The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup

They are at it again…Trying to poison you and I while covering it up!

Have you seen the commercials lately by the High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) industry?

The one I saw was pretty clever.  It was a couple sitting at a park having a picnic.  When the girl was about to have a
swig of a typical artificially colored fruit flavored drink, the guy said “Don’t drink that, it has High Fructose Corn
Syrup!”.  She the asked “What’s bad about that?”.  He just starred blankly back at her with a stumped and puzzled look
on his face and said “I don’t know?!?!”

This is big business’ clever way calling us dumb.  They know that many people have heard from someone or somebody that
HFCS is bad for you but don’t know why.  So the industry logic is to try and play to that ignorance by saying if you don’t know why its bad, why would you stop consuming it.   This is clever reverse psychology and I’m sure it works on many people.  What this does is make me mad and want to inform as many people as I can of the dangers of HFCS.

As my own personal training clients know, I’ve advised for a long time to stay away from HFCS.  Here today, I’m going
to tell you why.  Let’s begin with what is HFCS…

HFCS is an essentially corn syrup(extracted from corn) turned into fructose(sugar) through a pretty complicated process involving fermentation, addition of fungus, genetically altered enzymes and altering its chemical structure.  I don’t know about you but I love a little fungus in my beverage.  Yuck

The reason HFCS is so appealing is that it is cheaper to produce than to grow sugar cane process it and transport it.  HFCS also has a longer shelf life than regular traditionally sweetned products.  It also has given government subsidised corn industry a new use for corn which had lost its appeal as the process of hydrogenation became more popular and the use for corn greatly diminished.  Hydrogenated Oils is something else that I’ll be covering in an upcoming post.

Why do you need to avoid it as a consumer?  There are several reasons.  First, the very corn in which they use for this process is different than the everyday corn you and I eat.  It’s genetically modified.  Some experts say as far as 80% of the foods we eat have been genetically modified so this isn’t surprising.  Why put something into your body that has undergone such a radical chemical alteration?  Furthermore, the very enzymes that are used to break down the corn starch are genetically modified to make them more stable.

Diabetic complications are increased due to the composition of the modified fructose in HFCS.  The pancreas have to work much harder to produce the necessary insulin to break down this altered form of Fructose.

The liver is also impacted greatly by ingestion of HFCS.  The rate at which your liver breaks down this sweetener is much faster than if it were in its natural form.  Because it’s broken down so much faster and society continues to be less and less active, it makes a very ood case as to why the general population continues to get fatter.

Many people are misguided because the word fructose is part of the name and listed in the ingredients. Fructose is the natural sugar found in fruit.  However, the two being compared here are hardly the same. The one in fruits is stored in the fiber and takes up to 40% longer or your liver to break down.  This allows it to slowly enter the bloodstream as opposed to a flood of HFCS which forces your liver work much harder and can cause damage, not unlike the type experienced by alcoholics.

Its scary to see so many parents buying soft drinks and juices for their kids lunches and snacks unknowingly feeding poison to their children.   Gatorade is an extremely popular sports drink among athletes and trainees that is produced with HFCS.  I recommend drinking Vitamin Water instead.

So how do you avoid it?  Read labels and stay away from processed foods.  Everything from Canned soup, to juice, to ketchup, pasta sauces, etc… all contain HFCS.  Buy ll-natural organic foods at places like Trader Joes and Whole Foods.  Even Giant Food has begun dedicating an isle to organic and natural foods Since doing their recent renovations.  Most other stores also carry an organic version of just about anything on their shelves.

As I’ve always said, everything you eat should have been hunted, plucked, or picked.  Whole clean foods is the objective here.  Is it more work, you betcha.  But wouldn’t you rather know you are giving your family the best possible cleanest food you possibly can?

So buyer beware, don’t let the industry fool you through heir advertising campaigns that this product is natural and safe.  It’s far from it.  They just know that this is a cash cow for them and they aren’t willing to give that up at the expense of your health.

Dennys Passeto, CPT
Work with the Top Personal Trainers in MD, DC, VA
www.achieve-fitness.com
1-888-872-7961