Sugar, honey, sweet…

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been in the news a lot lately, including the not-so-surprising revelation just last week that it is worse for your health than plain old sugar.

HFCS is bad stuff, make no mistake about it.  Research is showing that it has a number of detrimental affects on humans, including increasing the risk of obesity, diabetes, hyperactivity, hypertension, and more.  HFCS can mess up your body in ways you never thought possible.  Stay away from the stuff.

HFCS is a sneaky insidious ingredient that shows up in pretty much every food produced, even when you wouldn’t expect it.  I am hyper-vigilant about not bringing food with HFCS into my house, yet a search of my pantry and fridge a few minutes ago showed that some had slithered in.  Ignoring for a moment my children’s leftover Halloween candy (which I should probably throw away at this point), let’s look at what I found — wheat crackers, canned beans, barbecue sauce, and hot dog relish (my husband and I have no idea where that came from).

A few places where you would expect to find HFCS in my kitchen, but won’t:  sodas, popsicles, ketchup, jam, and cereal.  Go into any conventional grocery store and those foods will have HFCS in them, but I’ve intentionally sought out alternatives without it.

Sodas have been a particular thorn in my side.  I don’t drink them very often — maybe once or twice a month — but when I do I really like Coke, which is sweetened with HFCS.  In Canada and Europe, Cokes are sweetened with sugar and believe me, you CAN tell a difference in the flavor.  This time of year, it’s possible to find sugar-sweetened Cokes in the grocery store — in the kosher foods section — otherwise, I’d have to ask a friend send them from Canada, which is just not worth the effort.

My daughters like root beer or creme soda with their Friday night pizza, which led to a two-year (and continuing) search for options without HFCS.  There used to be a great root beer produced right here in Virginia; unfortunately, it appears to be no longer available.  I also found a creme soda that is made by a family-owned company and which used to be carried by Whole Foods, but no longer is.  Luckily, World Market has it.  They sell it by the individual bottles and their inventory is spotty, so I asked the store manager to order a case of it for me, which should last us a few months.  Yes, it’s a lot more expensive than regular sodas, but since my family uses them up at the rate of two every Friday, I’m not going to sweat the extra cost.

But what about the average family that’s struggling to make ends meet and can’t afford to pay more for foods that don’t have lab-produced crap in them?  That’s the challenge, because until Americans throw a huge national hissy fit and say, “We’re not eating this garbage anymore,” the industrial food companies will continue to sneak HFCS and other corn products into foods where they have no business being.

So what does all this have to do with eating locally?

If you eat local foods, the chance that they’ll contain HFCS drops dramatically.  A jar of jam bought at Kroger or Giant is going to have HFCS in it; whereas homemade jam from the farmers’ market will not.  Little Debbie Snack Cakes and Sara Lee products have HFCS in them (not to mention a number of other sneaky corn products), but treats purchased from local bakeries will not.

Also, cook your own foods, so that you know what’s in there.  And by cooking, I mean from scratch, not from a box.  I made brownies this weekend and they were every bit as easy as a boxed mix, but much, much tastier.  (And now gone, as my daughters agreed and consumed every crumb over the course of three days.)

Finally, educate yourself.  Read any of Michael Pollan‘s books and then rent the DVD King Corn to get a really good look at corn in America.  After that, start reading labels when you go to the grocery store.  You’ll be amazed at what you find.