Surprising HFCS product of the week
>> Thursday, February 5, 2009
Last month I talked about cold medicines with HFCS in them. This month, it hits a little closer to home for me...
My 2 year old daughter is cutting molars. Those of you with kids know that's a painful process, so to help her sleep at night, I often give her some liquid Children's Motrin. The other night, I gave her some Bubble Yum flavored liquid Children's Tylenol instead. I noticed it was really thick coming out, which made me suspicious, so I checked the ingredients. Do I have to tell you what I found? That's right - our nemesis high fructose corn syrup! The Children's Motrin had corn syrup but not HFCS.
You can read my rant about ingredients in medicines here. It appears that not all Children's Tylenol contains HFCS. In fact, Tylenol's official site indicates that none of their Children'ts Tylenol contains HFCS, so perhaps I opened an older bottle or maybe they've recently reformulated to include HFCS.
So, remember to check those ingredients! And remember that companies frequently reformulate their products, so it pays to scan the ingredients of even "safe" products.
What am I going to do with this HFCS-laden Children's Tylenol? I'd be lying if I told you I threw it out. Medicine is expensive! So, we'll use it and then look for a HFCS-free replacement. Fortunately, the dosage is small, so she won't get a lot of HFCS from her medicine.
11 comments:
I just checked ours that was opened last night. Yup, it's in there. I'll have to get it from the local pharmacy (I live in Portugal and HFCS is not as commonly used-yet. It's not even in soda) instead of the American store. Of course, I'll ask the pharmacy about the ingredients first-just in case. If you find an alternative, let us know!
Thanks for this cathy! Yikes! I appreciate all of your legwork.
Interesting that it's not in all Children's Tylenol. I wonder if they did reformulate...
Ack! Where will it end?
That is the problem with the surprise products. The ones you don't discover had HFCS until you get them home and look a little harder. It is tough to just throw money away. Good decision. ;)
Seriously?! Wow. That's ridiculous.
Any luck finding a HFCS free pain reliever? I'm taking my 4 month old in for her shots. I was horrified when I realized the tylenol I gave her last time had it. The first thing beside breastmilk my little baby got was HFCS!!!!! But I don't want her in more pain than she'll already experience
Jane - All I can suggest is to read those labels. And check the generic brands. You might have better luck buying a store brand infant acetaminophen than infant Tylenol.
On a related note (but maybe not one you want to hear), you might want to skip the Tylenol all together. I read an article about a study recently that giving Tylenol during infant vaccinations lessens the effectiveness of the vaccination! Seems like the body NEEDS that initial inflammation to really respond optimally to the vaccination. You can read more about it here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=agiMZQeaKNzc
I just looked and all of their children's products list hfcs. Where are you looking? Only the "meltaways" don't have hfcs, but the liquids do.
Meadowlark - This particular post was written 2 years ago. My kids have moved on to chewables, so I'm definitely not informed on the ingredient lists of the liquids anymore. Disappointing to think that they've reformulated to include HFCS in even more of their products. Check the generics. I'm often pleasantly surprised by the ingredient lists of generic products.
In my view every person ought to look at it.
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