HFCS

recently, a past co-worker of mine sent me a video to watch about the evils of high fructose corn syrup. i have yet to watch it but i’m guessing that i’ll agree with a lot of what the video has to say.

last year when i first saw one of those pro-HFCS commercials, i had to laugh. they talk about how HFCS isn’t bad for you when consumed in moderation. if you do your shopping at a standard supermarket, just you TRY to consume hfcs in moderation. it’s in just about everything!!! i mean seriously, when you make mayonnaise at home, do you add sweetener? no! when you make soup at home, do you add sugar? no!

these companies are adding HFCS to just about anything they can. why? well, 2 reasons come to mind: it’s cheap to manufacture and it’s addictive. add something addictive to your product and people will keep coming back for more. pretty smart. i wonder if that’s taco bell’s secret…i could eat that stuff EVERYDAY!! but i digress…

so what’s one to do?

i say, take the extra time to make your meals from scratch. i know it sounds like a hassle but take it from me, it’s do-able!

i was a 100 calorie pack, diet frozen meal, pre-packaged low calorie/low fat food junkie for years. then my boyfriend got a job at whole foods market. all those things i’d learned as a child, being raised by parents who were very focused on natural foods, came flooding back. the foods i was eating were packed with additives and HFCS. i started thinking more about what i was eating and came up with a few things to make eating “clean” easier:

 i buy frozen fish that can be quickly defrosted for dinner.
 i buy dry beans (pinto, navy, garbanzo, black, etc..) that we can then cook & freeze or use for chili, soup, refried beans, etc...
 i buy whole chickens; once we’ve eaten it or used it for make-ahead meals, we cook down the bones for broth.
 we don’t get to the farmers market much but i always try to have fresh veggies on hand. two mainstays are baby spinach and vine tomatoes, i can add them to just about anything! typically we also have carrots, celery and onions.
 i make sure to have natural PB or walnuts and raisins around for a healthy, snack when my tummy feels rumbly.

i’m not very good at following recipes or buying specific ingredients to make a recipe (i always forget a few ingredients!) but i find that i can usually whip up a pretty good meal from what we have on hand. usually it doesn’t take much longer than it would to heat up a frozen meal and i find myself more satisfied.

i think that eating foods with HFCS often left me feeling hungry so quickly because once the sugar burned off, the feeling of being satiated went away. not to mention that once i have food with sugar or HFCS, it sets me off on a snacking binge.

all that being said about eating clean and healthy and avoiding HFCS…i just had a big cheese burger and fries. one of my direct reports had no car and no lunch partner today so i went out with her. i guess occasional junk food won’t kill me. plus, it just reinforced how much i like eating healthy…i feel like a greasy blob right now.