Moved from the Budget Board: anyone else eliminating High Fructose Corn Syrup

[wowsmom]

We also went looking for peanut butter without HFCS or any oil mutated by hydrogen and found 3-all in small jars and expensive.

Whole Foods 365 Brand of natural peanut butter is delicious and less expensive than anything you'd find at the grocery store.

 

[Rozzie]

Okay, count me in. I am a nurse, and it scares the begeebs out of me the epidemic of Type II Diabetes. People in their 30s, with open heart history, having strokes. There has got to be something, and I am experimenting, and found this thread just in time. I have always been high on "diet" food, and it has knocked me over the amount of HFCS in it all. Wow.

My DH and I both need to drop some weight. Me 20lbs, him 40lbs. I decided instead of diet food, we are going to go natural for a while and see if we can tell a difference. I have slowly been introducing certain organic things. But I am going to get serious now, and just see if I do it as much as we can, and see where we end up. We both have been running, and quit buying sodas for a month now. No more diet or regular. I can't drink a regular soda, it is so sweet it freaks me out. I haven't had one in 10 years after I kicked a really bad Coke habit. (drink that is ) We started running for our health, not to lose weight goal, as that has never worked for us. Maybe now to eat to be healthier will work, I so want to be committed to this.

No Whole Foods, no Trader Joe's here. Nothing except WalMart and WinnDixie. I was pleased yesterday that Walmart has some more organic things, (I haven't shopped there in half a year, usually WinnDixie) There is a organic store up the road, $$$ as it does not buy in bulk, but we are going to check it out some more. I have been doing Stevia in my coffee instead of Splenda for a few months, and no more migraines. Amazing! I even been buying Organic all natural dog food, and wow, their coats look great, and they eat less! No fillers, mmmm, maybe this will happen with me?? LOL.

Thanks for this thread, we are going to WDW in 2 weeks or more, so that week I think it will be verrrrrry hard to be HFCS free. I will have a Dole Whip, just one for a week. Oh yeah, F&W. Mmm. That will be hard!

 

[Befferk]

Whole Foods 365 Brand of natural peanut butter is delicious and less expensive than anything you'd find at the grocery store.

I have notice that organic peanut butter is very expensive. Surprisingly, my local grocery store (County Market) has a store brand that is all natural. While it's not organic, it is way better than the brands that have all the additives, and it's cheap!

 

[mytwotinks]

I've been avoiding the HFCS, Hydrogenated oils, and pretty much any preservative and artificial coloring for a couple of years now. Every once in a while I get overwhelmed and sick of all of the extra work and buy a bunch of convenience food, but then when I see all of that "junk" in my cabiniet the guilt always gets to me. Sooooo........ we get through all the junk, and then start all over again with the good stuff.

I doubt that I'll ever get to the point where I don't let my girls get a soda with their Happy meals or monitor what they eat at their friend's houses, but if I can just be careful about what we eat at home on a daily basis I figure that puts us ahead of the game.

I am on the lookout for that Texas, Dr. Pepper!!!! That is my vice. If I could find Dr. Pepper with sugar, I could probably give up the HFCS for good!

 

[Princess_Michelle]

I have my 12yo son reading labels for it now. He's amazed how often he finds it. We're off to Whole Foods for some juice and soda so he can drink them once in a while. BTW, I found a new Sara Lee bread that does not use HFCS to sweeten, it's the high fiber whole wheat and multi-grain variety. We also went looking for peanut butter without HFCS or any oil mutated by hydrogen and found 3-all in small jars and expensive. I told him he was worth it. Try finding any kind of jam(no jelly due to gelatin) without it. We went for the Polander and an all fruit brand. Again, expensive. I explained childhood obesity and Type II diabetes increases to him. We also talked about his brain and possible cancer causes. I don't want to make him paranoid but he needs to know.

I buy Skippy Natural!! The ingredients are Roasted Peanuts, sugar, palm oil, salt. I can find it at all my grocery stores, right in there with the
rest of the Skippy stuff. They have chunky and creamy and it tastes the exact same as all the others, you don't even have to stir it or keep it in the fridge and it's the same price as all the others

 

[Princess_Michelle]

Watch out for worn out tupperware. If it has wear and tear and scratches it is leaking PCB's (known cancer causing agent) into your foods. Especially when you use it to microwave food or if you store acidic food in it such as tomato sauce.
We try to store everything in glass with plasic lids that do not touch the food. Crate and Barrel has lots of these containers at thier outlet.

Thanks for the info. Luckily, all my tupperware is new, I just started buying in the last two years. Also, we got rid ofthe cancerwave a few months ago.

 

[meandtheguys2]

We try to store everything in glass with plasic lids that do not touch the food. Crate and Barrel has lots of these containers at thier outlet.

Mason jars, and plastic lids sold at the hardware store do the trick in our home.

 

[GlennandAnn]

This is a really great thread, thanks OP for starting it. It's inspiring for me to read that I am not the only one who has decided to put the kibosh on as much HFCS as I can. It really is scary- that stuff is everywhere when you start reading labels. I guess the hard thing for me is getting my kids over that hump of "this isn't our regular brand of bread (or whatever) and I don't like it". I have already cut out lots of things that we normally ate or drank that contained HFCS, not to mention trying (and pretty much succeeding) to cut out all trans fats.

Ann

 

[wowsmom]

I have notice that organic peanut butter is very expensive. Surprisingly, my local grocery store (County Market) has a store brand that is all natural. While it's not organic, it is way better than the brands that have all the additives, and it's cheap!

The Whole Foods 365 isn't organic. I haven't gotten any in a while, but last time I think I paid $2.99 for an 18 oz jar. The natural pbs at my local Ralph's or Pavilions tend to run at least $3.29 (and sometimes more)...but then I live in an expensive area.

I noticed another poster mentioning Skippy Natural. It has palm oil in it, which I think I remember hearing is high in saturated fat.

 

[IluvKingLouis]

I found some HFCS free jams at Costplus World market. They have some from Austria and Switzerland. They ran about 3.99 for for a 16oz jar.

I also noticed a lot of chocolates and candies from Germany were also free of the stuff, but I'm trying hard to avoid empty calories so I'll have to try that out at another time.

 

[Rozzie]

I don't know if this link has been posted, I apologize in advance if it has. I am making a grocery list now.

http://www.highfructosehigh.com/nohfcs.htm

 

[lillygator]

wow, this is really interesting stuff. I am going to try and introduce this in our household.

 

[Princess_Michelle]

I just took a few minutes to e-mail a few companies to inform them that I wouldn't buy their products anymore b/c of HFCS and/or hygrogenated oils. You can reach them by finding the "contact us" button, somewhere on their websites. I know they prolly don't care about little 'ole me, but if we all did it, it might make a dent The few I did were Nabisco (Wheat Thins, Oreos, Graham Crackers), Canada dry (Ginger Ale), and Kelloggs (Nutri Grain Bars).

 

[oscarmama]

Ooh. Interesting thread! I haven't been on the DIS much lately, but HFCS is in the upper parts of my mind almost all the time.

I have insulin resistance and DH has a corn sensitivity. For YEARS he always has had what he calls "Grumbly tummy." For a while we thought it was a lactose problem, but we cut that out and didn't find it helped. We thought it was IBS and a bunch of other things. Finally, I suggested we try cutting out HFCS and it has helped EMENSELY. I cook from scratch. We've both lost weight, but that could be for a number of reasons.

For the record, we also cut out maltodextrin (corn syrup solids), regular corn syrup and corn starch/modified food starch (almost always corn).



Here's a typical shopping list beyond the produce, cheese and meat cases:

Fage plain greek style yogurt (add jam, whole fruit or peanut butter to it)
Skippy natural or Meijer organic peanut butter (Jif is OK, too, but is hydrogenated-another no no for us)
Cascadian Farms Concord Grape jelly
100% whole wheat bread (I think it's pepperidge farms natural grains, but not sure)
Amy's Organic Barbecue sauces/ketchup
Annie's Salad dressings (Cowgirl Ranch and Pizza pie are my faves)
Nature Valley Granola bars (ONLY the old fashioned crunchy kind in the green box)
Cheerios
Ragu Pizza Sauce
Newman's Own Sockarooni pasta sauce
Lyle's Golden Syrup (like corn syrup, but made from cane sugar)
Meijer Organic Double Os (store brand oreos)
Meijer Organic Ice Cream
Haagen Daas Vanilla Ice Cream
Hormel Natural deli ham
Hellman's mayonaise
Reeses peanut butter cups
Hershey's whole bean chocolate bars

A few other notes: We skip preshredded cheese because the anticlumping agents are usually corn starch based. I shred my own now. Many lunch meats have some corn derivitive in them, so I stick to the Hormel natural. The darned stuff is in SO MUCH!

Overall, we do pretty well. The key for us is to remember that things like peanut butter cups are a treat, not a snack. (not used to fulfill hunger, eaten just for enjoyment after hunger is mostly filled) DH will sometimes choose to eat something he knows will upset his stomach, but he always regrets it!

 

[Miss Jasmine]

I tried fage for the first time this week. It was interesting. I know it's better but the consistency I threw some Bear Naked Fit granola in it, next time I will try some fruit.

 

[JoiseyMom]

I have my 12yo son reading labels for it now. He's amazed how often he finds it. We're off to Whole Foods for some juice and soda so he can drink them once in a while. BTW, I found a new Sara Lee bread that does not use HFCS to sweeten, it's the high fiber whole wheat and multi-grain variety. We also went looking for peanut butter without HFCS or any oil mutated by hydrogen and found 3-all in small jars and expensive. I told him he was worth it. Try finding any kind of jam(no jelly due to gelatin) without it. We went for the Polander and an all fruit brand. Again, expensive. I explained childhood obesity and Type II diabetes increases to him. We also talked about his brain and possible cancer causes. I don't want to make him paranoid but he needs to know.

We switched to the organic Kirkland brand of PB from Costco. Kids like it.

 

[KT27]

What do you guys think of making a "DIS" list of HFCS free foods? I would be glad to type it up and email it out to anyone that wanted it. I would just need some input from all of you. This might help to make shopping trips easier and share products that others might not be aware of.

I made a seperate email account just for this purpose. So please email me your food finds, grocery lists of all the HFCS-Free food you can think of.

Email it to HFCSFREE@gmail.com

As soon as I have the list done I will send it out or post it on the thread.

 

[Ashley Kees]

Such a good idea! This week DH and I decided to go ahead and cut out both HFCS and Hydrogenated oils. Thought jelly was going to be a (financial) problem, but lo and behold, Kroger brand sugar-free strawberry preserves are only .2 cents per ounce more expensive than the regular kind and are free of both!!

 

[Jen72386]

i found this "soda" that is hfcs free

"Unlike most major brands of sodas that are made from highly refined and processed ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, Pop Soda's are created with freshly squeezed fruit juices, herbal infusions, pure cane sugar, and natural extracts."

http://www.mightyfoods.com/archives/2006/06/all_natural_microbrew_sodas.html

 

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

What do you guys think of making a "DIS" list of HFCS free foods? I would be glad to type it up and email it out to anyone that wanted it. I would just need some input from all of you. This might help to make shopping trips easier and share products that others might not be aware of.

I made a seperate email account just for this purpose. So please email me your food finds, grocery lists of all the HFCS-Free food you can think of.

Email it to HFCSFREE@gmail.com

As soon as I have the list done I will send it out or post it on the thread.

Thank you!!!! That would be great!