High Fructose Corn Syrup is natural, right?

There is a current media push to dispel the rumor that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is bad for you. You've seen the full page ads in popular magazines, with one person saying,

"My hair dresser says that sugar is healthier than HFCS."

And the other in response,

"Wow! You get your hair done by a doctor?"

And then at the bottom is a cutesy little graphic telling you to visit www.sweetsurprise.com to learn the facts. So you go there and find out that HFCS is natural, so it must be fine, right? It comes from corn.

Well the truth of the matter is that sure, it's natural and seems very similar to sugar. But here's why HFCS should be avoided;

1. Sugar is composed of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. HFCS is like the high-test version of sugar, when consumed it is like main-lining sugar into your bloodstream, overburdening your system and over time can lead to type II diabetes.
   
   
2. If HFCS were the only sugar ingredient, it would be fine. But usually food marketers don't want people to find out that the #1 ingredient in their food product is sugar. Since ingredient labels are listed in order of amount in the product, they break sugar up into lots of different ingredients like "sugar," "corn syrup," "high fructose corn syrup," "fructose," etc. so that these are lower down on the ingredients list and you don't realize that your food product is pretty much all sugar.
   
   
3. HFCS on an ingredient label is an INDICATOR of highly processed food. It's like a red light warning you of a highly processed food product. Why is highly processed food bad? There are books written on this subject, but look at it this way, humans have been around for thousands of years. Fluff and "Light" mayonaise have not. Does your body know how to break down all the chemicals in these processed products? Probably not, hence the rampant western diseases.

Just these 3 insights alone should keep you away from HFCS. Living in today's world it is almost impossible to stay away from HFCS completely (heck, you can even find it in natural ice cream!), but if you are aware of it and the damage it can do, you will be more likely to keep your intake of it down. Look at those ingredient labels!

Today's 1 Small Change:

• Look at ingredient labels for HFCS and avoid as much as possible.
  

PS -Turns out the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy just found that nearly half of the samples of the commercial HFCS they tested contained mercury, which is highly toxic. (See article on Washington Post.) We'll make this an honorary #4 reason to keep it out of our diet...

1 Small Change is All it Takes

How do you go about helping your dad, who is on the verge of getting diabetes, steer his life in a healthy direction in order to circumnavigate the illness? Well we are finding out that this is no easy task, and that lifestyle change isn't something that is going to happen overnight. So, my sister Lisa and I are starting this blog in order to discuss the small changes that a person can make to lead a more healthy, invigorating, and fulfilled life. We believe that it only takes 1 small change a week in order to change your life in big ways.

The first small change is to take a look at snacks. Our dad has a candy bar every day. A candy bar now and then would be fine, but not every day. Here is our suggestion;

1. Swap out the candy bar for 3 piece of fresh, ripe fruit.

When you are grocery shopping, keep in mind that the most nutritious foods are all around the perimeter of the store. Generally the fruits are right at the front of the store, so dive right in and choose as many of them as you think you can eat in a week. Make sure they are ready-to-eat when you buy them, otherwise sometimes we wait so long for them to ripen that they either end up in the trash, or you run out of ripe fruit and instead reach for that pesky candy bar...

My favorite fruits to eat are kiwis. I make sure that they are soft when I buy them so I can dig right into one when I get home. I cut them in half and then eat them with a spoon.


Kiwifruit is a rich source of vitamin C, 1.5 times the DRI scale in the US. Its potassium content by weight is slightly less than that of a banana. It also contains vitamins A and E. The skin is a good source of flavonoid antioxidants. The kiwifruit seed oil contains on average 62% alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid. Usually a medium size kiwifruit contains about 46 calories, 0.3 g fats, 1 g proteins, 11 g carbohydrates, 75 mg vitamins and 2.6 g dietary fiber. Where did I get this info? From Wikipedia, so I can't guarantee that it's correct, but my point is that kiwis are exceptionally good for you, and taste delicious!

Make sure to get fruits that you think are like eating treats, and pretty soon you will not miss the candy bar at all!

This image was created by Richard Thomas and accessed from his flickr account, flickrich.