It’s been a while since I posted to my blog, though I did write up a number of reviews for the Hugo nominations which you can read here.
After all that reading and reviewing, I thought I’d touch on something a little closer to home. Namely, how this aging body decided it had enough with my diet.
However, this story starts a long time ago when I was in grade school and used to skip breakfast rather than risk having to ask my third period math teacher if I could go to the bathroom. She was ancient to my young eyes and wore a full habit which thoroughly intimidated me. It would be many, many years before I made the connection between pancakes and syrup, and my third period fears.
Funny thing happens when you get old (or maybe not so funny); your body develops allergies or simply rebels at certain foods and you’re left trying to figure out WTF. I first noticed a problem with my birthday cake when my body rejected the icing. Pillsbury white icing is so yummy, but the lower bits weren’t impressed. Then it was my beloved Pop-Tarts. And the Log Cabin Maple Syrup. What did they all have in common? High fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
I thought, fine, I’ll just skip eating the foods that have it, including giving up my soda (sob!). Except, this stuff in EVERYTHING from ketchup to food coloring. Surprise!
So I went digging for alternatives:
I’ve found that organic means real sugar instead of HFCS. And the home made buttercream frosting is really yummy. With the organic food coloring I can write Happy Birthday in color on the hubby’s cake without any bodily objections.
The plus side of ditching all HFCS products is that I no longer have sharp hunger pains that made me eat more than I need and I’ve switched to eating actual fruit (oranges, peaches, nectarines) and mini-carrots when I’m in a snacky mood and drinking mostly water. I toss in a few beers and wine here and there but none of that has HFCS either. As a result, I’m losing weight and feeling better than I have in years. No fad diets, just ditching HFCS.
All this makes me wonder if the prevalence of HFCS is one of the reasons we have an obesity problem in this country. I never gave it a moment’s thought until my body said heck no and I found out how common it is. I already knew eating healthier cost more money ($2.00 for a single orange!!) but this seems really bad. Enough so that I thought I’d share.