Down with HFCS!
 

The random political thoughts thread has a derail topic of sugar, the sugar industry, high fructose corn syrup and where to find soda with real sugar.

Jones Soda - real sugar
Around Passover Coke releases Coke with real sugar (Kosher for Passover)
MousePod shared this lovely link - Galco's Soda Pop Stop
And you can get real Dr. Pepper here.

Studies are coming out linking HFCS to the obesity epidemic. America started getting "fat" when HFCS started being put in so much food. More than likely HFCS is bad, yet it is in so much stuff. Ketchup, soup, soda, salad dressing, yogurt, etc... I've been trying to cut it out of my diet for close to a year now, and have been mostly successful. I don't flip if I eat something with hfcs in it, or drink soda now and then - but I do notice I feel a lot better if I don't consume it.

Sugar isn't great, hfcs is worse. Crack open those pixie stix and bring back sugar!

One of the cardinal rules of weight loss is don't drink your calories. Be it soda, juice or alcohol. Whatever form it's in, sugar is an addictive drug. Best avoided. I've done pretty well just drinking water and limiting alcohol and dessert consumption to legitimately special occasions, which works out to about every two weeks.

Oh, and there's my 18 shots of espresso in the morning, but nobody's perfect.

I think the obesity epidemic is linked to an unhappiness epidemic, which family style restaurants have exploited by providing temporary fixes in the form of monstrous portions of fat and sugar. I'm toying with the idea of writing a diet book, tentatively titled "Please Don't F*** the Potpie."

I know that Monin syrups are made with pure cane sugar. I do not know about Torani syrups.

(Pssst... Peet's uses Monin, which is why I know. I don't have my bottles in front of me, and can't find anything conclusive about Torani. I would suspect that they use fairly high quality ingredients in their flavorings, since Torani isn't exactly cheap.)

Hmm, I'm not convinced that refined sugar is any better for you, in the same amounts that we take in corn syrup.

To my understanding, the corn syrup explosion happened in part because it was a lot cheaper to produce than refined sugar from beets or cane. When it became so cheap, it was put into products that usually didn't feature sugar, and our sweet tooth became accostomed to having everything sweetened, deepening corn syrup's hold on all products.

I could be wrong though, nothing to cite on this.

I'm too lazy to look but my understanding is that HFCS is heavily subsidized which is why it's so cheap and why it gets put into so much stuff it shouldn't.

The issue with HFCS is it doesn't trigger the proper insulin response. As a result, we do not get the feeling of "fullness" we ought to for the amount of calories we consume, so we consume more. Plus it screws with our bodies.

Heavy use of it is due in part to restrictions on sugar imports and tariffs on same - we pay about 3x the world price for sugar.

I am a great supporter of the "whole food" mentality, which I feel is akin to the way of moderation. Eat real food whenever possible, including real sugar, but don't kid yourself into believing that sugar in the raw is health food.

Sugar goes through an intense refining process from cane juice to the white crystals we're accustomed to seeing, even "raw" sugar is nowhere near a "raw" food!

No, but it's a darn sight better than HFCS.

I've been reading (and no, I don't have sources at the moment) that 'white' anything is bad (refined white sugar, bleached flour, etc...). Now, I am way to lazy to read the labels on everything, nor am I the healthiest eater (y'all have met me ;) ) but I think the overall processed and convenience food has messed with our body chemistry. It's not due to one particular additive.

Eat real sugar! Otherwise we overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and stole the land for no good reason (not that much sugar is grown in Hawaii any more)!