Hard and Fasts part II- Corn Syrup

For my next installation of Rules To Eat By, I am proud to present....Cooooorn Syrup!!!

If you Google High Fructose Corn Syrup, the first link that comes up is for a website called "Sweet Surprise". This website is a desperate attempt being made by the Corn Syrup council to save face for their food-type product in light of tremendous quantities of evidence questioning the safety of HFCS ingestion.

The catch phrase splattered all over the site is "corn syrup is fine in moderation, just like sugar!"

No. Your body recognizes real sugar and fruit fructose. It knows how to break it down and use it for energy. HFCS is shunted to the liver, where the liver proceeds to wrap up the HFCS moleules in a lipid layer (read" lipid= fat) in order to prevent its absorbtion. Kind of like when you shove all your junk into the closet when company comes over, so that it appears you are not a total slob! This produces Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Syndrome (non-alcoholic because it's usually alcoholics who have fatty livers due to the liver trying to protect itself and the body from harm. This is why alcoholics have big bellies...that and also due to the grains in alcohol. Check this out!)

Problem is, it's presence is surpassing sugar in food products! That bottle of "Maple" syrup in a plastic container you pick up at Ralphs is the farthest thing from real maple syrup that comes from a tree. It's artificial maple flavoring in corn syrup. Soda contains more HFCS than sugar. In your Heinz ketchup...HFCS. In your tomato sauce, candy bar, fruit juice, breakfast cereal, INFANT FORMULA (!), protein drink, vitamins, tortillas, bread...foods you wouldn't even expect to have corn syrup...there it is! So how are we supposed to have it "in moderation"? Infant formula? Here is the link to an article by Dr. Sears for Parenting Magazine.

If you watch the advertising videos on Sweet Surprise, there is a common theme; the person speaking out about corn syrup had no information to back up their claims. Well, too bad for them, because I do...or rather Dr.Mercola has already done the work for me here.

They call corn syrup natural? Really? You be the judge, here is how it's manufactured (does "manufactured" sound natural?):

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. It all sounds rather simple--white cornstarch is turned into crystal clear syrup. However, the process is actually very complicated. Three different enzymes are needed to break down cornstarch, which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars glucose and fructose.

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers.

Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top.

The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 50-52 percent glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity.

There are two more steps involved. First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90 percent fructose. Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55 percent fructose--what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.

DO NOT ingest corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup.

Corn syrup is an epidemic! Read the ingredients on every bit of packaged product you buy!

Also, read Michael Pollan's books. All of them. Especially The Omnivores Dilemma.

How To Have A Healthy Heart

As I am not a Medical Doctor, I link to a Medical Doctor.

I am linking to a great post written by a cardiologist, Dr. William Davis, about the new trend of adding sterols to edible products. (I am no longer going to refer to these things as food. They are now to be referred to as food-type products.)

The gist of the article is this:

"The FDA approved a cholesterol-reducing indication for sterols , the American Heart Association recommends 200 mg per day as part of its Therapeutic Lifestyle Change diet, and WebMD gushes about the LDL-reducing benefits of sterols added to foods."

"The food industry has vigorously pursued the sterol-as-heart-healthy strategy, based on studies conclusively demonstrating LDL-reducing effects. But do sterols that gain entry into the blood increase atherosclerosis regardless of LDL reduction? That's the huge unanswered question."

Again and again, the advent of the microscope shows itself as a blessing and a curse. Technology is yet again taking one minuscule component (sterols) of a perfect whole (walnuts, lentils, brown rice) and marketing it as a nutritional be-all and end-all miracle.

In nature, the quantity of sterols and stanols found as a micronutrient in the food source are minimal. A person would have to eat 50 pounds of produce daily to get the FDA (excuse my smirk) recommended .8 grams of plant sterols. No human I know would or could eat that much produce in a day. Doesn't that tell us something? They are not meant to be consumed in large, isolated quantities.

The minute we start isolating nutrients (sterols) to treat one thing (LDL), we run into trouble (The case against sterols, studies documenting its coronary disease- and valve disease-promoting effects, is building).

As stated in the last paragraph of his post:
"In my view, sterols should not have been approved without more extensive safety data. Just as Vioxx's potential for increasing heart attack did not become apparent until after FDA approval and widespread use, I fear the same may be ahead for sterols: dissemination throughout the processed food supply, people using large, unnatural quantities from multiple products, eventually . . . increased heart attacks, strokes, aortic valve disease."

Please take a minute to read the post by Dr. Davis, if you have not already done so.

I have said it before...we are all unwitting participants in medical experiments on a daily basis. Become analytical and take personal responsibility for your own health. Do not become complacent and gullible in the face of MARKETING! There are no quick fixes, and our body is a complete unit, NEVER to be reduced to individual parts and pieces!

Want to keep your heart healthy? Follow this list:

• Eat whole, unprocessed, home- cooked food. Eat vegetables, people! Eat dark green leafy things with abandon! If you have trouble digesting plants, steam them lightly, take high quality probiotics twice daily at a dose of 50 billion bacteria for two months. Experiment with pancreazyme or digestive enzymes. There are mixed opinions about the efficacy of digestive enzymes, but I have seen them work for people.
  
• Do not use a microwave. Microwaves heat by force, stimulating the water molecules inside the cells first, whereas ambient heat from a stove warms gently from the outside to the inside. Would you rather get warm from someone boiling water within your cells or by laying in a warm beam of sunlight?
  
• Exercise daily doing something you like! Get out there and play!
  
• Have healthy relationships. If you aren't, deal with it. Seek spiritual support and guidance.
• LOVE. Give and receive love every day. MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS!
  
• Do not eat poison. Margarine, synthetic sugar, alcohol, cigarette smoke are DONT'S. If you are dealing with addictions, deal with them. I speak from experience, having been a smoker for 7 years. Haven't smoked for 8 years now, and never will again (except when second hand is forced upon me).
• Drink water. I am not talking "8 cups a day" here. Yes, there is water in tea and coffee. What I am talking about is to give your body, your blood, clean and pure water everyday. Just because we can live in an environment with constant white-noise, does that mean we should never escape to the mountains every so often to give ourselves some peace and quiet?
  

Heart health has three components, and we as a society only focus on the two that can be qualified, quantified, licensed, and certified: Exercise and Diet. The third component affecting Heart Health are EMOTIONS, most specifically Love. Anger, hate, resentment, criticism, jealousy, impropriety, rage, stubbornness, selfishness...all these emotions damage the integrity and well- being of the heart.

The Heart Trifecta:

1. Love/ Emotions
2. Diet/ Nutrition
3. Exercise/ Play

We must overcome this aversion we have to work, discomfort, and growth.