If you are what you eat, Americans are
fast turning into corn. You can hardly eat any packaged food product
today without eating something made from corn.
Did you realize the sweetness that you
taste in most food and drinks comes from corn?
Take a look in your pantry, your
cupboards, or your refrigerator. Pull a few products off the shelf -
say, a loaf of bread, a bottle of ketchup, or a can of soda. On the
ingredients label for any one of these products, I'm pretty sure
you'll find "high fructose corn syrup."
What you won't find on the label is
that this artificially produced sweetener has been associated with
all of the following:
"Heart disease"
"Obesity"
"Diabetes"
"Cirrhosis of the liver"
"Osteoporosis"
"Weakened immune system"
"Cholesterol imbalance"
"Anemia"
"Mineral deficiency"
Today I'll explain the prevalence of
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), its lethal effect on your health -
and, most importantly, how you can avoid it.
This sickly sweet substance is
everywhere. HFCS became the food industry's most popular sweetener
in the ‘80s and ‘90s, largely because it's cheap to produce,
transport, and store. (America's got a lot more corn farms than
sugar-cane fields.) It's also sweeter and blends more readily into
most foods than cane-based sugar.
So, to the delight of US
agribusiness, manufacturers started throwing it into just about
anything that could use a little sweetness, including bacon, beer
(that's right - beer), cereal, iced tea, you name it.
You'll even find HFCS in so-called "health" bars.
Problem is, your body can't really
tolerate the stuff in high quantities.
Why? Most starches (that is, most
carbohydrates) break down into glucose, a form of sugar that every
single cell in your body can directly metabolize. Fructose, on the
other hand, needs to be converted into usable sugar by the liver.
Naturally occurring fructose comes
from fruit - that's why it's called "fructose." It's stored in the
fiber of the fruit, so your body absorbs it 40 percent more slowly
than glucose. No problem.
But if you isolate fructose and
dump it into the body in concentrated form, it's a major liver
overload. In fact, animals fed a high-fructose diet in laboratory
studies had livers that looked a lot like those of hardcore, aging
alcoholics - inflamed and shot through with dead cells and scar
tissue (the condition known as "cirrhosis").12
What's more, fructose interferes with
a key enzyme in the body that delivers copper to your vital organs.
Copper deficiency has a destructive cascading effect across a range
of organ systems, including the liver, heart, testes, and pancreas.
Naturally, this results in a host of serious illnesses, including
heart disease, obesity, diabetes, anemia, weakened immunity, and
osteoporosis.
The problem is even worse for
children, since their organs are still developing. And, HFCS is
particularly abundant in drinks aimed at kids. In a recent study,
researchers isolated compounds found in abundance in carbonated soft
drinks - called "reactive carbonyls" - that diabetics also have in
high concentrations in their bloodstreams. These are the same
compounds that cause the cell and tissue damage associated with
diabetes and its complications.
They reported that a single can
of soda contains 5 times the amount of reactive carbonyls
found in a diabetic's bloodstream.3
The culprit? High fructose corn syrup.
No wonder diabetes is rampant in this country - and occurring at an
unprecedented rate in children.
Fortunately, it's not all that hard
to avoid HFCS, despite its widespread use. Here's all you need to
do:
Check the ingredients label. It
really is everywhere.
Avoid low-fat and/or processed
foods. Go for natural, whole foods instead.
Replace soda and other sweetened
beverages with filtered water, milk, freshly squeezed natural
juices and drinks.
A final note: the same study found
that a compound in tea seems to offset the effect of reactive
carbonyls. In fact, it can cut the amount of reactive carbonyls in
half when added to soft drinks. So consider making a nice,
refreshing pitcher of real iced tea when you're home.
1 Fields, M, Proceedings of the
Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine,
175(1984):530-537.
2 Fallon, Sally and Mary Enig, Nourishing Traditions,
Washington DC: New Trends Publishing, 2001, p. 23.
3 Ho et al, "AGFD 232," paper presented at symposium: "Food
Bioactives and Nutraceuticals: Production, Chemistry, Analysis and
Health Effects: Health Effects," American Chemical Society, in
Boston on 8/23/07.
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