HFCS... scary little acronym

For the past few weeks or so, I have been reading the Omnivore's Dilemna. Michael Pollen, the author of the NYT best seller, gives you the history of four different meals throughout the book.
Industrial
Big Organic (think Whole Foods)
Pastoral/Local
Hunting and Gathering and Foraging

The beginning will shock you, the middle makes you want to change to your local farm and the end makes you feel for the caveman. I highly recommend this book, with a warning. You will want to change the way you eat and you will seriously question the way our country has taken to eating and more importantly mass producing and creating (yes, literally creating) food. Anyways, one of the more interesting and shocking parts of the book discusses how corn has so highly infiltrated our food. Now, there are no studies stating that corn and its broken down chemical make up are bad for us, with the exception of HFCS.

HFCS, more commonly known as high fructose corn syrup, is used to sweeten your coca cola, chips, ketchup, butter among thousands of other items. This much sugar and sweetener, though it makes things taste delicious, is not necessarily the best thing for you. While reading Omnivore's Dilemna, I decided to research a bit about corn. I stumbled upon a blog where a woman described the week she ate nothing with corn additives. The next week she cut out anything that had been fed corn (bye bye to most chicken and meat). So this week I have decided to pursue the same thing.

I spent about 20 minutes riffling through my cabinets before heading to the supermarket. Cereals are out for the most part, so are snacks and most breads. Ouch. That left me with an egg on syrian bread for breakfast. Oh and forget about yogurt unless its organic. I headed out to Shaw's, hoping to score some corn free products. I ended up with parsley (a necessary ingredient for Tabouleh), pears, blackberries, eggs, all natural granola, stonyfeild yogurt, organic peanut butter and Smuckers simply fruit jam. Lunch naturally became peanut butter and jelly on syrian (pita) bread with fruit. The thing about eating this way, you can't snack. I felt myself eyeing the fritos and the lemonade. Just water and milk this week, or any 365 juice at Whole Foods.

For no corn, you have to watch out for:

Citric Acid
Mono glycerides
Poly glycerides
-dextrin
HFCS

among other items.

I'll let you know how it goes.
XO