Food Fact - High Fructose Corn Syrup is Bad. Very, very bad.

Fact:  Added sugars, specifically fructose from table sugar and the high-fructose corn syrup found in most processed foods, block the hormonal signal that tells your brain it's time to stop eating, according to obesity research by Robert Lustig, MD, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist at the University of California - San Francisco. The result? Never-ending hunger that leaves you fatter yet feeling unsatisfied.

This is why refined sugar can be considered a drug.  It is highly addictive.  The more you eat, the more you want to eat...

I'm sure you've all seen the ads like this one here that tells us that sugar is sugar and that our bodies can't tell the difference.  But, science refutes that claim in every.single.report I've read.

Here's the skinny...

1.  HFCS and cane sugar are NOT biochemically identical or processed the same way by the body.  High fructose corn syrup is an industrial food product and far from "natural" or a naturally occurring substance. It is extracted from corn stalks through a process so secret that Archer Daniels Midland and Carghill would reportedly not allow the investigative journalist Michael Pollan to observe it for his book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma."   The sugars are extracted through a chemical enzymatic process resulting in a chemically and biologically novel compound called HFCS.

2.  Many independent medical and nutrition experts DO NOT support the use of HFCS in our diet, despite what the corn industry would like you to think.  Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says that HFCS is absorbed more rapidly than regular sugar, and that it doesn't stimulate insulin or leptin production. This prevents you from triggering the body's signals for being full and may lead to over consumption of total calories.

3.  HCFS is almost always a marker of poor-quality, nutrient-poor disease creating industrial food products or "food-like substances."  The last reason to avoid products that contain HFCS is that they are a marker for poor-quality, nutritionally depleted, processed industrial food full of empty calories and artificial ingredients. If you find "high fructose corn syrup" on the label, you can be sure it is not a whole, real, fresh food full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants. Stay away if you want to stay healthy. We still must reduce our overall consumption of sugar, but with this one simple dietary change you can radically reduce your health risks and improve your health.

It matters to me what we're told by manufacturers.  We do not have to be lied to.  Know what your feeding your family and if after learning the truth, you want to continue feeding your family convenience foods, then by all means, go for it.  I am not here to 'convince' you to follow what I do but rather, to give you the truth that manufacturers are not telling you.