Condiments Galore

Corn syrup isn't it's self an evil food
but it does have slightly higher calories.

"Corn syrup isn't it's self an evil food but it does have slightly higher calories."

iportion - I beg to differ. According to Greg Critser's excellent book "Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World", High Fructose Corn Syrup (which is found in many processed foods) is not metabolised in the usual way, but through a process called "metabolic shunting" is pretty much converted straight into body fat.

RedPanda,

I guess you didn't get the memo. The New York Times debunked that a couple of months ago (simply by making a couple of phone calls to the authors of the original, oft-quoted study):

Link

I don't know how you could have missed this if you read health and food blogs. It was entertaining to watch all the backtracking and repositioning. A whole conspiracy industry had grown up around HFCS.

That's a long list of 'ingredients'!

So glad I grew up not using dip, dressings, etc. People look at me funny when I say, "None, thanks" when offered salad dressing, but it's one small thing in a huge web of food worries that I don't have to deal with.

Seriously... a little lemon or lime and olive oil drizzled over salad is so much better than that gloppy ranch dressing.

"I don't know how you could have missed this if you read health and food blogs."

Why? It seems like a pretty insignificant detail to me. I didn't hear about it. Then again, I never heard HFCS really bad-mouthed either. I don't care about HFCS because I rarely eat anything that contains it. Maybe RedPanda's the same way.

Ryan, I don't know how much time you spend reading the ingredients on the processed foods you eat, but unless you never eat processed foods, you are probably getting a lot more HFCS than you think.
HFCS, in my humble opinion, would probably be harmless in small doses. However, most americans exist almost entirely on processed foods, and almost all foods processed in the USA have HFCS in them. Sometimes in ridiculously high amounts.

"Ryan, I don't know how much time you spend reading the ingredients on the processed foods you eat, but unless you never eat processed foods, you are probably getting a lot more HFCS than you think."

Ah, I thought someone might say that. I can list very quickly what it is that I eat (expect as treats):

* Salted & peppered grilled beef, chicken, and salmon
* Tuna (from the can)
* Raw Whole Milk and Raw Eggs
* Whey Protein
* Natural Peanut Butter
* Flaxseed Oil or Udo's Blend
* Butter
* Extra Virgin Olive Oil
* Raw Fruits
* Raw or Steamed Vegetables
* Yams (salted & peppered)
* Unseasoned Brown Rice
* Unseasoned Steel-cut Oats

There, that about does it. Note that things like bread and ketchup are not listed, as these are included in my treats. I save my sugar consumption for after weight training, when it'll help rather than hurt.

HFCS is in just about everything processed. It's cheaper than sugar and sweetens better, supposedly. I don't eat a lot of processed stuff either, so I don't eat a lot of HFCS either.

Mark - No, I didn't get the memo about HFCS, but given the massive amounts of money at stake and the power of "Big Corn" I'd take it with a large grain of rock salt.

And Ryan is right - I never eat anything with added sugar, let alone HFCS. In fact, throw in a few more varieties of seafood (we don't need to worry too much about mercury here in Australia); substitute quinoa, barley, wild rice and a few other whole grains for the brown rice; substitute skim milk, fat reduced yoghurt and low-fat buttermilk for the whole milk, and throw in some herbs and spices and my diet is pretty much the same as his.

I use ketchup without corn syrup….It seems that use of corn syrup in processed foods is similar to that of hydrogenated oils – they use it because they can get away with it.

Any food or ingredient with corn in its name is certain to be a problem, including whole corn, corn flour, cornstarch, corn gluten, corn syrup, corn meal, corn oil, and popcorn. The only known exception is corned beef, so-called because it's cured with coarse salt that resembles kernels of corn. But processed meats often contain dextrose, food starch, or corn syrup, so don't assume that corned beef is corn-free. In cooking, you can usually substitute arrowroot powder for cornstarch.

On the rare occasions I do use ketchup, I use stevia-sweetened one (no HCFS).

Have u tried the McD's SPICY Buffalo Chicken Selects Sauce? Mostly Water, vinegar, red cayenne peppers and soybean oil. NO HCFS. Though it is basically more like spicy hot sauce oil, it only has 60 calories of which is only 1g of saturated fat. Theres also their mustard which is of course HCFS free. The condiments calories are no where near the calories of their chicken selects. That is another topic.