Monday, April 14, 2008

HFCS UPDATE!

So, today was my first completely corn-syrup-free day! I had a few slip-ups over the weekend. Cutting high-fructose corn syrup from my diet was actually harder than I thought. I began by thinking, well I don't drink a lot of soda anyway...so this should be easy. But it wasn't! It is in everything! After my last post, I had a hamburger slathered with bbq sauce. It was delicious, but then I realized that I had not even thought to check the label to see the ingredients. Whoops. Then after class the next day, I grabbed one of those 100 calorie cookie snack things. Note to self: just because it says 100 calories, doesn't make it a health food. Oh well. Over the weekend, all was well. Before work on Saturday I was so proud to have had a breakfast that was free of corn syrup. Then I go to work and find a box of free It's-It ice cream sandwiches in the freezer, and I gobbled one down without thinking. An hour later I thought, oh shit...that totally had corn syrup. They are just so irresistible!

But today was my day! I finally did it, but it was really hard. It might just be my imagination, but I felt hungrier today. I almost broke down so many times. I craved a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, but I made a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich instead (no hfcs in the Skippy Chunky peanut butter OR in the Oroweat bread). I really need to go shopping for some corn-syrup-free condiments and snacks, and I'm so glad I found this site to help me at the grocery store. This particular blog has a growing list of products that contain no high-fructose corn syrup. This blog post also has some tips and warnings about snacks that contain corn syrup. It would have been helpful before I scarfed down those 100 calorie cookies, but whatever. I was still getting used to things. But now, I'm feeling good about my new corn-syrup-free diet. Just over this past weekend, I have talked about this to a lot of my friends and I was shocked to hear that many others are doing the same thing. It seems like everyone I know, knows someone else who has cut corn syrup from their diet. I also read this article from SF Gate about the whole high-fructose corn syrup dilemma.

I just wanted to update everyone on my progress with this new healthier diet choice. And just to be clear, I'm not cutting sugar from my diet. I just can't do that, I have way too little self-control. Just corn syrup! And I also wanted to share this picture I took today at the Pepsi Bottling Co. in Hayward. I had to pick up a bunch of soda for my work, and saw these huge towers labeled "CORN SYRUP." Gross, right?





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