January 15, 2010

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Who hasn't noticed the commercials from the Corn Refiners Association the past year? It's rather hard to miss them! My favorites are the radio commercials I've been hearing lately telling us how natural it is. :) The process to make it is far from natural. It's easy to find the arguments for and against HFCS with a google search.

My main concern is how it's in so much of our food! You're consuming sugar without even knowing it. Like many I really try to keep my sugar consumption down, but in order to do that you have to watch ALL SUGAR, not just that pretty white stuff you buy in bags. Today I took the challenge to read the food labels on everything in my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. I took everything out that had HFCS. I do try to read labels while shopping, but I don't always read everything. While some was very expected (and I already knew about), a couple surprised me.



My bread crumbs had HFCS! It wasn't so surprising when I realized that the 100% whole wheat bread I bought last weekend also had it. Boy does that convince me to keep baking my own bread most of the time! All in all I didn't have too many products with it, so my label reading is helping. Other than the yogurt and bread, the foods I found with HFCS are definitely not everyday eats.

While reading all my labels, I noticed how many foods had other forms of sugar in it. The vast majority of these are expected though like the cereal bars that DH eats in the mornings on his way in to work and some condiments. Once again, if you're trying to keep your intake down of certain not so great for you ingredients, READ THE LABEL!

Like the Corn Refiners Association says, "it's fine in moderation." Too bad it's not moderately found in our food supply. Ick!

1 comment:

Amy said...

That is rather eye opening thanks for sharing. Off to look my cupoboards. lol