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

[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...