High Fructose Corn Syrup-Yep It’s Still Around!

A friend of mine and I were discussing various food additives and the consequential health problems associated with many of them.  To help ward off many of these non-essential ingredients, she subscribes to a company which ships her healthy food products for her and her family to enjoy.  Since we live rurally, this is always a benefit, because not only can we get food shipped to us, dramatically cutting our gasoline bill, we can now get natural, non-gmo, healthy foods as well.  This is often a better choice than trying to locate these foods in a grocery store.

This is especially timely information since I have been increasing troubled with the amount of “junk” offered in our local stores and therefore was quite excited about a healthier alternative to shopping at the big chains.  At least, I have been seeing an increase in their organic food lines as well as their organic fresh fruit & vegetable choices.  This is great news for all of us and these are the aisles I frequent in the local markets.

I have a long weekly grocery list of items I want to buy which do NOT contain something harmful.  However, many of the ingredients which I have been avoiding for years, still remain in our foods which people are buying every day.  The top ingredient which I shun at all costs is High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Of course, there are many others, which are in many ways, as harmful – but HFCS leads the pack in my opinion.

I am sure many of you know the problems with this ingredient.  It is a cause of many health problems including obesity, dementia, & diabetes just to name a few.  It a top ingredient in many common panty foods.  Soda, of course, and other sweetened drinks, but also salad dressings, crackers & can you believe – pickles & ketchup.  What happened to canning/producing foods with sugar?  What happened to any product using sugar instead of this ingredient?

Back in the days of Pepsi & Coke being sold in glass bottles, the product also contained sugar – from the sugar cane plant.  However, in 1984, sugar had become very expensive.  So the giant soda companies replaced sugar with HFCS.  This was not to make their product better in any way but allowed them to earn higher profits.  HFCS is much less expensive to use because corn prices have been driven down by government subsidies making it cheaper to produce products with it rather than using sugar.  Others followed in, and now we have a mess.

There are many studies on the internet where you can read about the problems it causes. (My sources below contain just a few.)  But you can be assured that the companies who chose to change from sugar to HFCS did not do that with our health as their top priority.

I personally have blacklisted HFCS from my diet.  As soon as I started consuming products containing it when I was little, I became ill.  The doctors quickly pointed their finger at this ingredient.  When it was removed from my diet – all was well. 

Now I just have to worry about all the other “ingredients” which companies like to throw into our food products.  I wonder what they will think of next.  Maybe I will start subscribing to a natural food online shopping site – its full of great natural products, low prices, free shipping, and above all – no HFCS.