Cutting out High-Fructose Corn Syrup--has anyone?

HeidiCooksSupper

Do you consider stuff like bread, ketchup and tomato soup to be "processed foods"? I think they're pretty basic and natural, but the only way to get them without HFCS apparently is to buy an organic brand.

Technically, they are processed but that's a pretty broad term. Corn is heavily subsidized in this country (US) so high fructose corn syrup is very cheap for manufacturers to add to food to improve flavor. As others have said, I avoid it but am not a freak about it.

Let's talk about bread for a minute. Bread at its simplest is only flour, water, salt and yeast. The other things added to supermarket white bread are to make it fluffier, to cover up the bland flavor of cheap flour, and to give it a longer shelf life.

Bread is shockingly easy to make, especially if you already have a scale to measure the ingredients. You don't need to knead it. You don't need to "proof the yeast." You don't even need to know how to tell if it's done if you have a $4 instant thermometer.

Give me a holler if you want to know more about making bread.

oinkerjnn

I didn't try to cut it out… It just happened naturally based on my eating habits. No noticeable effects.

What kind of eating habits do you have where you don't ever encounter it? It's in BBQ sauce, cereal, honey mustard, salad dressing, peanut butter, syrup, pasta sauce, granola bars, crackers, applesauce, yogurt...etc. It's even in medicines like cough syrup.

I guess raw-foods or all-organic would do the trick.

It's not that hard to eliminate it almost completely. I do most of my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and hfcs isn't in any of their products. There are plenty of products at all grocery stores that don't have it. I don't eat all raw or all organic, I just try to avoid a ton of processed foods and that includes hfcs.

Do you consider stuff like bread, ketchup and tomato soup to be "processed foods"? I think they're pretty basic and natural, but the only way to get them without HFCS apparently is to buy an organic brand.

If you really think these items are not processed foods you are in for a big surprise. Walk over to your fridge, check out the ingredient list on a bottle of Heinz ketchup. It ain't pretty.

If I can't pronounce it, I don't eat it. But I love to cook, so that helps.

Sabine_Stroehm

I don't understand the point of cutting something from your diet when others who have freely admit, "I saw no benefits." But to each their own. Good luck to you.

well maybe, just maybe, we make decisions for ourselves? I made my decisions LONG before MFP.

AllOutof_Bubblegum

I didn't try to cut it out… It just happened naturally based on my eating habits. No noticeable effects.

This.

Kaitou

@oinkerjin, @Heidicooksup: I got my big surprise already See I'd been eating things like home-made bread, canning our own salsa and ketchup, cooking from scratch, and it never really occurred to me that they could want to add so much to something as simple as ketchup or tomato soup.

And the bread thing is just, wow. Even the tomato soup and ketchup only have a few things added, probably under 10 ingredients total for any brand of those items, but I can't believe they can add so much stuff to bread. It takes forever to read the bread label. I'm going to have to get into a lot more from-scratch and homemade cooking again. Going away from that has definitely made a negative impact on my weight.

FunkyTobias

Care to address any of the actual criticisms? Or are you going to just keep dancing around?

And please cite the "other researchers" who are pointing to sugar as a cause independent of caloric intake and/or obesity. I'm waiting.

I don't have the degree and training, I didn't do the research, I'm not dancing with you. Neither of us has the credentials.

You have no idea what my credentials are, not that you need "credentials" to critically evaluate an argument. But since you admit that you don't understand the research, why do you insist on posting it?

Nor am I doing your research for you. Not when it's so easy for anyone to do. Just go to google and type in almost any combination of sugar processed food obesity dementia satiety metabolic lectures abstracts and if you want to just watch videos of lectures narrow the search to videos. You'll hit gold.

Ah, the infamous "google it" defense -- the preferred tactic for those who are unable to support their claims. Maybe you should google "burden of proof".

When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim. An argument from ignorance occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proven true.[1][2] This has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the person criticizing the assertion, but is not valid reasoning.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof

Indeed. But not everyone can lecture at universities and colleges and get their work peer reviewed.

Like the sources I posted rebutting Lustig's nonsense. Both have lectured and had their work published in a peer-reviewed journal. Yet you chose to ignore them completely.

Even working out a few times a week with moderate exercise isn't going to do the trick. Not when processed foods are loaded with added sugar. And wouldn't we have to time vigorous daily hour long plus workouts to burn instead of store the sugar?

That is no doubt what the food companies would suggest.

Please post a single source where this was actually suggested. Or are you just making **** up?

missh1967

I didn't try to cut it out… It just happened naturally based on my eating habits. No noticeable effects.

x2 (and it's not out completely, just minimized)

GeminiDelight

I've heard of a lot of the risks of consuming too much HFCS (I guess everyone probably has) and I thought about cutting it out of my life. This was brought on by looking at a tomato soup can label and realizing they'd even added it to that.

It's added to the bread in our house, our ketchup, our jelly.

So I was thinking about cutting it out of my life entirely. Has anyone done so, and did it seem to make a difference? I know a lot of people say that it messes up your leptin (I think?) which helps regulate when you feel hungry. If it is making us feel hungrier more often, cutting it could be a weight-loss boon.

So, has anyone noticed any effects from dropping it?

my family have fructose malabsorption syndrome. so we have had to cut it out of our diet. i do a lot of label reading. it is everywhere. i cant eliminate all of it but our exposure is minimal. we also restrict fructose from fruits and veggies, and fructans in other things.

synchrohobbit

I also have fructose malabsorption, and I'm guessing a lot of the individuals that have replied and said cutting it out really improved their digestive system and energy levels probably have it too. It was diagnosed for me with a hydrogen breath test. Essentially what happens is the small intestines have trouble absorbing fructose (not sure if it's a transporter binding issue due to the stoichiometry of the molecule) and it travels on to the large intestine, also "dragging" some other nutrients with it. Gut flora then feed on the sugar, causing discomfort, bloating and gas. Glucose can aid the absorption of fructose, so foods the have these monomers in equal amounts might not be a problem, although it varies from person to person exactly how sensitive they are. ANYWAY, it seems like these arguments are very similar to those about gluten; some people will find that eliminating a food makes them feel better, and as long as they understand that there is a massive amount of variations about how individuals react to food, it'll be fine.

derik999

Sugar is sugar as far as I'm concerned and yes I've cut that (HFCS) out completely. I get pretty much all of my sugar from fruit.

Raylotekka

I read labels, and don't buy things with HFCS. I made a conscious decision not to buy things with this ingredient. It's possible to shop and avoid this crap, even w/o shopping solely for organic food.

Several posters mentioned Trader Joe's. If you've one in your area, it's a great store, and contrary to what many people think, they have very reasonable prices. More so than supermarkets, at least in my area.