Saturday, August 29, 2009

Why We Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

Do you read labels? If you don't, you might want to get in the habit of it. There are lots of things in our modern diets that aren't real healthy for us. I know....I know....something is going to kill me, it might as well be that, right? That's true to a point but there is a possibly "quality of life" issue you might want to consider.

Needless to say, we try to eat healthier so that we can avoid a lot of the medical conditions associated with the foods we eat. Here are some reasons we try to avoid the high fructose corn syrup:

Some consider high fructose corn syrup to be the reason why our society is overweight. Basically, HFCS is sweetener that's in all sorts of foods....items you wouldn't think would have sweeteners in them. Ketchup, barbeque sauce, sweet pickles, pickle relish, etc. Because it's in so many things, most people consume quite a large quantity but the American Medical Association recommends only 32 grams of sugar per day. That's hard to do when it's in everything.

A Washington Post article talks about 1/3 of all high fructose corn syrup brands contain mercury. Of course, we all know that mercury is toxic to animals, including humans.

Most recently, research is showing a possible link to "Colony Collapse Disorder" in honey bees. It's believed to be because bee keepers often feed it to their bees in the hopes of increasing reproduction and honey production. Unfortunately, when temperatures rise (especially during the summer months) the HFCS produces a substance called hydroxymethylfurfural which kills the bees. You can read more about it here.

All this to say, perhaps if there is quite a lot of controversy and the "unknown" related to a food item, maybe we should avoid it until we learn more about it.

Many of the items we want to avoid in our diets we can do so by cooking from scratch. There is a great added benfit when we cook from scratch, not only does it benfit our health and possibly decrease our waistline but it also helps our budget. Cooking from scratch saves money as well as our health!

Do you have comments or more information? Leave a comment and let us know!

Have a great day!
Mavis D.

No comments: