High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Safe as sugar?

mismi, If it were me, I wouldn't sweat it too much if that's the only food "sin" you have.

I must not have any calorie intact then. I don't drink soda or anything sugary stuff. I drink coffee (without sugar or fake sweetners), water, selzter water and cranberry juice (only 100% juice).

Oh that it were C.I.

Buy a large container of low fat, organic yogurt. Scoop out a cup of yogurt into a bowl. Add in a tablespoon of your favorite all fruit jam or some maple syrup or a little honey. Add a little granola and you will never miss your processed yogurt.

I was wondering...thanks Green Witch

I'd love to do half the stuff you mentioned, but to be honest, I would be exhausted. With two kids and working full time, I can't imagine making home made spaghetti sause (I used to, but instead read the labels). I love cooking and cooking from scratch, but it is very difficult and the cooking on weekends and freezing and saving for the week is crap. I want time with my family and sleep would be nice also.

I completely understand Linkat. Fortunately, there are some really good products on the market. The more we buy them the more they will make. I buy Newman's ready made products, I eat a number of products made from Kashi, Muir Glen, and Amy's. It's really just being picky and voting with your money.

egads Linkat - I don't work and that is more than I can do. Thanks for the list Green Witch...I will have to start paying more attention.

Actually I don't like the Newmans sauce, but I do like some of the other products. I do try to read the labels and cut out whatever I can of the crap and blend in fresh where I can.

Like the lasagna I made on Sunday. I used packaged sauce (after reading labels) and used chopped up small (so the kids didn't know it was there) mushrooms and onions. I try to do some combo of fresh with jar if I need for quick dinners.

Of unfounded food hysteria?

mismi wrote :



the yoghurt we buy is NOT light yoghurt - so it does have some milk/butterfat in it .
put some fresh fruit into it if you want it a little sweet .
our yoghurt contains 7 grams (!) of butterfat per 125grams (4 ounces) - nothing to worry about . we've been eating it for about 30 years - not likely going to give it up now .
even if light yoghurt does not contain HFCS , it'll probably contain guar gum or cornstarch as a thickener - that's NOT what we want in our yoghurt .
hbg

if you keep calling me "MR." i'll have to start calling you "MADAM" - you wouldn't want that , would you ? <GRINI>

Noooooo - no madam please. Dropping the Mr. immediately

Well, there is a sodium issue. Not only for folks who have blood pressure issues but also for those of us trying to lose weight. Too much salt = water retention = less than satisfying weigh-ins. Excess salt is also nasty right before that time of the month.

But I digress.

I make my own tomato sauce. I do it in the slow cooker. Toss in ingredients that you want in your sauce (e. g. tomatoes, onions, basil and oregano, mushrooms, peppers, whatever), you probably don't need water as tomatoes are very watery, and cook for about 10 - 12 hours. It's a slow cooker so you set it and forget it. Msolga has a slow cooker topic; my actual recipe is on there.

The whole cooking from scratch thing is really key. One of the easiest ways to lose weight is to quit buying processed and premade foods and instead buy things you recognize (fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, cheeses, milk, beans, whole grains, etc.) and cook them yourself. They need not be elaborate. I'm making roasted vegetables tonight. These are cut up vegetables (I just cut up a huge amount over the weekend), tossed into an oven safe dish and tossed with a bit of balsamic vinegar and olive oil salad dressing that I made myself (I spray it on so it's a tiny amount), cooked in the oven until it cries for mercy. The main work is the chopping, and a lot of stuff can be bought pre-chopped if time is of the essence.

The vegetables will be served over whole wheat pasta (takes the same time to make as regular), with the homemade sauce, and a salad (out of a sack) on the side. Plus fruit and skim milk smoothies, and a little homemade guacamole on the salad (with my diet, I need to eat a certain amount of fat at every meal). Tonight's work because of cooking the pasta but we will eat this meal for the next two nights after this one and then the only prep work will be to reheat everything.

I wuldn't be in the least surprised if that were true in Oz, too, especially in the same demographic it is true of in the states, too.

Re the diet drinks (I mainly eschew them, too, because I don't like artificial sweeteners and salt and flavourants etc)...is that for real, that some have more calories than the normal drinks? Which ones? How do you know?

no calories in Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke. There are no carbs in either of them either...no HFCS and 55mg sodium

Classico spaghetti sauce uses neither sugar nor HFCS.

Bullseye BBQ sauce uses sugar but not HFCS.

St. Dalfour jelly has neither.

It isn't that hard to commercial products that don't have HFCS in the regular section of the supermarket so that you don't pay that ridiculous "health food" section prices.

if eating fresh, preparing fresh or other wise cooking fresh foods is too time consuming, frozen is not half bad either. the majority of the frozen veggies have nothing added to them according to the label. Some may have some salt, and the frozen fruits are scary in their list of ingredients.

No. not all frozen is organic, and not all frozen is as healthy as it could be if bought fresh, but that fresh price tag is getting amazingly high. And when it comes down to it, even if it is almost completely devoid of nutrients, I would rather hand my family a bag of frozen broccoli to eat then some other packaged nonsense.

I have a very small food budget right now and I was able ( ignoring the bags of super cheap pasta and 90/10 packaged ground beef) for under 55.00 I was able to fill our home with enough food for about 5 to 6 days and eating mostly veggies and grains.
Rice , cheap brown , tofu, beef, frozen veggies, lean sausage, red beans, black beans, garbanzos, etc..
Most are not high priced "organic" brands. But store brands with a small list of additives.. if there are any at all. In fact, the bags of beans have " red beans, salt" as what they contain.
I can deal with that. I will just omit any salt a recipie calls for when making them.
The veggies... same thing. And the good thing about all of this stuff is that, for example, dinner can be made with hot water if Im pressed for time.
Slice up the sausage, cook it on medium low heat with no oils, put what veggies I need in a big bowl and run some hot water over them until they are thawed and have some rice in the steamer.
Voila. Dinner. Super cheap, low fat, salt free-ish, heavy veggies, lean protien.
30 minutes of cook time, most spent sitting on my ass.

Yep. Dried beans are a seriously economical food. A 1-lb. bag is a buck here -- less if it's on special -- and it's more than enough for three days if we add a few extras (some onion, tomato and a little chicken fat and ground pepper). Pair that with salad and some guacamole or cheese, skim milk for a beverage, fruit for dessert, and you have a HUGE meal that hits all nutritional stops.

Or just have 'em alone, though you'd need some fat and probably some complementary protein/fiber (e. g. the classic beans and rice combo).

Shopping the middle of the store aisles means additives (usually). Shopping the middle shelves of an aisle usually means higher prices. So only shop the perimeter, and only the topmost and bottommost shelves, and venture into the center for only a few things.

For us, that means dairy, fish, chicken and produce. Head only a foot into a few of the middle aisles for rice, beans and a few cereals (Cheerios or oatmeal), plus a few helpful extras like tortillas and pizza shells, canned chicken broth (I do make my own but this is fine if you get the low salt variety) or canned low-salt/no-salt tomatoes, plus whole wheat pasta and nuts. That comprises the vast majority of what we eat, plus spices. I've lost 86 lbs. on that combination, and RP has lost, I think, a good 20 or so and he's not even trying. So what does that say about the typical American diet?

I do that - and I don't think it's conscious. I never thought of it before - but I start at the back and work my way around dipping into the aisles as I pass for what I need. Canned tomatoes, Taco kits, marshmallows (there's another sin C.I.), flour, sugar - whatever. We keep a 5lb bag of sugar for months - it's mosty used for sweet iced tea. My husband uses organic turbanado sugar in his coffee.

We have several food sins though - especially when it comes to the weekends. Chips and dips, cokes. beer, hotdogs- football game food. Probably need to rethink that as well.