Eat Arkansas

Just not as tasty as sugar, especially in soft drinks. Muddies the flavor of a cola drink. Too "soft" in its mouthfeel, cushioning the slight medicinal zing of Coke and the carbonation.

And my God, it's everywhere, in things that should not be sweet in any shape, form, or fashion. Salad dressings, which should NOT HAVE SUGAR except in rare cases. Salsas: ditto. Everything.

It's causing us to develop a sweet tooth in dishes that should not be sweetened at all, so that people are coming to expect sweet salad dressings, sweet salsa, sweet everything.

My daughter-in-law is on an anti-fructose binge. I'm not exactly sure why...just trust her information process and my experience. (Any food product that's highly processed and made in a 'one size fits all' form...is suspect for several reasons.) But as you said, muddling, it's in EVERYTHING. Can't find a good commercial bread without it...if y'all know of one the info would be greatly appreciated. Sure good bakeries have some, but mostly it's Kroger for me and some chain in Fayetteville for her.

Hope you're able to venture out tomorrow, kat. It'll be one of many momma/daughter milestones...yeah!

I believe the research I've read that indicates HFC doesn't trip the satiety switch the same way that sugar does. I haven't had more than a handful of soft drinks in a few years and most of those were diet (not that Splenda and Aspartame are safe).

I try to read labels and if something has no need of a sweetener, yet contains HFC, it stays on the shelf. Sugar in a non-sweet food gets a careful consideration. I'm not perfect at it, but I do try.

how about a mango lassi and some saag paneer instead of talking about this rubbish? kat? what say YOU??? travel safely with that lil one okay? have fun!

Research for high fructose corn syrup is mixed. There are some studies that say it's bad for you. I don't think anybody has figured it all out.

The problem with HFS is that it is in EVERYTHING! Bread, pasta sauce, salsa, my Heart Smart cereal, etc. So eating it in moderation if you don't cook everything from scratch (or a whole lot from scratch) is pretty much impossible.

High fructose corn syrup also leaves a larger carbon footprint than other types of sugar. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/06/AR2008030603294.html

Ah, kikki, will do -- as soon as I am released from being housebound. If the roads are clear enough, I may get clearance tomorrow.

I remember reading something about HFCS and heart disease a while back. Can't recall what the association was. This was in addition to the obvious obesity relationship.

I have managed to almost completely avoid it. I never drink sweetened drinks except for 100% juice. No margarita mixes or lemonaid unless I make it myself. Muddling, salad dressing is very easy to make, and you'll never buy a bottle again after making your own. For bottled salsa, I recommend Arriba, no sugar whatsoever.

HFCS is a big topic in Michael Pollen's brilliant book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." He emphasizes that corn in general -not just HFCS- has become a grossly disproportionate part of our diet. He looks at a fast food meal, considering the food chains that produced it:

"In order of diminishing corniness, this is how the laboratory measured our meal: soda (100% corn), milk shake (78% corn), salad dressing (65% corn), chicken nuggets (56% corn), cheeseburger (52% corn), french fries (23% corn). What in the eyes of an omnivore looks like a meal of impressive variety, when viewed through the eyes of the mass spectrometer, to be the meal of a far more specialized kind of eater. But then this is what the industrial eater has become: corn's koala."
page 117 of Omnivore's Dilemma
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200823/

This is a very thought-provoking book- you'll never look at corn the same way again. The first chapter can be read online at: http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php

Zelda, you're right about HFC being in bread. And what puzzles me is, why on earth do folks think they need any sweetening in bread at all?

For years, I baked my own bread using a sourdough starter I began with wild yeast, and all I ever put into the bread was flour, salt, water, and the leavening. It was such good bread, with the taste of wheat predominating, as it should.

You're right, Pollen, I much prefer homemade salad dressing to any store-bought. I usually just mix wine vinegar, a clove of smashed garlic, a dollop of prepared mustard (brown) or a bit of dried mustard, and olive oil. I like the proportions to be about two thirds as much oil as vinegar.

But increasingly, in restaurants, they give you those horrible "raspberry" vinaigrettes and such-like stuff full of HFC (when you ask for vinaigrette). And you can't travel in the Midwest and order salad without getting a big dose of cloyingly sweet dressing atop it.

I hadn't thought about the carbon footprint problem, but you're right about that, too, Melissa, and that's an important concern. I seem to recall that Michael Pollan says in his latest book that we are now the most corn-fed nation on earth, largely due to HFC, which is produced using fertilizer made of petroleum, and high-tech machines run on gasoline.

I remember growing up that corn was not eaten for sweetness, anyway, but for corn flavor. We preferred field corn, which my mother would buy from farmers right out of their fields, so she could rush home, cut it off the cob, and fry. Heaven--but a wonderful old dish now impossible to replicate, since corn is bred to be sweet now!

Muddling, you should be able to find "field" corn somewhere, as that is typically what is grown agriculturally. This is the type of corn grown for feed and corn meal. Sweet corn is picked when the kernals are in the "milk" stage. If left on the stalks too long, the sugars turn to starch and it's no good for corn on the cob. Field corn is left to mature to the dry stage, but I'm assuming that your mom bought it in the milk stage. This is they type of corn which is used for just about everything other than corn on the cob.

Sweet corn has been bred lately to be super sweet. I prefer the older varieties such as golden bantam or my favourite, silver queen.

Pollen, unless my memory is deceiving me, at one time field corn (unripe, of course) was the most usual "eating" corn for sale in Arkansas. That, at least, is my memory from childhood.

But now it's impossible to find--for sale in stores and markets, as eating corn, that is.

We preferred it because it had real corn taste. In my childhood, the point of corn wasn't to be sweet. It was to taste like corn.

And yes, you're right, my mother bought it right from the fields when she could get it because it was fresh and milky, and thus made better fried corn. In fact, she claimed you couldn't make fried corn with corn bought from the grocery store, because the milk had begun to dry up as the sugar converted to starch.

Fried corn depends on the corn's milkiness, since you cut off the top of each kernel and then "milk" what's left into the skillet. Into which you've put butter and bacon grease, which are heated and ready to receive the delicious, corn-tasting, and not sweet corn.

To which you then add perhaps a bit of cream or whole milk, salt, lots of black pepper. And fry slowly until it gets brown and crusty on bottom. At which point, you scrape that into the mix and let it happen again.

And then you eat the food of the gods with sweet iced tea and fresh sliced tomatoes. It's a dish you can no longer make easily, since its ingredients have vanished, and people have been seduced into thinking the point of corn is to taste sweet rather than of corn!

If you're an '0' blood type then corn and its byproducts are not favorable to your system.

For A types it's ok. For type 'B' it is to avoid.

But the majority of us are type '0'. Avoid it if in doubt.

My dark chocolates contain sugar.
see "Eat Right 4 Your Type"
.

eLwood, I didn't know about the relationship between blood type and corn. I'm a type A, but I still avoid HFSC. Michael Pollan suggests in his book, In Defense of Food, to eat things that your great-grandmother would recognize. I think that's a good general rule. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had a mother who refused to buy processed food, so to this day I don't drink sodas or juices, and I don't eat fast food. Better for your health, better for carbon footprints, and best of all, better for your wallet. Click on my name for an easy bread recipe that requires no kneading.

I think Typepad is still weird about linking URL. Anyway, here it is.

I also like to make my own bread, or buy the 8 grain from Boulevard. But, in response to Zelda's earlier question, in a pinch when I have to get grocery store bread, the Nature's Own Honey 7 Grain is the one I've found with the most normal ingredients: whole wheat, no whey, and no HFCS. It does contain honey and brown sugar, but I like my bread a little bit sweet. God willing, it'll link on my blue name.

The satiety argument is the one I have heard the longest and with the most support - you don't have your sweet pleasure switch flipped as long or as well with the fake stuff.

I am ambivalent on it. The research is mixed. I avoid it just because it is a sign of extra processing of the food.

Though I love everything corn based, a dozen years ago I found out that I'm allergic to anything with corn. Therefore, I opt for corn starch to be substituted with potato starch and corn syrup, high fructose or otherwise be eliminated from prepared foods.
One never realizes to what extent high fructose corn syrup is used until you start reading the labels. Breakfast cereals are notorious for using HFCS.
But how I wold love to sit down to corn on the cob or a big bowl of popcorn. I can almost taste it!