That damn HFCS

I am so tired of high fructose corn syrup. I really am. I have several family members who just don't get how bad for you it is -- and they seem intent on bringing it into this house at every chance they get.

Should I just let them all ingest the crap year after year and when they eventually die from some strange illness that no one understands WHERE it came from, just shrug and say, well I told them so? Because that's what I'd like to do at times, believe me.

Obviously eating 10 cookies with HFCS in them will not kill you. Smoking one cigarette won't either. In fact smoking pack after pack after pack of cigarettes a day will not kill you. Right away. The problem with something that doesn't actually kill you immediately is that you believe it is fine. Just fine!

I believe that eating clean is the only way to live a long, healthy life. When I say eating clean, I mean eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and primarily organic. I have been dancing with the quality of food for years and years now -- sometimes just digging into a big platter of fried food with abandon, because really, sometimes, who cares. And I think that is fine -- what is NOT fine is eating it all the time. So I get it, when you eat something bad and nothing really happens, that it seems that why not, eat what you want and life goes on.

I love to cook, and for a long time as I went off on crazy food tangents (raw food for example) I would genuinely feel sad at the thought of never cooking again. It just didn't feel right. What did feel good was me! When you eat just raw foods you feel truly amazing -- and even when I don't eat just raw foods, at this point I feel pretty good. But there is a difference, and yet I can't follow it. So I've determined that it's not right for me. And I have found it interesting that a lot of the various blogs I follow of raw foodists -- who have let themselves become emaciated through eating raw food and their colonics and all the stuff they get involved in -- until one day their bodies actually do revolt. And they discover that they need to add certain foods to their diet -- like fat. Animal fat!

The way my personality works is that I jump on a bandwagon and I am the biggest cheerleader and I am dragging others onto it with me, and we are dancing and partying and having a grand old time.

And then I am done. Bye bye bandwagon. But I think ultimately what I am learning is that each of the bandwagon movements has something to offer -- and when put together support a healthy diet in which to sustain the healthy and wonderful life I prefer to lead.

I am still navigating; but I will be doing so for the rest of my life. And that is fine, because there will always be different movements and theories and scientific facts that will need to be taken into consideration. (For example, wine is good for your heart. Hell, who isn't going to love that one?) But in truth, I don't listen to ANY of that, because a glass of wine is not good for your heart if you drink it with a Big Mac.

We are into summer mode and that means snacks. We are sitting at ballgames, or we are going to the lake or out on the boat or lunches needed to be packed. My mind seems to shift and I find myself in middle aisles, reading labels. And it just hits me like a ton of bricks that this HFCS crap is in EVERYTHING. I was trying to assemble a quick lunch for a group of people on the cheap (this translates into people who don't give a shit what they eat so why should I pay top dollar to feed them what **I** eat if they don't care?) and the pickles were full of the crap, the salad dressing and the bread. Are you kidding me? I mean, I know this, but it's been so long since I've bought such stuff that it just kind of reiterated the fact that this nasty stuff is getting more prevalent -- not less -- in the standard american diet. (They call that SAD in the raw food world, by the way, and they are right in that!)

HFCS causes diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. The corn used in the concoction from hell is also genetically modified -- and there ain't no one out there admitting that that does anything to your body. But it will come out eventually. If there is anyone alive to hear the results, that is.

Yes, this seems a ridiculous statement. But is it? You do the research -- it has been stated that your children will not live as long as you will. Because of the food.

I fight this battle daily. My husband insists that he can't drink water so he is constantly on the search for some drink out there that tastes good but won't essentially mess around with your body chemistry. He drinks stuff that has those chemicals in it -- but he will hold the bottle up proudly and say there are NO CALORIES! Aren't we over calories yet? Aren't we over carbs and trans fats? If a food has to tout that it doesn't contain something bad, that's just a red flag. HUGE RED FLAG!

I had dinner at my in-laws last night. I try not to do this too often because our food philosophies don't mesh. But they just arrived and my brother-in-law was there so I said yes. I am also trying to be less psycho about food in general -- and not let it have as much importance in my life. I feel that if I do my best to eat properly on a regular basis, if I find myself in a situation where the food isn't pristine, it will be fine to eat a little poison now and then.

First off, my brother-in-law drinks soda like it's his job. It is so disturbing to me that I actually get a stomach ache. He has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I believe he has heart issues, and he is absolutely obese. I presume he also has the metabolic syndrome thing as well, since all three go hand in hand. As he drinks one can after another, filling his body with the very substance that is killing him, I know he is a very intelligent man and that he must know he shouldn't be drinking it. But he is clearly addicted and can't stop. He will live for many, many years I am sure, after many heart procedures and medications to control his various ailments.

It is very hard for me to watch.

Then at the dinner table, it was a bit of a limited meal because they had just arrived. It was spaghetti and meatballs, bread and a salad comprised of iceberg lettuce, white onion and green grapes. There was the shaker cheese in the container and two choices for salad dressing. I read both labels and HFCS was the second ingredient. I panicked a little, because I was actually hungry and I usually eat a lot of salad. But iceberg lettuce is devoid of taste and nutrients, the grapes weren't organic and I don't eat non-organic grapes (they are on the dirty dozen) and I couldn't put salad dressing on it. Oh my.

There was a loaf of bread and the butter that I had left in the fridge. It was my sweet, organic butter, and I grabbed a piece of bread and the butter and lathered it on. Oh so yummy. The sauce was from the jar, and while I do that myself in a pinch, I pay a small fortune for tasteful and organic sauce. I could only taste salt and I also had to pick through the meat, since I don't eat red meat. I thought I was being very adult in not adamantly refusing to eat something that I don't eat -- instead, I just put all the meat on Peter's plate and ate my spaghetti and lettuce. It was, for me, very hard.

My mother-in-law is a fine cook -- she has been cooking her entire life and once upon a time her dinners were delicious. But I am too far beyond eating what is put in front of me -- and way too aware of what I am eating. She cooks on a budget and purchases all supermarket brand foods and the cheapest meats. I cook with no budget because I don't believe you can put a price on your health, and I buy mostly fresh foods, the most expensive meats with none of the hormones, etc. and if I do happen to buy something packaged I read the labels. If there are more than five, I won't buy it.

This afternoon I picked up my "bounty" from the CSA I belong to, and had to drop off a share at a friend's house. She prepared the most amazing lunch just by looking into her fridge and throwing things together. She put some turkey on a plate and then some mozzarella cheese balls with sundried tomatoes, a cut up tomato, some fresh greens from her garden and then she sprinkled the lot with crazy yummy balsamic vinegar. After the white meal I'd choked down the night before, it was a crazy array of beautiful colors. And the flavor! Oh, to eat good food that tastes delicious is such an amazing experience.

And it made me realize, it's just not worth it. Eating food for the sake of sitting at someone else's dinner table, and then feeling bad that you did, is wrong. And these are all my family members sitting there, inhaling massive amounts of HFCS. It breaks my heart, it really does. It makes me feel so helpless, and it shouldn't! If they were sitting there eating poison berries, I would absolutely not let them. But these are slow-acting poison berries, so I eat in silence.

I don't like it.