No more HFCS in Rice Krispies!!

[C.Ann]

Go for it, I'm not trying to stop you. I honestly couldn't possibly care less about what you eat, lady. Smoke too, do it up. My problem is with two issues - the first being that the general public is being misled into believing that HFCS and cane sugar are basically the same thing, the second being that sugar of any kind is in everything and nearly inescapable. HFCS is the second or third ingredient in canned tomato soup. In soup. Something that most people assume is healthy. It's sugar soup. That's beyond messed up. It's not "just calories" or carbs, all the point and exchange systems make people lazy and fat. People need to be educated on what they should eat and WHY they should eat it.
C.Ann, I know that you're thin and your doctor wants you to gain weight, but if you do that the wrong way you're going to end up being a 100 pound diabetic with heart disease and everyone will pretend they have no idea how that happened.

Alrighty then.. Thanks for your opinion - I think..

 

[Magic Mom]

Really? Ok... People talk about wanting it banned, and how smoking was advertised and without health warnings, and how heavy lobbying influences decisions. Does someone have to actually say government? Is this like a word association game? Along with the fact that this topic has come up before at least a billion times and the government has been mentioned over and over on those threads, I didn't think I needed to post a spread sheet for people to be able to piece my idea together.

Yes really. When you roll your eyes and tell people to just keep believing what the government tells you when no one mentioned any government study, I'm going to point out that no one said anything about the government. I personally have no idea what the official government stance on HFCS is. I imagine I could find conflicting comments from different agencies considering the current controversy.

BTW, yes, please pull out your spread sheet documenting the DIS opinions on HFCS for all of us. That would be very entertaining I'm sure.

 

[MzDiz]

Alrighty then.. Thanks for your opinion - I think..

Haha, sorry I jumped down your throat, I didn't mean to go all angry on you. It's just one of my hot button issues and feeding people is what I went to school for.

No spreadsheets, MM, I'm too crabby to bicker pointlessly. Maybe I'll go make some tea...

 

[C.Ann]

Haha, sorry I jumped down your throat, I didn't mean to go all angry on you. It's just one of my hot button issues and feeding people is what I went to school for....

Apology accepted.. Enjoy your tea..

 

[SarahandPaul]

Really? Ok... People talk about wanting it banned, and how smoking was advertised and without health warnings, and how heavy lobbying influences decisions. Does someone have to actually say government? Is this like a word association game? Along with the fact that this topic has come up before at least a billion times and the government has been mentioned over and over on those threads, I didn't think I needed to post a spread sheet for people to be able to piece my idea together.

You mean the same government who is now shoving the idea of man made global warming down our throats or the one who now talks about trying to keep everyone from smoking but then complain when their cigarette tax revenue takes a hit.

-Paul

 

[JoiseyMom]

You mean the same government who is now shoving the idea of man made global warming down our throats or the one who now talks about trying to keep everyone from smoking but then complain when their cigarette tax revenue takes a hit.

-Paul

Can we please keep this thread on point and not get closed because of gov't talk.

Thanks!!

 

[Colleen27]

the first being that the general public is being misled into believing that HFCS and cane sugar are basically the same thing, the second being that sugar of any kind is in everything and nearly inescapable. HFCS is the second or third ingredient in canned tomato soup. In soup. Something that most people assume is healthy. It's sugar soup.

That second factor is where I believe the biggest problem with HFCS lies; it isn't just used in products that need to be sweetened. It is added because of its preservative/shelf stabilization properties, or to make traditionally unsweet products more appealing, or to add appeal when other demonized ingredients are removed (most "fat free" products use a combination of sweeteners and other artificial products to "replace" the flavor and texture that the fat would provide naturally). So it really isn't a question of HFCS in place of cane sugar; it is often used in places where sugar wouldn't be used or used in greater quantities than natural sweeteners/flavors.

 

[LiberalPrincess]

Go for it, I'm not trying to stop you. I honestly couldn't possibly care less about what you eat, lady. Smoke too, do it up. My problem is with two issues - the first being that the general public is being misled into believing that HFCS and cane sugar are basically the same thing, the second being that sugar of any kind is in everything and nearly inescapable. HFCS is the second or third ingredient in canned tomato soup. In soup. Something that most people assume is healthy. It's sugar soup. That's beyond messed up. It's not "just calories" or carbs, all the point and exchange systems make people lazy and fat. People need to be educated on what they should eat and WHY they should eat it.
C.Ann, I know that you're thin and your doctor wants you to gain weight, but if you do that the wrong way you're going to end up being a 100 pound diabetic with heart disease and everyone will pretend they have no idea how that happened.

Seriously, because canned soup is supposed to be healthy? Really? What exactly do you think makes it have such a long shelf life? Pixie dust? My guess would be a lot more chemicals than HFCS involves. HFCS and sugar are basically the same thing. Just a different approach to getting there. Sugar and HFCS share the same biochemistry. The main difference is that HFCS is manufactured from corn syrup (primarily glucose), which undergoes enzymatic processing increasing the fructose content and then mixed with glucose. Pure sugar is also composed of glucose and fructose but in marginally different concentrations. Both have no nutrients. They are both bad for you when not used in moderation. But making connections to higher instances of diabetes and obesity being attributed to HCFS versus sugar is not there to be seen.

 

[tvguy]

No it grew in popularity because it is cheaper, due in large part to our system of agricultural subsidies. Most people, given the opportunity for an apples-to-apples comparison, prefer the original cane sugar products, which is why you now find grocery stores even here in Michigan carrying imported from Mexico, sugar-sweetened Coke!

It is changing back because of consumer demand, which is only partially related to the relative health merits. Some of the concern regarding HFCS is political (our tax dollars plumping up huge companies' profit margins) and some is environmental (with much of the commodity corn planted in this country being genetically modified now, which leads to huge increases in the use of herbicides).

It certainly was cheaper once all the subsidies kicked in, it was actually twice as expensive to start with. Pepsi and Mountain Dew just ended a campaign of selling "throwback" versions of their soda with cane sugar. They're back to corn syrup now.

 

[DVCLiz]

This is chemical??? Crushing, Evaporation and Boiling??

Evaporation
The factory can clean up the juice quite easily with slaked lime (a relative of chalk) which settles out a lot of the dirt so that it can be sent back to the fields. Once this is done, the juice is thickened up into a syrup by boiling off the water using steam in a process called evaporation. Sometimes the syrup is cleaned up again but more often it just goes on to the crystal-making step without any more cleaning. The evaporation is undertaken in order to improve the energy efficiency of the factory.

Not much of one; we made table sugar from cane sugar in elementary school, when a classmate brought sugar cane in from a family trip to Brazil, and we've made table sugar from beets in my own kitchen as a sort of science experiment with my kids because sugar beets are a major crop in our area. It is just boiling and evaporation, basic "states of matter" lessons really, with no need for added chemicals or complicated processing.

From Wikipedia: Calcium hydroxide, traditionally called slaked lime, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca(OH)2. It is a colourless crystal or white powder and is obtained when calcium oxide (called lime or quicklime) is mixed, or "slaked" with water. It has many names including hydrated lime, builders lime, slack lime, cal, or pickling lime. It is of low toxicity and enjoys many applications.

My point was that MANY things are chemical in nature - just because something undergoes a "chemical process" doesn't mean you are adding poison to the baby food.

 

[Planogirl]

Actually, boiling things and so on can cause chemical reactions or so I learned in school. I guess the difference is when you add chemicals to change something which seems to happen less with sugar. Except for that slaked lime stuff at least.

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

I avoid foods with HFCS because it makes me feel not myself, like something is not right in my body. I don't believe its poison though and I dont believe it should be taken off the market. I just recognize that I'm sensitive to it for some reason so don't use it. But since I'm sensitive to it I won't be letting my future children ingest it just in case they take after me.

 

[bumbershoot]

Pepsi and Mountain Dew just ended a campaign of selling "throwback" versions of their soda with cane sugar. They're back to corn syrup now.

Not sure they are over; I only recently bought a throwback pepsi, just to support it! The Pepsis tasted GOOD, just like they used to. Not the gulpable nonsense that is sold now, but a sipping drink.

 

[bumbershoot]

Gotta go with you on this one.. My doctors are so desperate for me to gain even a pound, they have advised me to eat everything and anything..(

Just *please* be careful with it. The 2 years prior to DH being diagnosed with diabetes (which is now entirely controlled with diet and exercise, and he does NOT eat "diet" foods, he just monitors what he eats) were the 2 years when he was eating LOTS of HFCS and related things. The Weight Watchers meals he was eating once or twice a day have it in them [or *had*, not sure if they've changed] (and if not that, then corn syrup, which he and DS also cannot have), and he was eating them to control his intake without having to *really* control his intake.

When everything hit the fan with him, we spent a LOT of time thinking back to what he was eating between the surprisingly perfect blood sugar readings he always got to the 500 glucose reading he got Sept '08, and HFCS was everywhere in his diet.

You and my husband have opposite problems, but his mom is a very very small woman, and she has blood sugar problems too. When she isn't eating Korean food, she eats absolute cruddy American food, and I've watched her eat something that I knew had HFCS in it, and not only watched her suddenly have a massive, nearly violent, screaming tantrum, but also got the blood sugar reading verified, as she was in the hospital in the time.

So please please be careful with how you raise your weight, if that's what you choose to do.

So is this one of those "slippery slopes" that you're okay with?

I'm not.. If you, your DH, and/or your son have issues with HFCS, it's up to you to avoid purchasing items that contain it.. Just like the whole peanut butter allergy thing - that other parents are successfully dealing with.. I don't think I've heard any of those parents suggesting that pb be taken out of everything just because their own child has an allergy to it..

Once I state my peace, if I have nothing else to say, I don't go back to threads, so while it's interesting that you're trying to bring up the Amazon thread, it makes no sense to me, b/c I don't know what you had to say to me after. And it doesn't make a bit of sense in the context of this thread.

Did you see in ANY part of my post that I want it banned? Anywhere in my post? Nope.

But that doesn't mean that I won't talk about my son's and my husband's experiences with it (MIL's as well). We even have a recent experience with it, caused b/c I wasn't thinking and bought some bread at Great Harvest.

See, the stupid thing about the HFCS industry changing the name is that there *already is* a product known as "corn sugar". And it's NOT made like HFCS. So I saw that on the label and thought they meant the other corn sugar, and we bought it. And we had the WORST weekend we'd had in a long, long time. DS was 95% out of control, having tantrums everywhere, freaking out. Not violent, but we were reminding him over and over that he needed to control himself, and he can do so much better at 6 than at 3 when I first figured it out. DH was in a nasty grouchy grumpy overreacting mood. I just got to play mediator the whole weekend. Sunday night I took a look at the "cinnamon bread" and nearly died when I realized the mistake I had made. Called Great Harvest, the girl on the phone knew exactly what it was, said it was HFCS and the owners of that franchise were using the other word b/c they don't want it to be obvious, and they are using HFCS b/c it's cheaper than honey. I called the main company, and they had me talk to their nutritionist, who was great to talk to. They discourage their franchise owners to not use it, but ultimately have no control. It was SO disappointing, and we had to throw away half of a $5 loaf of bread... The only thing that saved that weekend was that it had cinnamon in it, and cinnamon lowers the effects of sugars in DH, and possibly in DS too.


I don't want it *banned*, but I want people to listen to the actual, real experiences of others, notice things in their own families, and realize that it's not benign in many people. And I would like it if companies wouldn't HIDE it, so that mistakes like I made couldn't happen.

I believe around Passove Coke makes a kosher for Passover Coke that is made with real sugar. I know a lot of non Jewish people in my area love shopping for coke at Passover time. I heard Pepsi has also come up with one but never seen it. I don't drink regular coke but my dh loves the Passover type.

I've looked for it, but our stores don't go that "far" with their kosher for Passover sections.

Which is why I have been buying cereal, grape jelly and other items at Trader Joes.

TO those who are worried it won't taste the same or snap, crackle, pop, is just stupid. It was made this way originally, so they are going back to the original recipe, which is how most of us ate it as kids!

Be careful with TJs. They still have it in some of their things. I want to feel safe at TJs, but I don't.

And yep, that's what I was trying to say earlier, but you said it better.

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

It certainly was cheaper once all the subsidies kicked in, it was actually twice as expensive to start with. Pepsi and Mountain Dew just ended a campaign of selling "throwback" versions of their soda with cane sugar. They're back to corn syrup now.

I hope you are wrong about the "campaign" being over! Did you read that?
The reason I am asking is because they have been bringing them out for a short time every couple months - they have done so for the past year or so.. It was known that they would do so again at the end of summer. Do you know for sure that this was the last time they plan to do this?

In fact, Sierra Mist has brought out a "natural" version in both regular and cranberry (yay! - my favorite, especially this time of year!). Those are on the shelf all the time.

One problem I see with sales of these products: people who are likely to go for these alternatives are probably more likely to limit their consumption of soda to begin with! I drink very little soda and limit my DD's. When we do have soda - it is HFCS free.

I believe we may just be seeing the studies come out showing the harm in HFCS - there was recently a good study that I believe was done at Harvard. There may be more to come.

I do believe it was added - and is now being replaced with real sugar due to what is cheaper (vs. public demand) - that is always the way it is done: based on the bottom line!!!!

 

[Deb in IA]

WRONG!! There is a difference. HFCS is processed, it goes through a chemical process to be used. Cane sugar, is cane sugar.

Unless you are chewing on raw sugar cane stalks, the sugar you are eating is just as processed as corn sugar.

I would love for HFCS to be banned in the US the way it is in other countries!!

I'd like to know which countries you think HFCS is banned in too.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

Hey, somewhat related-- have any of you noticed how good the Pepsi "throwback" tastes since it has sugar instead of HFCS? It just tastes that much better, and I'm not a huge soda drinker anymore. I wish they didn't end it, I should have stockpiled.

Hunt's also has "no HFCS" ketchup, I like it SO much more. It just testes better.

 

[Carnie]

I love HFCS.

I would bathe it in.

If it was a man, I'd marry it.

You can't make Golden Grahams S'Mores without it.

 

[DVCLiz]

I love HFCS.

I would bathe it in.

If it was a man, I'd marry it.

You can't make Golden Grahams S'Mores withot it.

 

[ICF]

Time for me to give up Rice Krispies. If they taste different, it will be the last time I buy them!

agreed