High-Fructose Corn Syrup -- Another Poison in Common Foods

Well, I am never going to be a vegan. It just isn't for me. The whole destroying the environment when I eat a burger argument doesn't work for me either. Weren't there just science articles in the past month that said growing corn and rice were also destroying the environment? I'm not big on rice to begin with. The baked tempeh with dijon sauce looks good, but I have never tried it. I'm not against trying new foods. I eat different foods all around the world. I do have friends who are vegans. I have eaten some of their food and I didn't find it to be great. One of my friends developed very bad reactions to soy which she has been eating most of her life. She had to quit eating it and later found out that soy is one of the top allergens. If that is true I'm not sure why everyone keeps trying to push soy products as safer or healthier.

reply to post by Beachcoma


Oh, I know. I'm just kidding with you. I'm very familiar with asian cuisine. I know most of asia aren't particularly big meat eaters and if they eat flesh it's usually that of fish. I'm very aware of the stark contrast between your region and mine. Another vegetarian in this big bad world isn't a bad thing, though!

reply to post by zerotime


Look. Anything processed isn't going to be the healthist thing for you. Soy products including tofu are no exception. Soy proteins in ede mame or a similar source is 10 times healthier and more efficient than meat proteins. A study on peas just revealed that they are THE most efficient protein found in nature.

And if you'd read the article, either one, all the way through, you'd see just how harsh your meet eating habits are. They create a "carbon footprint" that's bigger than your form of transportation. This argument is backed by the U.N. so disputing this fact would be futile. If you accept that you're not doing a very harmful thing than I guess ignorance is bliss. I'm not saying going Vegan should be the way of the world but through awareness of this kind of thing, However, we need immediate regulation and moderation in the meat industry and the help from those who are contributing to the environmental pressures due to their selfish reasoning behind eating meat.


"Because it tastes good and vegetables don't."

Short sighted to say the least.

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


I guess my points are simple. I like peas and I eat them. I think tofu tastes like dirt. I don't care about the nonsense of this new PC buzzword "carbon footprint" nor do I care or listen to anything from the UN. There is a political agenda behind all of this.

Lets face it. There is a conspiracy going on here. There has always been a group of society that didn't want human beings to eat meat. But since they have failed to persuade people to stop eating meat they had to find a new way. The new way was to make up some junk science about how eating meat was destroying the world so that they could force regulation and eventually tax meat eating out of existence. Its all to save the planet of course. But slowly, and resistantly, we read new articles that say growing corns, soybeans and rice also destroys the environment. What that humans beings do does not destroy the environment? It is all about balance and moderation. I do not over eat any type of food, but I want my steak, my coffee, and my freedoms to make my own decisions about what I eat and how I eat it.

One thing that would help the citizen's of the U.S. would be if we were able to get the gigantic agri-farm businesses off federal subsidies. Corn gets more subsidies than any other crop. They have to do something with all that excess corn, no? so they turn it into HFCS to kill us all. Then when the HFSC gets us feeling ill and overweight Big Pharma can step in and sell us pills that make us "better". We are all being used by corporations for big profit.
PS I cannot take credit for this rant. This is strait from Bill Mayer (paraphrased). He sits on the soapbox on HFCS alot, and I think rightfully so.
When I stopped drinking sodas (and generally making sure HFCS was at least 5th on the ingredients list of things I eat) I lost about 15 pounds... IN A MONTH.
Pretty gross stuff.

reply to post by zerotime


Yeah. That's right. There's a global vegetarian agenda because you like the taste of meat and don't want to look at the side effects of a staple in your diet. Once anything conflicts with our lives or our personal outlook it's always somebody elses fault. Whether it's 9/11, Oil, and I guess now vegetarian agenda, which is actually a first for me and I've been around the block a few times. There's modern reasoning though.

You keep making excuses and I'll keep making progression.

reply to post by observer


Okay, yeah. An entire different topic in itself. Probably even further off base than the one I'm involved in right now.

Originally posted by DeadFlagBlues

You keep making excuses and I'll keep making progression.

If that thinking gets you through the day more power to ya. Don't worry, I will not tell you what to eat or how to think.

reply to post by anhinga


After a diagnosis of diabetes you get religion. I found that using honey in the coffee for 30 years would have been better for me, and Pepsi by the gallons in youth likely contributed to finding my pancreas was fed up with my intake choices.

I could eat anything when young, and did. No one influenced me otherwise. Then it all hit in the 40's. Eye site, weight and diabetes.

I found that using a non-dairy creamer was like eating sugar, and worse. It was mostly corn syrup. I used a lot and hated black coffee. Earned my place with ignorance.

So now I manage my diabetes with diet and exercise and no drugs (another problem altogether drugs). But now I have a cholesterol problem.

Unless you have the problem you wouldn't believe the foods that a diabetic has to avoid. Rice, beans, corn, potatoes, on and on and on. No juices, breads and about 90 percent of the foods you can find in a supermarket, especially processed foods. Salt is in sugar and sugar is in salt. Is this all population control???

I'm looking for tasty recipes for air.

Oh, and the Phenylalanine/ nerve toxins? Frying pan to the fire. I am waiting to see the long term effects of Splenda. Depression and suicide, or a tendency of going along with a crony politician's ideas?

Back to my Air sandwich, and tall glass of water vapor.

ZG

reply to post by zerotime


If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. In this day and age, that is no exaggeration.

Originally posted by anhinga

Funny you mention that Beachcoma, between honey and maple syrup -- those are probably two of the only 'sweeteners' that aren't bad for you!

All sugar is bad for you Anhinga. Sometimes sugar addicts try to rationalize that some sugars are less harmful than others but that does not make it true. Even too much fruit is bad for you. A great example of a myth about sugar is that Orange Juice is good for you. There are plenty of better foods to get the things Orange Juice contains without the sugar. Sugar is sugar is sugar. You can get just as obese on honey as any other sugar and develop Diabetes on top of the weight.

Two of the biggest lies in the food industries marketing is that orange juice and milk are good for you. Milk is also full of sugar that is very hard to digest. After the age of 3 or 4 milk should be eliminated from your diet. Humans are the only animal that drinks milk after being weaned. Your digestive system changes and milk is not well tolerated after that age.

Sugar is a drug. It is an addictive drug. The form it comes in does not matter. It can and does kill. Even honey and maple syrup.

Originally posted by zerotime
I do not over eat any type of food, but I want my steak, my coffee, and my freedoms to make my own decisions about what I eat and how I eat it.

I'd have to agree with your points. Freedom means freedom to make both bad and good choices. People who try and control others peoples behavior to the level of telling us what to eat are basically Control Freaks and Witch Hunters. We all know a few. If they don't have an issue at the moment they make one up.

It's the control they are after. It's actually a mental illness but one we tolerate in current society. Tiny minorities of very odd people have gained far too much power over others. They cry for their freedoms but revel in taking away everyone else's. Kind of like Gore taking a private jet to work but demanding we walk. These people are so deep in their fantasy they actually think that sort of behavior is OK.

I didn't read through to see if anyone had posted a link to this film so here it is.

King Corn

Synopsis

King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.

In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Nah... There are positive sugars. Unprocessed maple syrup (grade d) and Gava, honey, and even pure cane for that familiar taste.

Gava and Maple pack a bunch of vitamins including the essential B's. They're not simple sugars either, you're body utilizes them pretty effectively and it doesn't throw your insulin levels out of whack.

reply to post by anhinga


if they keep on poisoning all our food with addictive sweeteners and preservatives to prolong shelf life-----we will get to the point where the only thing safe left to imbibe is beer and wine ?-----have to tell the wife that one---she's more health conscious than i-----always complaining about me ----drinking again?seriously i see the latest needle they want to give teenage girls so they dont get cervical cancer from messing around with 2 many boys has killed at least11 girls and caused horrible side effects for others----going blind, paralysed etc.something like that safe tazer they tell us is ok for normal people but keeps on killing the "not so normal" ones? they actually use it on.they've just killed an airline passenger in vancouver canada with it and dont know why he's dead------or are not saying.

reply to post by Blaine91555


i cant eat sugary things or i get a real bad sore throat less than an hour after and also break out in hives-----have to be carefull.sometimes oranges just make me break out in hives as well----assume it might be the sprays the farmers use?

reply to post by ZeroGhost


you poor guy with all the health problems and then not being able to eat some things i love.after doing the test for which direction the manquine is spinning and only getting clockwise i find out i only operate on 1/2 a brain.this all is making me think about that wizard of oz old film- i'll have to go see him!

Yahn G -- your posts are usually hilarious, thanks for a LOL moment, they're rare during my days!

Back to the topic, I just posted something like this on the 'hidden ingredients' thread. Jones Soda. They were using HFCS and switched to pure cane sugar, they should be a good example to other companies (hint, hint to conglomerates Coke/Pepsi) to make the switch! Now, I sound like a soda commercial.

Regardless, there are plenty of alternatives, like the one I just mentioned, for foods you like out there. You'd be surprised how many sweets, etc are available for people who don't want this junk in their food.

Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are seemingly opening in many areas, I don't know about middle America or overseas, but they seem to be in even minor cities here on the U.S. east coast.

reply to post by rationalgaze



I worked for Coca-Cola back in the 1970-1980s. Coca-Cola used to be made with 100% sucrose, so-called common "table sugar" which is cane or beet sugar. If I remember correctly, Coca-Cola first went to 25% High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in about 1982. Months later to 50% HFCS then to 100% a few months after that. It definitely affected the taste in a negative way. I left the business many years ago and have not kept current with soft drink issues. I was unaware of any health issues related to HFCS. Interesting read. Thanks, O.P.

HFCS scares me.

My boyfriend and I, for several months, have been trying to eliminate both HFCS and MSG from our diets. Now, I can't say that we've been so successful we've totally eliminated, because, what I find truly scary here is that it seems almost impossible - but we only rarely drink sodas (like, one soda per month, if that), and we don't eat things like potato chips.

That, and if we have an option, we prefer to buy products that list ingredients that I can identify, and that aren't so bad for you.

Scary thing, I'm still overweight. But then, I've had that issue since I was a teenager, and I don't overeat. The odd thing is, in my late teens/early adulthood, I was diagnosed with high triglicerides, and actually had to take measures and eat a certain way to bring them back down. And I am wondering if that had anything to do with HFCS. I did drink a lot of soda back then.

[edit on 15-10-2007 by MinHawk]