster than even just plain sugar. It's literally empty calories, moreso than sugar. Honey is actually a healthy sweetener, since the body has to work to process it.

Personally, I stopped drinking sodas two years ago. That's when I started dropping the weight. Even drinking juice and other "high calorie but nutritious" drinks have been better than drinking soda.

It's funny, as a kid, my parents didn't let me touch soda except on special occasions. I was never more than 5 lbs overweight. When I got to college I was drinking diet soda right and left, until I discovered that my body has some nasty little adverse reactions to nutrasweet (like my MS flaring up like nobody's business. When I stopped drinking diet, I stopped having severe issues). And then even when I was drinking lemonade, I was still slowly gaining weight, namely because I found that most of the lemonades out there also contain HFCS as their first ingredient. Two years ago, I stopped drinking anything but water, and then I started drinking LOTS of it.

And in two years I've dropped 40 lbs.

Hubby has started to catch on. ;)

But DAMN it's hard to avoid that crap... It really is...

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if your friends want sugar soda, tell them to stock up at Passover. Any coca-cola related beverage (coke, sprite, barq's, etc) that has a YELLOW cap is specifically Kosher for Passover, which means it can't have any grain related products in it... so corn syrup is right out.

I don't even drink soda anymore, can't stand it anymore... But I'm glad to see that we can get the sugar based stuff SOMETIMES at least...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

said friends might want to stock up just for the sake of a decent home-bar. i've heard it said that after having a proper old-style "rum and coke" with sugar coke, people might never order one in a bar again...

[gargoylez]

We do that! We've also noted that if you can find a Jewish neighborhood (not difficult in LA, but I don't know about VA), some stores will have it year-round. That stuff rocks.