Foods without High Fructose Corn Syrup

Anyone else interested in a thread to share foods that do not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup?

I had to search high and low to find a barbeque sauce that fit the bill.  I finally found Jim Beam's Barbeque Sauce at Kroger's (2 T= 20 calories, 0 fat, 5g carbs, 0 protein).  It uses molasses, sugar and regular corn syrup for its sweeteners.  

Also, Heinz Reduced Sugar Ketchup does not contain HFCS (their regular ketchup does) and uses sucralose instead.

That darn HFCS seems to be in everything!  But, starting now, I'm going to try to keep it OUT of my kitchen!   

So, if you know of any other products which do not use this stuff, please share!!

I wanted to resurrect this thread.  Last week I ate out and found that the food I ate had over 1,600 calories. (My rant…And we wonder why Americans are so fat.)  One of the responses mentioned an article and as I read further I found out that so much of the food we consume has HFCS, which adds calories.  So today while shopping for bread, I noticed that most bread contains HFCS.  Why?  If you look at any bread recipe, it either calls for honey or very little sugar. 

Thanks for posting the links.  I will surely be a wiser shopper.

Some of my favourites:

Kashi foods -- no HFCS
Thomas 100 calorie English muffins (all "flavours")
Bullseye Orignial BBQ sauce
Bush's Baked Beans (original -- don't know about the rest)
Arnold's Flax and Fiber bread -- and the whole wheat one
Lara Bars

Luna Bars
Quaker Simple Harvest granola bars
No Pudge Brownie Mix

 

One of the real problem areas for HFCS, pointed out in Super Size Me, is its use as the main sweetener for soft drinks.  Here the problem of giant portions and the non-appetite-supressing effect of the fructose have combined to cause a lot of obesity.

Over the last year I've looked around for sodas that are sweetened with cane sugar.  There aren't many, and they sell for premium prices.  But if you can find Goose Island root beer it tastes great.

Another way to get fructose-free soda is to make your own.  I used to make my own root beer several years ago; using yeast, cane sugar and Hires root beer extract.  You have to get a capper and bottles, and it takes a few days for the soda to mature. It's not nearly as sweet, has a slight yeasty flavor (plus a little bit of yeast dregs in the bottom of the bottles), and isn't as fizzy as regular soda.  After one bottle you don't crave drinking any more.

My husband recently read The Omnivore's Dilema.  And then we ran out of BBQ sauce.  So, for our next sauce (to replace the oh-so-tasty Sweet Baby Ray's), we looked for something that has absolutly no corn in it (why would you put corn of any kind in bbq sauce anyway?)  We went to QFC and came out with 2 different kinds.  I will have to check the label when I get home, but the first one we opened is AMAZING.  Sweetened with molasses and sugar, I believe.

Not sure if anyone said this - but Trader Joes has whole wheat hot dog/burger buns w/ only the necessities for making 'real' bread. 

For english muffins - check out Oroweat Double Fiber english muffins - they seem to be pretty good, and have little extra stuff.  Trader joes also has some version of these, but I don't like them as well.

Edit: B-Man's BBQ Sauce was the first one we opened.  Really good.  Actually doesn't have molasses...forgot the ingredients already ;-)  All real foods though - nothing manufactured!

also, as far as condiments go like ketchup and bbq sauce, they're actually surprisingly easy to make yourself, and probably less expensive in the long run if you do so as well. you can control the amount of sugar and experiment with a few different recipes to find what you really like.

Original Post by psychedbanana:

uhms, this may sound stupid, but is HFCS that bad? i never really paid any attention to it till this thread!

Since HFCS does not react in your system the same way that sucrose does, your pancreas does not produce insulin in the same manner.  Some scientist now believe that many cases of diabetes could be caused by a confused digestive system that cannot respond well because of high consumptions of HFCS.  After consuming HFCS over many years, your system is used to kicking out high levels of insulin.  After a while, the insulin produced is not enough to "take care of the job".

But as far as the obesity problem, that could be a simple manner of portion control. People in the United States eat about 3 times the normal portions of other countries.  I'm always shocked when I watch BBC Americas "You are what you eat" because the food that Gillian lays out on the table for her over-eaters is about what you'd find in the typical household in America.

Does anyone else find the new pro HFCS commercials offensive?

thhq- make sure to use common sense with the glcyaemic index

"In fact glycaemic index is half the story, the other half of the story is the fibre. Here's the way it works -- carrots, let's talk about carrots for a minute. Carrots are very high glycaemic index, what is the definition of glycaemic index? It's how high your blood sugar goes if you eat 50 grams of carbohydrate in that food, that's what glycaemic index is. So if you eat 50 grams of carbohydrate in carrots your blood sugar goes up very high and so that would be a high glycaemic index food. Fructose is a low glycaemic index food because fructose does not stimulate insulin, it's all of these calories but it doesn't stimulate insulin. So in fact a soda has a glycaemic index of 53 which is low. So you'd say oh wait a second, carrots are bad for you and a soda is good for you? Because glycaemic index is not the whole story, in fact what you really want to talk about is a related concept called glycaemic load.

Glycaemic load is glycaemic index times the amount of food you'd actually have to eat to get the 50 grams of carbohydrate, so in carrots you'd have to eat the entire truck in order to get that. Well you can't do that, you wouldn't do that, so in fact carrots, even though they are high glycaemic index are actually low glycaemic load. Carrots are fine, there's nothing wrong with carrots. On the other hand fructose, I mean a soda, there's a lot wrong with it but you wouldn't see it in just looking at glycaemic index."

from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories /2007/1969924.htm

I'm amazed to see that this thread is still around.  ashwallah6, I used glycemic index a great deal when my blood sugar levels were high.  It helped me avoid certain foods like cooked starches and raisins, and steered me toward foods like unsweetened yogurt, cabbage and whole grain bread.  GI is determined by feeding people a fixed portion of a food, not a fixed portion of carbohydrate.  The lower the level of glucose (or carbohydrate which easily converts to glucose, such as white rice), the lower the GI.  

GI is not some magic panacea for everything.  High fat foods like candy bars have relatively low GI, but that doesn't make them good for you.  GI is just another tool in the bag that's helpful, especially for diabetics.  Paying attention to it was very helpful for immediate control of blood sugar.  Long term,  I got a much bigger benefit from losing 50 lbs and getting my weight down to a normal level.  

One last thing.  The GI of uncooked carrots is very low.  GI is higher for cooked carrots, but carrots are still not considered to be a high GI food.  Eating them does not appreciably raise blood glucose level.  The abc.net writer appears to be a little confused.  

Absolutely it's a good idea to share foods that do not contain HFCS. However,  be careful how you interpret the words "corn syrup." Any type of "corn syrup" is HFCS. In fact, I just went to the Jim Beam website to look at the ingredients of its barbecue sauce, and it definitely has HFCS listed as one of the ingredients. Alarmingly, HFCS is in everything. I just finished watching a documentary called King Korn, and I recommend it to every American. It documents how and why HFCS made its way into our food system.

All natural PB has no HFC :D

Others;

Larabars ; dere' AWESOME, you can make your own too!
Vegetables n' fruit xD
Dark chocolate ; I think, correct me if i'm wrong
Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bread ; (in freezer section)
Quaker oatmeal ; thank god! ~
Plain cheerios
Pepperidge farm goldfish ; soo happy, I love these! <3
Breyer's all natural ice cream
Stoneyfield farm yogurt
Horizon organic yogurt

Andd, alot other's other people can post

xxx Ali

I'm curious as to why you think molasses and corn syrup are any better for you?...lol...

What a great thread! Kudos to you for caring about what is in your food in addition to how many calories it is. I am a huge fan of Yummy Diet Food, a fun blog that talks about low calorie foods/recipes that do NOT contain high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, or sugar alcohols. There are tons of great food options out there for people like us who are watching our weight but care about our health as well. :)

Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat bread doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup. However, their brand of double fiber bread and some of their other products DO contain HFCS.  Sometimes I buy the store brand of their 100% whole wheat bread and it doesn't have the stuff in it either  (and it's only $1.89 a loaf.) Also, I've found that the organic products are less likely to contain HFCS.  Good luck to you and everyone else.

I'm glad to see so many other people care about this issue as well! After watching the documentary "King Korn", I'm entirely put off of anything with HFCS in it. It's a cheap sweetener and it using it as an ingredient makes the price of processed foods cheaper, especially in America.

My solution is to shop less at the major grocery stores. Try shopping at a farmers market or ethnic groceries that carry imported food, and only go to a big grocery store for the basics like milk or organic foods. Imported foods usually use cane sugar as a sweetener only if needed, which is as least natural and not a starch. Get rid of the snack foods at home and work, such as granola bars with HFCS and replace them with dried fruits. 

Also, the documentary explained how the livestock used in America for meat is fed corn rather than grass-fed. This makes the animal obese in a year rather than being at a healthy weight for years, which is cheaper for producers. It's gross. Try to buy organic and grass-fed meats if you don't want the extra starch.

After riding your lifestyle of anything with HFCS in it, you won't crave anything with it anymore and will be much more satisfied with "sweets" such as oranges and berries. 

I agree mostly with Jesus...I never thought I'd say that!!!...lol.

However, I don't believe there is anything "natural" about cane juice.  I think we have to get to a place where the word "natural" when it comes to food, only means one thing.  Whole food, unprocessed, unaltered from it's natural state.  Cane juice is the sugar removed from the cane plant, no different than apple juice or orange juice.   The human body was not designed to digest sugars in this way.   Of course, the consumption of a few grams of sugar in a glass of Soy Milk or something else will not harm you, but I think we should be moving towards zero sugar, not "a little won't harm you". A little butter won't harm you, a little meat won't harm you, a little white bread won't harm you, but if your diet is made of all these little things, you're doomed.  

I think we should just call a spade a spade.  Avoid all processed sugars altogether, rather than picking and choosing the ones we like for some marginal reason.

Kosher pickles don't have HFCS, while bread and butter pickles often do.

Here's some food I buy with no HFCS:

Kroger brand Private Selection organic ketchup

Aunt Millie's cracked whole wheat bread, Aunt Millie's is also starting to make their hot dog and hamburger buns without it too!

Arnold dutch country 100% whole wheat bread

Kraft mayo with olive oil

Meijer oganics creamy peanut butter

Kraft greek vinaigrette

It's really hard to find salad dressing without HFCS.  I have had some good luck with kroger's private selection though.

Thank you for the bbq sauce!  I have had a hard time finding bbq sauce without it!

If I think of anything else, I will post it!

I did some research on this very subject a few weeks ago for a friend of mine who drinks mass quantities of regular coke, which is of course, sweetened with HFCS.  

 

Besides the way it’s made, there's a couple of other murky things that consumers should know about HFCS. According to a food technology expert, two of the enzymes used, alpha-amylase and glucose-isomerase, are genetically modified to make them more stable. Enzymes are actually very large proteins and through genetic modification specific amino acids in the enzymes are changed or replaced so the enzyme's "backbone" won't break down or unfold. This allows the industry to get the enzymes to higher temperatures before they become unstable.

Consumers trying to avoid genetically modified foods should avoid HFCS

But there's another reason to avoid HFCS. Consumers may think that because it contains fructose--which they associate with fruit, which is a natural food--that it is healthier than sugar. A team of investigators at the USDA, led by Dr. Meira Field, has discovered that this just ain't so.

Sucrose is composed of glucose and fructose. When sugar is given to rats in high amounts, the rats develop multiple health problems, especially when the rats were deficient in certain nutrients, such as copper. The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems. So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results. The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high cholesterol and heart hypertrophy--that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They also had delayed testicular development. Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production. (Copper deficiency, by the way, is widespread in America.) In a nutshell, the little bodies of the rats just fell apart. The females were not so affected, but they were unable to produce live young.

"The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar," says Dr. Field, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic." HFCS contains more fructose than sugar and this fructose is more immediately available because it is not bound up in sucrose. Since the effects of fructose are most severe in the growing organism, we need to think carefully about what kind of sweeteners we give to our children. Fruit juices should be strictly avoided--they are very high in fructose--but so should anything with HFCS.

Interestingly, although HFCS is used in many products aimed at children, it is not used in baby formula, even though it would probably save the manufactueres a few pennies for each can. Do the formula makers know something they aren't telling us? Pretty murky!

Among other consequences, HFCS has been implicated in elevated blood cholesterol levels and the creation of blood clots. It has been found to inhibit the action of white blood cells so that they are unable to defend the body against harmful foreign invaders.8 This is the first step for glucose to enter a cell and be metabolized. As a result, the body needs to pump out more insulin to handle the same amount of glucose.21

Fructose reduces the affinity of insulin for its receptor, which is the hallmark of type-2 diabetes.

Fructose interacts with oral contraceptives and elevates insulin levels in women on "the pill."

17

Because it is metabolized by the liver, fructose does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way it normally does. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. This may be one of the reasons Americans continue to get fatter. Fructose raises serum triglycerides significantly. As a left-handed sugar, fructose digestion is very low. For complete internal conversion of fructose into glucose and acetates, it must rob ATP energy stores from the liver.21

Not only does fructose have more damaging effects in the presence of copper deficiency, fructose also inhibits copper metabolism--another example of the sweeteners double-whammy effect. A deficiency in copper leads to bone fragility, anemia, defects of the connective tissue, arteries, and bone, infertility, heart arrhythmias, high cholesterol levels, heart attacks, and an inability to control blood sugar levels.22

Interesting Stats

Why Coke uses High Fructose Corn Syrup

Some quick numbers, on why Coke would use HFCS over sugar.

Annual US Per capita consumption of Coke in servings: 411

People in the United States: 297,890,000

Servings of Coke in the US, per year: 122,432,790,000 <<<<that’s 122 billion

How much a 5 cent cost increase in sweetener, per serving, would affect the bottom line of Coca Cola: $6,121,639,500

How much a penny cost increase in sweetner, per serving, would cost Coca-Cola:
$1,224,327,900

How much 1/10th of a cent increase in sweetner, per serving, would cost Coca-Cola:
$122,423,790. Still nothing to sneeze at

That's a cost saving in the billions over years time. Of course, what Coke doesn't tell you is that your tax dollars are supporting their profit margins. You can thank

Corn subsidies

for that.

. It is almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then it is processed with genetically modified enzymes. I've seen some estimates claiming that virtually everything--almost 80 percent--of what we eat today has been genetically modified at some point. Since the use of HFCS is so prevalent in processed foods, those figures may be right.

 

 

There is a bar-b-q sauce made by Captain Redbeard that doesn't have any HFCS. As a matter of fact none of their products have it. They sell in TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Homegoods and some small gift shops around the country and in Guam. check out www.captainredbeard.com to purchase.

Original Post by sarah2286:

Joseph's low carb pitas and lavash breads do not contain ANY hfcs or sugar - they use splenda instead. And they are DELICIOUS! verrry soft (i LOVE them dipped in hummus or wrapped around a tuna or chicken sandwich. YUM!)

Also, I was in the store yesterday reading english muffin labels, and there it was!

So, Thomas' Light multigrain english muffins win out.

They are the only ones I could find! They, too, use splenda, though, which I am also trying to reduce in my diet :(

But I don't wanna have to bake my own all the time. Ezekiel breads are completely sweetener-free adn taste pretty good toasted. (Low fat, high fiber, etc, too!) And most health food breads are good.

Also, Stop and Shop Light Bagels Plain and Fiber Select Cereal (Both contain aspartame).

I was in the store looking at rye and pumpernickel breads (sorry, don't remember what brand) and they were all sweetener-free! i got excited until i noticed the partially hydrogenated veg. oil in every single one. bummer. So I'm off to discover more healthy bread options.

 

I would say to try Oroweat Whole Grain and Flax Bread with omega three!

I was also reading that you use a product with splenda? That is not any better, because the body can not digest this either. I had a teacher in school that had cancer and the doctor placed the cause to this "sugar".  So seems as though EVERYTHING is bad now a days.