High Fructose Corn Syrup?

Hey folks what's the skinny on high fructose corn syrup?

My cardiologist wants me to steer clear, but it's like a bad penny showing up in everything!

How does one avoid it?

How bad is it?

Give up smoking, sure.

Give up drinking, ok.

Change diet for the better, YES!

Give up ketchup....What?

Any info would be much appreciated

 

This stuff is everywhere, and I try to stay clear from it too, by going through ingredient labels looking for it.

I just did a quick search on wiki about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_co rn_syrup ;

Realistically, it's no worse than table sugar or straight up fructose. You should try to keep your overall sugar intake to a minimum.

They make organic ketchup that doesn't have HFCS. I've tried it and it tastes exactly the same; sugar is sugar.

give up ketchup for salsa or make home made ketchup.

HFCS - another great reason to re-think the FDA's defnintion of stevia as an un-safe food additive~ 

Thanks for the tips.

 

For what it's worth, Thomas's English Muffins-Whole Grain Light are made without the HFCS. I just picked some up last night.

At 100 calories a muffin, they still taste fabulous. And with sugar free jam, it's a yummy 110 calorie snack for me.

It's hard to publish research on something that has a lobbying group as powerful as corn does, behind it. So I think the science will be thin for the time being. From what I have read though, I think that it does mess with your metabolism, because fructose should go with fiber (ie fruit), and your system is looking for more food, leaving you hungry.

 

My mom gave it up and lost 20 pounds.

I think its bad because food manufacturers put it in everything in place of more expensive ingredients and that its sugar and is a poor nutrient, its not a natural product and you should generally try to dislike foods that have a hidden agenda as in get you addicted eat more and buy more,

It's in Balance Bars which I never noticed until I started reading every label of anything I buy.  Bummer since they were my after work-out protein bar.  I have since found an all natural vegan protein bar here in the UK which is even better!!

It's in so many things, you just have to start reading labels. 

in moderation, HFCS is alright right? Because my bread has it. IT'S IN EVERYTHING! LOL.

hfcs is not in everything, but it is in a great many things, because it's altered to make it very sweet in small quantities so it's cheaper for manufacturers to use. 

i personally by practically nothing that contains hfcs b/c i'm not convinced it is very healthy for us.   if you're diligent about reading labels, you can definitely avoid hfcs in the foods you eat.

My roomate had to read a book last year (I think it was called Fat Land?) about the food industry for one of her classes. The book had a chapter on HFCS, and she said one of the problems with HFCS is that it gets converted to fat twice as easily as other kinds of sugar. Not sure if that's true, but just the fact that it's an unnatural substance freaks me out so I avoid if at all possible.

HFCS is in everything because it is cheaper and sweeter than cane or beet sugar. I personally don't consider HFCS to be some kind of frankenfood. Like regular corn syrup it's an enzymatically converted starch sugar, sweeter because of the fructose content. If natural sugars like honey (which is higher in fructose than HFCS) were cheap enough, they'd be used instead of HFCS. 

The real problem with all sugar sweeteners is that we eat them in unhealthy quantities.  I've found ketchups that don't contain HFCS, but they still contain sugar.  This was a nasty high-cal surprise, and as a result I've cut ketchup way back and use mustard/pickles/salsa as condiments.

I don't consider it a frankenfood either and I think it has a bit of a worse rap than it deserves.  That said, it does seem to be in a lot of things that I wouldn't expect, so I try to read labels to make sure I'm not getting too much of it in my diet.
This is a really interesting article on HFCS and the different sides to the argument.  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yo urmoney/02syrup.html

Original Post by dm84:

Realistically, it's no worse than table sugar or straight up fructose. You should try to keep your overall sugar intake to a minimum.

 thats not true.  your body doesn't handle it or respond to it in quite the same ways.

These are all great responses and I thank each and every one of you for your time and effort.

As far as frankenfood as a label is concerned I will adopt this term for HFCS.

Believe me I wasn't looking for a reason to continue using this ingredient just on ways to avoid it and perhaps get some flavorful substitutes.

When you wind up with a cardiologist in your early forties and he tells you to avoid this (along with other things like the plague), major surgery or death as the worst case scenario, well, you had better listen.

It was a real eye-opener how pervasive this mess is in processed food.

Again thanks for your time and thoughts,

Kelly