Suddenly the grocery store is full of items labeled "no high fructose corn syrup"

Why, after all these years of indiscriminately putting this stuff in everything, are a bunch of manufacturers suddenly going out of their way to say they AREN'T using it. The only thing I can compare it to is trans fat. Suddenly trans fat was taken out of products that had been using it for years, after some highly publicized reports about how bad trans fat was. But, I have seen no comparable public reports about high fructose corn syrup. So what's the deal?

Better late than never!

Even frozen veggies. WHY?

They have denied for years that it had anything to do with diabetes and overweight people, but both increased in numbers shortly after it was introduced.

Who introduced it? ADM would be my guess.

Just like low fat or organic stamped on a product can be used to increase sales this is hoped to do the same thing.

call me a sucker, but I'd by something that I normally wouldn't buy if I saw that on the package.

things that it's in. I had to give up saltine crackers. Saltine crackers! They're not even sweet. Trader Joe has more items without the HFCS but I can't always get there.

I've seen recipes for ginger ale on the web so I'm seriously considering trying to make my own this summer.

drinking good old spring water now.

and it contains High Fructose Corn Poison which does not exist in nature.

While cane sugar is hardly a "health" food, it's a damn sight better than that Monsanto chemical garbage. Kudos to Pepsi, Snapple, SOBE, and the other companies who have switched back to sugar recently (though time will tell whether or not the Pepsi switch is permanent. They marketed the "Throwback" as a limited release, but hopefully the sales will convince them. And convince Coke to do the same.)

I've been buying flavored seltzer water. A friend of mine whose daughters have multiple allergies has been buying them for years so one day I tried one and it was pretty good. I thought they would be bitter like tonic water but they are not. I usually buy "Polar" brand selzer, and they have quite a few flavors, such as Pomegranate, Black Cherry, Cranberry Lime, Lemom/Lime, to name some, etc. Ingredients are carbonated water and natural flavors, and the nutrition facts are: O calories, O fat, 0 sodium, 0 carbs, 0 sugars, and 0 protein. I love plain old water too for drinking but when eating food I like to drink something with a little flavor. The seltzer waters are not sweet. I'm trying to get my girls to switch to drinking them instead of regular soda, which I don't buy much of, but would prefer to buy it not at all.

HFCS makes me sick, so I welcome this new development.

:)

http:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831_pf.html
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090127/mercury-in-high-fructose-corn-syrup

It shows that people are paying attention. It's how change happens, sometimes incrementally and even sometimes suddenly.

Bush's kidney beans sit next to Walmart's "Great Value" brand of kidney beans. The price difference is something like 20¢ per can, maybe 30.

Bush's kidney beans have no HFCS. Great Value has HFCS. Why?

Sweetening vegetables is nothing new. My dad's grandmother was an old farm woman, and she didn't think that there was much that couldn't be improved by adding a tad of sugar. But as a rule, you don't find sugar added to most vegetables these days. And beans? I don't get it.

Wow, I'm going to buy this bottle of water because it's fat free!

If you start with good tomatoes you don't need to add sweetener. Of course that would explain why most processed sauces need it.

My mom always added a little to her homemade spaghetti sauce. Of course it was ordinary sugar, and not HFCS!

I tend to go for the good breads, or at least the half-way good breads. Oro-Wheat says "No High-Fructose Corn Syrup" on the bag. The store-brand next to it is cheaper, but has HFCS in the ingredient list.

Of course, right now, I'm working on a loaf I bought from an actual bakery. Ingredients: Organic wheat, honey, salt, yeast.

buying. Raisin Bran - yup. Corn flakes - yup. Even the "heart smart" cereals on top of the shelves - yup. Try finding a cereal that a kid will eat that's healthy, tasty, and DOESNT have it in it. We're still looking. Any advise?

They're usually at one end of the cereal aisle. They're a bit more expensive, but many of them make a selling point out of not having HFCS.

And I don't know about you, but I find them tasty.

any of the Kashi brand cereals? My little girl (7) likes the Go Lean Crunch (Honey Almond Flax), Heart to Heart (Honey Toasted Oat Cereal) kind of like Cheerios and Island Vanilla (shredded wheat). No HFCS, whole grains and 8, 5, and 6 grams of fiber each respectively. If he likes those Honey Oat Cheerios you could combine them with the Kashi Heart to Heart and wean him over slowly. Some of the Kashi cereals are organic and comparably priced with regular cereals, sometimes they are even cheaper.

Edited to add:

Also, I just recently started buying Thomas' Hearty Grains English Muffins, made with whole grain, no HFCS, and 5g of fiber each. They are also good for sandwiches. I toast one of the muffines, take a fried egg and add one slice of American Cheese. Quick, low-fat, low-calorie (relatively, about 260 calories total) and easy to make.

"Honey do you want a popcicle?"

"No, they have high fructose corn syrup in them."

"What's the problem with that?"

" Well, uh.... people say.... uh..... it's made with"

"What? Corn?"

Message from the corn syrup people: You are too stupid to know why you object to this ingredient. And instead of addressing the actual reasons that you object to this ingredient, we're simply going to make you look stupid.

and will be gone within the year im sure.


i actually bought a 'throwback' pepsi and i really didnt care much for the taste...which is weird...


i love Jones Cola tho(big fan of cream soda, haha) and think it tastes fantastic with sugar instead of HFCS

I bought some at Costco; I'll be buying more. One soda a day's a big treat for me, so I'm buying the stuff with sugar instead of the HFCS. We also really enjoy Jones Soda, and have been enthusiastic consumers of it for several years now.

Unfortunately, I think you're right. Throwback Pepsi is unavailable in a fifty-mile radius of Seattle. They're marketing it heavily, but you can't find it, and it'll be "well, nobody wanted it", and right back to the HFCS. I do believe, however, that Pepsi's making a serious tactical error. Those who are still spending money on soda pop are reading labels carefully, and they're passing up the HFCS.

with their product labling and such.

i can never pass up a cold glass of jones cream soda at any gas station that happens to sell the singles...

unfortunately my local stores dont carry a very wide variety of flavors from them... couple of flavors in bottles and a couple of flavors in cans...

The real sugar Dr. Pepper from Dublin, TX is decent as well.

I thought it was much better than modern mountain dew. Almost drinkable, in fact.

Now I don't even want to touch the old stuff.

Pespi Co. went to the corn syrup in the late seventies because of some sugar tariff dispute which made corn cheaper to use. Nowadays, though, with the government subsidising the ethanol manufacturers, I've got to think sugar is starting to look a lot better.

It has nothing to do with their concern for people's health, it has to do with the all mighty dollar.

I thought it was weird too. It had a bitter aftertaste or something. Not quite as sweet, but there also seemed to be some other change in the formula that threw off the taste. I can't imagine that using sugar instead of HFCS would make that kind of difference in taste. Not at all like I remembered when I drank Pepsi from a returnable glass bottle as a kid.

:scared:

Got an almost empty sitting here on my desk right now.

I have a few cases in my pantry, I find them tasty, especially when you compare side-by-side with their normal HFCS counterparts.

Too bad they're already off the shelves - they were just an 8-week promotion. It'll be back to Mexican Coke when my hoard runs out...

Corn prices skyrocketed last year and drove the price high fructose corn syrup up. Repercussions are still being felt in the food industry, coupled with depressed sugar prices makes switching back to sugar a no brainer.

of a potential problem to turn it into a virtue, at least of perception.

Right up there with "naturally low in sodium" bottled water (you mean they're not taking it out of the Great Salt Lake?) and low-fat fruit. Anything that 1) gets the consumers' eyes on your product and is 2) close enough to the truth to make the laws happy is fair in commerce.

Excuse me, I'm going back to finish my low sodium, fat-free, no HFCS coffee.

Food manufacturers -- let's face it, that's what food suppliers have become to a large degree -- started putting HFCS in foods because it was cheaper than sugar and they could make a better profit. Corn prices are high so suddenly the switch doesn't equate with higher profits. The fact that some Americans are waking up to the ill effects of HFCS gives them cover for changing their formulations.

For good insight into what food producers/manufacturers/suppliers are putting in our food and how they market it to addict us to stuff that's bad for us, read Dr. David Kessler's new book:

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

He interviews food executives and marketing people who are quite candid about the trickery and schemes they use to create their "hyperpalatable" foods. He also includes a lot of research studies into satiation, reward, and food cues. Very interesting read.

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605297852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243792489&sr=8-1

Our media just doesn't do that any more.

Word of mouth has spread the word of the dangers of HFCS and that word of mouth is hurting profits. The profiteers have decided to hitch their greedy wagons on to the no HFCS wagon.

And it is about time.

Those products that say that they have "less salt" often don't have much less. In some cases, they have the same or more salt than a quality brand which doesn't promote itself as low salt.

Winn Dixie has a no salt housebrand of potato chips, but not corn chips. Walmart doesn't offer any no salt chips to the best of my knowledge, and other retailers often only have "less salt" Lays products.

It's not a medical thing with me, though I don't like getting blown up with salt. I really just got hooked on no salt chips years ago. So my only choices are Winn Dixie's potato chips, or expensive no salt corn chips from the health food store.

still far too many saturated fats.

I'm sure the HFCS will just be replaced with something as bad, or worse.

for real...

has much to do with hefty, diabetic-leaning young kids. We gotta read those labels!
Thanks for posting.

K&R

...because I wanted to stop my intake of this crap.

I know I still get some in my diet since I don't know what's in everything I eat in restaurants, but I do not but products that contain HFCS.

Just my choice, and I imagine the choice of many other consumers since manufacturers are now going with "no-HFCS" products...

My stomach feels a lot better. The stuff is poison.

IMHO, there is no safe substitute for real sugar (sucrose).

get the trans-fat within a portion size below a cut-off point, then the manufacturer is allowed the zero trans-fat label. read the fine print and you'll often spot hydrogenated vegetable oil or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

This is great point. Be aware of how these products are hyped on the label. For instance, "0 trans-fats" means that each "serving" comes with less than 1/2 gram/serving and therefor they can claim "0". No trans fats has to mean just that, no trans fats at all and there were probably never any to begin with. They just use the hype to sell the product. The same holds true for HFCS too I betcha.

The incidence/use of sugar alcohol is up in a lot of products, which is a slippery slope for we Friends of Bill. They may have just replaced one evil with another.

Dr. Andrew Weill has also warned about both for a long time.

Check out the labels. It's in everything!

and am quite pleased about it! somebody is listening.

All the newly designed bottles have sugar instead of corn syrup. The sugar Snapple is much better.

"High fructose corn syrup" sounds scary even though it's just corn sugar. So people think it's bad.

Just read the discussions of it here at DU, it brings out all the woo woos.

But apparently high concentrations of fructose can mess with your body's carbohydrate metabolism is ways, say sucrose and glucose don't.

we are frightened of the big words. :eyes:

You haven't got anything legitimate to be frightened of.

My husband has lost 70 pounds. My 26 year old son lost 100+ pounds.

I have made it known to several food producers that I won't buy their product if it has HFCS in it. Oroweat Bread had it in their whole grain breads. They are one of the products that have responded by removing it and now they advertise this fact.

I don't attribute our weight loss 100% to cutting out HFCS but it was an important part of the equation. If I knew then what I know now, I would never have allowed that substance into my son's diet.

I have been railing against that shit for almost a decade.Nice to see that others heard me.

Whackos buy lots of stuff.

It's bad for you!

1. Corn is more expensive
2. Corporate America is very aware of the anti HFCS pushback

I think it was Thom Hartmann's that the price of corn had gone up and was about the same price as sugar now, hence the decision to switch to sugar.

Manufacturers aren't evil. They give people exactly what they want.