Eat Almost None of This...continued

High Fructose Corn Syrup...

Many researchers think there's a direct link between the huge amount of HFCS we're consuming and the increasing numbers on the scale.

When you eat any carbohydrate, your body releases insulin to regulate your body weight.

First, it tries to push the carbs into your muscle cells to be used as energy and facilitates carb storage in the liver for later use.

Then, it suppresses your appetite, telling your body that you've had enough.

Finally, it stimulates production of another protein, leptin, which is manufactured in your fat cells. Leptin helps regulate how much fat you store and helps increase your metabolism to keep your weight in check. Fructose messes up a system that was working perfectly fine without it. Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin and therefore doesn't increase the production of leptin- and that's the most important argument against HFCS: without insulin and leptin, your body has no shut-off mechanism. You can drink 4 liters of Coke or down half a gallon frozen yogurt and your body thinks you haven't eaten.

Soft Drinks are one of the main sources of HFCS, but researchers tried to determine whether the problem was soda itself or HFCS. The verdict: HFCS. Even if you aren't a soda drinker, HFCS can still sneak up on you. Here is where the nutritional labels come in handy. If a label says, "sugar" or "cane sugar" the product contains sucrose, which is a 50/50 blend of glucose and fructose. That doesn't seem to be much of a problem. If HFCS is listed first or second, look at the chart on the nutrition label to see how much sugar the food contains. If it is just a gram or two, don't sweat it. But, if you see a food that has 8 or more grams of sugar and HFCS is prominent on the list of ingredients, move on to something else.

Here are some more resources for your HFCS questions:

RealAge.com

dlife.com


My challenge to you: find out where HFCS is lurking in your cabinets!