Surprising HFCS food of the week

Continuing with the pickles theme, this week's surprising HFCS food of the week is sweet pickles. When cleaning out our pantry of HFCS foods, I discovered that our Claussen sweet pickle relish had high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Upon investigation, every single sweet pickle product at our grocery store has high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient. I’m sure that there’s an exception out there somewhere, but not at my grocery stores!

Fortunately, dill pickles are generally HFCS free. The one exception to that rule that I’ve found is Claussen’s Kosher Dill Sandwich Slices. I’m not exactly sure why they have HFCS in them, but they do. (Vlasic Kosher Dill Stackers do not have HFCS in them.)

If you’re craving a sweet pickle but don’t want the HFCS, there is an easy fix - simply add sugar to regular dill pickles. This is a trick I picked up from my grandmother years ago. She would add sugar to dill pickle slices to make a tasty treat. I recently tried adding sugar to dill pickle relish because I needed sweet pickle relish for a recipe, and it worked wonderfully. And, if you’re not into refined sugar, I’m sure that you could use honey instead.