High Fructose Corn Syrup

A few months ago I was doing some physical labor and keeping myself cool with some limeade I had purchased (rather than made myself). I started to notice that every time I took a swig, I had to ... defecate ... ten minutes later. I'd been having some minor bathroom trouble around then anyway, but hadn't thought of it as being in correlation to anything.

Since there was very little in the limeade besides lime juice, water, and HFCS, and people had been talking about the possibly deleterious effects of HFCS, I thought I'd try cutting it out of my system. (Certainly water wasn't the culprit and I seriously doubted that the lime juice could be.) Since the vast majority of my HFCS intake was due to Coca-Cola, that meant cutting it out, too.

Shortly after I cut it out, my bowels went completely haywire. I was on the can for days. But once that was done, I felt much better. My minor problems in that area mostly went away. Then I started drinking some cane-sugar sweetened colas (Blue Sky and 365 brands). The problems didn't come back. In addition, I found myself drinking many fewer of them. Initially I thought that might have been subconsciously due to the fiscal premium of those beverages, but the 365 ones, despite being Whole Foods brand, were only barely more expensive than Coca-Cola. For some reason, I just drank fewer of them. Of course, I was largely drinking water at restaurants, seeing as they don't have any HFCS-free soda choices, but even just counting the ones I drink at home, my consumption went down by half, if not more.

Then, over the Thanksgiving holiday, I ran out of HFCS-free sodas. I figured that it would be a good test to see if my HFCS theory was accurate. Sure enough, my bowels went haywire again, actually forcing me to take an additional two sick days beyond the regular vacation.

Anyway, the point of this story is that, at least in my personal case, the stories about HFCS being bad for you are true. I simply feel better after cutting it out of my diet. Of course, it's possible that the reduction in my sugar intake is at least partially responsible for that, but, honestly, these days I largely drink sugar-sweetened sweet tea at restaurants, so any reduction in sugar intake is not a conscious decision. I don't take sugar into consideration, only HFCS. I feel, and this conclusion is even less scientific, that somehow the HFCS made me crave more. All I know is that simply by cutting out HFCS, without making any additional effort, I feel better and I consume fewer sodas.

I would encourage anyone to try it out for a few weeks to see if it has any effect. I'd be very interested in anyone else's conclusions.

Also, after the fact, I was looking up fructose intolerance information and ran across something called "metabolic syndrome". Now, this is one of those ill-defined collections of symptoms rather than a verifiable disease, but I found papers that relate it to fructose intolerance. The symptoms are hyperglycemia, hypertension, central obesity, decreased HDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, and elevated uric acid levels. Other than the hyperglycemia, I have every one of those symptoms, to the point of taking medication for all of them except the central obesity. In addition, I was a normal-sized kid and only started gaining weight in the early 80s, which just so happens to be when Coca-Cola started using HFCS. Now, I know that cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, but that data is at least supportive.

I don't really have a point now, but I am curious if HFCS really is affecting me in the way that I think it is, and also if it's affecting other people in the same way.

A friend of mine recently started cutting it out of his diet completely. He says he feels much better having done so.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the stuff myself, although I think I'm a lot less sensitive to it than you are. There was a point a few years ago when I completely gave up all sodas and moved to diet iced teas and water, and I didn't notice those kinds of differences (just decreased heartburn and indigestion).

Overall I think I'm able to stay away from HFCS. It's only because I eat other crap that I'm overweight

It may be important to note that I don't eat or drink "diet" anything. I can't stand any of the artificial sweeteners. I far prefer water to any of those options.

I also don't know if it's the fructose or the corn that's my problem. I haven't tried substituting non-corn-based high-fructose sweeteners (which would include things like honey, invert sugar syrup, and agave nectar) to see what effect they might have.

The only "diet" thing I drink is Peach Iced Tea Snapple. The non-diet is too sweet for me, so I drink the diet. Thanks to Tony for that tip. It's a great drink.

I agree that HFCS is evil. But it's so widely used in the US... I can't imagine how I could ever find any manufactured foods that didn't contain it. Sweet or not.

Keep in mind, I've got someone in my life showing me the advantages of going all natural and all vegetarian right now, so I'm gettng a good understanding of what it takes to simply not eat manufactured foods. It's really fantastic. But as good as this is, I'm completely unable to devote as much time to cooking as she does.

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Peach Iced Tea Snapple. The non-diet is too sweet for me, so I drink the diet. Thanks to Tony for that tip. It's a great drink.

I'm still drinking the stuff, too. I haven't gotten tired of it yet, like I did with Diet Doctor Pepper after a year. Although since I started at Microsoft, and they offer refrigerators full of drinks in every section of the company, I'm experimenting with various diet drinks to see what I like. I'm currently hanging on to Diet Cherry Coke, which has a taste range somewhere close to DDP. Only it's different enough so that my DDP burnout doesn't get in the way of drinking it.

Wonder if I can convince them to carry diet peach snapple?