So you're ready to give up high fructose corn syrup...

In case you missed it the first time around, my Snack Time post on edamame was featured as a guest post on Food with Kid Appeal. Thanks, Jenna!

I don't like to push my food agenda on other people. But this blog, well, it's all about us giving up HFCS, so if you're here, chances are you've already taken the plunge and expunged it from your life, or you're curious about what in the world you eat if you don't do HFCS, or you've read some recent study about HFCS and are curious about this strange ingredient, or maybe you're thinking of eliminating or reducing the amount of HFCS in your own diet. This post is for those of you in that last group.

Why eliminate HFCS in the first place? Our journey was spurred by concern of over consuming fructose. Since then, I've found that the quality of our diet has improved upon giving up HFCS. Giving up HFCS made us give up a lot of junk and switch to higher quality foods. We think about what we're consuming more. With two young kids to think of, eating higher quality foods (which usually translates to fresher and less processed) and teaching them to like those foods is really our biggest motivator. Last, it's nice to not worry about what the latest study says about HFCS - whether it's health concerns from consuming HFCS or a contamination scare. We went cold turkey on HFCS consumption in our house last June, and we don't regret it.

How do you get started on eliminating HFCS from your diet? I can tell you what we did. We started by resolving to not buy anymore foods containing HFCS (and by we, I really mean the frugal me). But then we (and by we, I mean my husband, who is whole-heartedly along for this ride) decided to go more hardcore and completely cleaned out our pantry and refrigerator of products containing HFCS. It was tricky at first finding replacement foods for some of the must-have items like ketchup, but now all is good. Our HFCS-free diet is second hand now.

Don't be afraid of ingredient lists! I'm an ingredient reader. I have been since my son was a babe and had infant food intolerances. As a chemical engineer, I'm actually a little fascinated by what goes into our food and am not scared of ingredient lists - you shouldn't be either! More and more, I think that it's important for us to know what we're eating and to understand what the ingredients in our foods are. I've spent much of my life blindly eating my food, but no more! I want to know what I'm eating. I want to be informed.

But I digress...if you want to give up HFCS, be prepared to also become an ingredient reader. Flip that box of bread crumbs over and take a quick scan of the ingredients (or better yet, make your own). Take a gander at the ingredient list of that jug of juice before you put it in your cart. HFCS is in strange places.

Now that we've been HFCS-free for three quarters of a year, it seems old hat now. It seems like such a hard, daunting task in the beginning, but it really hasn't been bad. I mindlessly scan ingredients of new products (and often of old standbys) before buying. I instinctively avoid certain types of products and can usually predict when something will have HFCS in it or not. Even now, though, we're occasionally surprised by a product that contains HFCS.

So, what are you waiting for? Whether you go all out like we did or simply reduce the amount of HFCS you consume, get started! You won't regret it!

And if you have an ingredient or a food or food issue question you'd like to see addressed here, let me know! I love it when readers and friends pose questions - especially if I don't know the answer. Our journey is just beginning, and the more questions you ask, the more we all learn!

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More on the mercury in HFCS studies

Dr. James Hubbard from James Hubbard's My Family Doctor Magazine, one of my favorite sites and magazines, asked a good question in the comments section of my last post on the studies that have shown mercury in HFCS. I thought that I would pull out his question and my answer and post it for those of you that might want just a bit more information on this.

Dr. Hubbard asks: Do you know if this is methylmercury or another type. If another, does the FDA have an acceptable limit, say for prenant women?

The studies looked at total mercury content measured by atomic absorption. They did NOT look at the form that the mercury is in. It may be methylmercury, but it is more likely elemental mercury or mercury in another form (just an educated guess given its source).

Methylmercury is a dangerous form of mercury that accumulates in fish. The USDA has set limits on methylmercury consumption - 0.1 micrograms/kg/day (according to one of the journal articles). No limits have been set on total mercury or elemental mercury consumption. In the Environmental Health article, they estimate a potential total mercury consumption of 28.5 micrograms/day per person from mercury-contaminated HFCS consumption.

The FDA has set a limit of 1 ppm methylmercury in fish. The limit started as 0.5 ppm total mercury in 1969, but was raised to 1 ppm total mercury. In 1984, they changed the limit to 1 ppm methylmercury only. There is no limit on total mercury in fish. (And, as you can imagine, these limits are fairly controversial.) The mercury levels in the products tested in the second study were all in the ppt (parts per trillion) range - much lower than the 1 parts per million level set for fish.

Mercury is toxic in whatever form it takes, but certain forms are more dangerous than others. Methylmercury is easily absorbed by our bodies and can cross the blood/brain barrier with relative ease. Elemental mercury isn't absorbed nearly as easily by our bodies, but it is still a toxic element that can accumulate in our bodies and potential cause cumulative problems over time.

I don't think that we need to panic because of these reports (though I am glad that we're not consuming HFCS anymore!), but it is clear to me that this needs to be thoroughly investigated by the FDA and the manufacturers - especially as we don't know the form that the mercury is in. The information presented in these articles is disturbing, and they raise as many questions as they answer. With a public that consumes such large quantities of HFCS on a daily basis - and especially children who are particularly vulnerable to developmental effects from mercury in any form - we need to take this seriously.

More for your reading pleasure at other blogs with various perspectives on this subject:
Fatfighter TV (a very nice overview of the articles)
Consumer Reports
Junkfood Science
Daddy Types
The Green Fork

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Mercury found in some HFCS

Yet another reason to be done with HFCS - two recent studies have found mercury in HFCS samples and foods. The first study found detectable levels of mercury in 9 out of 20 commercial HFCS samples. In the second study the Institute for Agriculture and Trade, which also participated in the first study, found that almost a third of 55 popular products with HFCS as the first or second most prominent ingredient contained mercury. The mercury contamination appears to come from the use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda during HFCS production.

Not all HFCS is contaminated and not all products containing HFCS have mercury in them. Clearly, this needs to be investigated more and changes made. Caustic soda can be produced mercury free using membrane technology, which would possibly eliminate the mercury in HFCS. Given the toxicity of mercury and Americans' tendency to consume HFCS-containing foods with gusto, any detectable amount of mercury in HFCS is cause for concern.

You can take a look at the products tested and the mercury levels from the second study here.

Care to read more on this subject? It's making the rounds in the blog world.
Food Politics by Marion Nestle
The Ethicurean
Mom-101
Accidental Hedonist
The Drill Coach

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We're nuts about snack time!

Yes, yes...getting a little cheesy with the title, but today I wanted to share a very simple snack idea - nuts! It's easy to go crazy preparing complicated snacks, but sometimes a very simple and easy snack will do. We eat a lot of nuts around here. They're so versatile and palate pleasing.

What's so great about nuts? Nuts are a great snack because they're high fiber and high protein. They're also high fat (up to 80% fat!) - mostly good fats (unsaturated fatty acids and Omega-3 fatty acids) but also a significant amount of saturated fat. Because they're high protein, a little goes a long way to making a body feel satisfied. Nuts are a good source of vitamin E, B vitamins, phosophorous, and magnesium and low in sodium (though watch that excessive salt isn't added to your nut products). Nuts are high in protein, but they are limited in the essential amino acid lysine. Eat with peanuts or beans, both legumes and plentiful in lysine, and you have a "complete" protein meal.

Studies suggest that if eaten in moderation, nuts can provide numerous heart health benefits such as lowering your LDL (the bad cholesterol) level, improving the health of artery lining, and reducing the risk of blood clots that can cause heart attacks. How much do you need to eat to reap the benefits? Just a handful a day - 1 or 2 ounces - is enough. As with any food, moderation is key when eating nuts.

We have a few favorite nut products around here. I've talked about Planters Nutrition products in the past as one of them contains HFCS. We really like the Planters Nutrition Heart Healthy Mix, though. It's a tasty mix of nuts and is only very lightly salted.

And we're crazy about Blue Diamond Almonds. Their Bold Maui Onion and Garlic flavored almonds taste like a Funyun crossed with an almond - SO good! It's a bit higher sodium than the Nutrition mix I mentioned above, but still lower sodium than most of the packaged nut products. You could mix the flavored almonds with some plain almonds to lower the overall sodium a bit while still getting a bit of flavor.

I also like to keep a bowl of unshelled nuts out for munching on. The kids have fun cracking the nuts open and digging out the nutmeat. It's an easy and fun snack they can have anytime, and it's time consuming enough that they won't overeat. (And occasionally they'll use a nut to play hockey with on our kitchen floor - an added benefit!) And don't forget about using nuts in things like homemade trail mix!

So many snacking options with nuts! And I didn't even talk about nut butters and other nut products. If it's been a while since you've snacked on nuts, think about adding it to your snack repertoire. They're great for kids and adults alike!

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Being a good guest when eating healthier

I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent here today. I read a quote in a magazine recently that set my mind to wandering and my fingers to typing.

What do you do when you've taken on a healthier diet - say, given up HFCS - and are eating food at someone's house? Maybe you're at a playdate and a friend is serving your child bright blue yogurt or maybe a sugary punch drink that you know is filled with HFCS. Do you call them on it? Do you tell them that you don't eat foods like that?

I saw this quote from Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilemma, in Reader's Digest last week. He says:

I really care where my food comes from, but I also care about being a good guest. So I eat whatever is put in front of me and don't make special requests.

I completely agree with Mr. Pollan. I know that not everyone is on the same food journey that we're on. Some people are not at all concerned about the ingredients in their food, some people are on a very different sort of journey than we're on, and some people are way ahead of us in the foods they eat.

I have had mothers snub snacks that I've served at playdates in the past, and I found it incredibly rude. (I'll note that no food allergies were involved. Food allergies or intolerances completely change the picture.) You can serve me shrimp floating in a pool of HFCS and topped with globs of trans fat, and if it is my only choice that you're serving me as a host, I'll eat it with a smile on my face (or else take a cue from my father and declare that I ate a big lunch and am just not hungry). I'm happy to talk about what we're doing with our diet if it comes up organically, but I'm not going to belittle your way of eating. That just isn't polite and isn't what a good guest should do.

I do think that we should fight for the food that our kids eat. We should fight for better school lunches. We should make it known with our pocketbooks and e-mails and blogs that we won't tolerate trans fat or HFCS or whatever else gives you the heebie-jeebies in our food - especially when that food is marketed to children. We should lead by example and eat a good, healthy diet so that our children have something to model. But we should also remember to be gracious to our hosts.

What do you think? Do you challenge your host if they serve you something that doesn't fit a healthier diet? Or do you eat it what you're given without comment?

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From Rice Krispies to crispy rice

We've been at this no-HFCS diet for a little over half a year now, and we're generally pretty content with the foods we eat. Favorite foods that contained HFCS have been replaced with equally fine HFCS-free foods, and for the most part, we find that we contentedly over look foods that do contain HFCS (with the exception of my husband and that supermarket sushi). There are a few foods that we haven't been able to find a good substitute for, though. Nilla wafers, for example - every single variation of Nilla Wafer that I've seen contains HFCS - and until recently, Rice Krispies.

Did you realize that Kellogg's Rice Krispies and most Rice Krispies knock-offs contain HFCS? You know I'm an ingredient reader, so see for yourself: rice, sugar, salt, malt flavoring, high fructose corn syrup, vitamins, and iron. HFCS is a common ingredient in cereals - even some that promote themselves as being uber-healthy. We tried a few Rice Krispie-like cereals (like Nature's Path Organic Crispy Rice), but they just weren't the same. The texture wasn't quite right or they tasted a little like cardboard. So, we set aside those recipes that called for Rice Krispies.

Just before Christmas, I happened upon a cereal I've overlooked in the past - Natural Directions Organic Crispy Brown Rice. This cereal is fantastic! Take a look at the ingredients: organic whole grain brown rice, sea salt, organic barley malt. That's it! The texture is right - crisp, light, and airy, just like Kellogg's Rice Krispies - and the addition of the barley malt gives it the right flavor. There's no sugar, though barley malt is apparently converted pretty easily into simple sugars (probably mostly maltose) and is sometimes used as a natural sweetener. The Natural Directions cereal is even made from whole grain brown rice and has less salt per serving than Rice Krispies!


I really don't make many opportunities to use crispy rice, but I used the Natural Directions crispy rice in a peanut butter ball dessert recipe over Christmas and in a new granola bar recipe tonight. It's a great replacement for traditional rice krispies. I'm sure that it would be fantastic in a marshmallow laden rice krispie treat! (Hey, just because we're eating healthier doesn't mean we don't get to have a dessert every now and then!)

If you've seen a HFCS-free vanilla wafer product, I'd love to hear about it. And if you have a nilla wafer recipe, care to share?

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Friday Link Love

I've got a varied lot of links to share with you this week - some new favorites and some old.

First, a blog about Living in Tok Alaska. Tok is a small town on the Alaska Highway that gets crazy cold in the wintertime. Living in Tok Alaska is an entertaining and enlightening look at life in that world.

Next, from Boston.com we have The Big Picture: News Stories in Photographs. Their photo reports are always stunning and often thought provoking.

Last, one of my favorite blogs is Fruit Species. Whether looking at the common nectarine or something more exotic like the Barhee date, I always learn something new.

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