Nourished Kitchen» High Fructose Corn Syrup

Weston A Price: Findings on Traditional Foods

Jenny — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:44:11 +0000

Weston A Price, a Cleveland dentist who, when challenged by rampant tooth decay and the considerable physical degeneration of his patients, left his practice and traveled the world researching the dietary practices of peoples consuming processed foods and those consuming an unprocessed, native diet, and the non-profit nutritional advocacy group named in his honor – the Weston A Price Foundation – have heavily influenced the content and message at Nourished Kitchen. As a Weston A Price enthusiast, it’s time I share more information about the man including how and why his work has so heavily influenced me.

Weston A Price

Weston A Price, a native of Canada, practiced dentistry in Cleveland, Ohio at the turn of the 20th century. A researcher at heart, Price served as the chairman for the research section of the American Dental Association for nearly a decade. About the time that he began his work in dentistry, the American food system changed, and dramatically so; Weston A Price – confounded by patients riddled by rampant tooth decay, malformations of the palate and other health issues – witnessed the detriments of this shift in the standard American diet firsthand and, with his passion for research firmly in place, committed himself to determining just why and how the health of populations in industrialized societies degenerated so significantly in just a few decades.(...)
Click here to read the rest of Weston A Price: Findings on Traditional Foods (924 words)

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From the Mouths of Babes

Jenny — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:27:35 +0000

AKA Let My 3-year old teach you about Real Food

I’ve written about the joys of nourishing my son: nourishing him with my body during his time in my womb, nourishing him with my milk first exclusively during his first six months and complemented for three more years, weaning him on to Real Food through the baby-led approach to solids. You see, it warms me to know that his body is so well-nourished, but, beyond that, it tickles me to see that he’s made the connection between good health and good food. So I thought I’d share a few real food gems from the littlest foodie in our home. It certainly warms this nourished mama’s heart. Or … maybe … we talk about real food just a touch too much in our house.

More fermented turnips please!
Fresh milk from Sweet Clover makes me grow big and strong.
NO THANK YOU! That has high fructose corn syrup and that is GMO. (When offered ketchup by a waitress.)
I love kombucha. It’s like tasty vinegar.
We should not eat white sugar, it takes away B vitamins.
I will drink the water, it is good for my kidneys.
Chicken bone broth has lots of minerals.

How have your children shown their appreciation for good quality, real food?

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A little mercury with your soda?

Jenny — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:59:50 +0000

Care for a side of neurotoxins with your soda?

A new study published in Environmental Health confirms that mercury, a known neurotoxin, contaminates almost half of the high fructose corn syrup currently on the market. Another study published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy found that almost one-third of popular, processed foods containing HFCS as the first or second ingredient under the nutritional label tested positive for mercury. According to the IATP, those foods testing positive for mercury contamination included Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smuckers.

This isn’t isolated.

The most disturbing aspect of the story is that several tests were done in 2005 when the contamination was brought to the attention of the FDA, and the FDA failed to do anything to protect consumers from continued exposure. Yeah, and they try to tell us raw milk is dangerous, but drinking mercury-contaminated sodas is fine?

Mercury is dangerous to human health and it is known neurotoxin. Symptoms of mercury toxicity include loss of feeling, paralysis, loss of vision, congenital malformations and other serious issues. While exposure to large amounts of mercury may even cause death, what is uncertain is what effects minute, long-term exposure – such as that arising from regularly ingesting small quanitites in contaminated sweeteners – might do.

The greatest concern is for children and adolescents who are still developing as they tend to consume more high fructose corn syrup than the average adult – and therefore are at greater risk of ingesting mercury from contaminated sources.

The problem arises during the manufacture of high fructose corn syrup. To extract the corn starch from the corn kernel, manufacturers often use caustic soda produced in chlorine plants. The use of mercury cells in the manufacture of caustic soda contaminates the corn starch, and subsequently the high fructose corn syrup. Incidentally, for this reason you should not use or eat corn starch.

Add this to all the other reasons you should not eat high fructose corn syrup. Is anyone else wondering how the Corn Refiners Association is going to try to recover from this news? Are we going to see a special new series of sweet surprise commercials outlining how mercury is natural and fine in moderation?

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The Role of Traditional Sweeteners in the Diet

Jenny — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:32:45 +0000

Towers of Piloncillo

This the last part in January’s series on sweeteners. Next month, the Traditional Foods Primer will focus on bone broth – its nutritive value, preparing it and using it. This month we’ve examined modern sweeteners, traditional sweeteners and their uses and now we’re onto looking at the role sweeteners can play in the diet.

Sweeteners can greatly enhance meals – a little sugar can do wonders in balancing the acidity of tomato sauce or tempering a fiery curry. And we all suffer cravings for sweet comfort foods like cookies and milk, or chocolate or a luscious pound cake.

Sweeteners, however, are relatively new to the human diet and we certainly didn’t evolve eating the amount of sugar that we currently do. Ten thousand years ago, humans rarely ate any sweeteners except for the occasional bounty of perilously gathered honey. Three hundred years ago, the consumption of sugar averaged 6 lbs per person per year and now we’re eating 44 lbs of sugar per year and 40 lbs of high fructose corn syrup. In effect, the consumption of refined sweeteners as risen by 1,300% over the course of 300 years.

So now, we’re at an impasse. We’re accustomed to drinking a sweetened beverage with meals or grabbing a sweetened snack or topping off supper with ice cream. Researchers are now analyzing sugar’s very real, addictive nature. Never mind that, traditionally used sugars like the ones I touched on last week, often don’t translate well to modern recipes. They’re too deeply flavored, or don’t dissolve well.

After you overcome the culinary challenges of using traditional sweeteners in your foods, you’re still presented with the difficulties of moderating sugar intake and limiting sweet foods. A truly traditional diet – a diet that we evolved on – would not include the frequent use of sweeteners as a rule; rather, sweet treats were traditionally used for truly special occasions if they were eaten at all.

Sweets are my downfall, and I enjoy making sweet cakes and cookies (using natural sugars and sprouted grains, of course), but even those when consumed too frequently can still pose problems to your health and metabolism.

To make it simple: eliminate modern sweeteners from your cupboards, add a few natural sweeteners and use those natural sweeteners only rarely, if at all.

Some naturally-sweetened recipes for those super-special and rare occasions:

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A Guide to Natural Sweeteners & How to Use Them

Jenny — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:37:40 +0000

Honey: Rich in Antioxidants

This is the third part in 2009′s series: the Traditional Foods Primer. This month’s focus is sweeteners: the detriments of modern sweeteners, a guide to traditional sweeteners and how to transition from the modern to the traditional. But before we delve into whether or not sweeteners deserve a place in the modern diet – and just what kind of place that would be, we should focus on the basics: what are natural and traditional sweeteners and how do you use them.

Last week, you should have rid your cupboards of white sugar, brown sugar, agave nectar, high fructose corn syrup and chemically-based artificial sweeteners. This week, examine this list and head to the store to pick up the ones that appeal to you. Next week, we’ll talk about their place in the kitchen.

Honey: Honey has been collected for human consumption for at least 10,000 years, and humans have kept bees since ancient Egypt though the modern method of beekeeping is only a few hundred years old. Honey’s primary sugars are comprised of fructose (levulose) and glucose. Additionally, it contains a variety of antioxidants, enzymes and trace amounts of vitamins like thiamin and niacin.

Be mindful in your choice of honey. Choose a raw, unfiltered honey like Really Raw Honey. Many honeys available at your supermarket have been altered through modern processing so that they do not contain the goodies found in the natural, raw honey that our ancestors consumed. Honey can be processed by centrifuging, heating and filtering–this modern processing kills what is an essentially living food thereby depriving you of its nutrients and leaving you with only its sweetness.

By contrast, Really Raw Honey and other completely unprocessed honeys still contain pollen, propolis, enzymes, antioxidants and micronutrients which help to at least off-set the effects all sugars have on the metabolism. Beyond that, unprocessed honey has a unique and almost perfumed flavor that is missing from its processed counterparts. Flavor and nutrients: they almost always go together.

Honey is sweeter than white sugar, so use only three-quarters the amount of sugar called for. Honey, due to its moisture content, is best in dishes where moisture content doesn’t matter like sauces or beverages.

Date Sugar: Date sugar is made by drying dates and pulverizing them to a granular powder. Dates can contain up to 60% sugars and that percentage is increased with drying as the water evaporates from the fruit. For this reason, date sugar makes a very simple, whole and natural sweetener.

When using date sugar, take care not to use the sugar in dishes that require dissolving sugar in a liquid. Date sugar does not dissolve well. Instead, use it in baked goods. Date sugar tends to be sweeter than white or brown sugars, substituting half the amount of date sugar would yield the appropriate sweetness to the dish.

Unrefined or Low-refined Cane Sugars (Rapadura, Turbinado, Piloncillo, Sucanat): Cane sugar, according to some anthropologists, is one of the oldest domesticated plants. Minimally processed, unrefined and low-refined cane sugars like rapadura, sucanat, turbinado and piloncillo temper their sweetness with micronutrients like B vitamins and trace minerals.

These sugars, with the exception of turbinado which we’ll address later, are traditionally processed. First the juice is extracted from the sugar cane by pressing, then that juice is heated to reduce it to a thick syrup. Hand-paddling the syrup cools it and allows the sugars to crystallize. Since the molasses naturally present in the sugar isn’t extracted, the final product can be rich in minerals by comparison to its modern counterpart: white sugar. Turbinado sugar is processed similarly, only it undergoes a steaming or washing that causes it to lose some of its molasses.

These traditionally processed sugars can replace white and brown sugar at a 1:1 ratio. They contain many minerals including iron, calcium, chromium and potassium.

Molasses: Molasses is a byproduct of processing cane juice into white sugar and, in that regard, I’m not entirely sure it belongs here. Nevertheless, it provides a good source of niacin, thiamin, magnesium, copper and potassium. Its flavor is bittersweet and deeply rich. For that reason it should be used in small quantities so as not to impart to strong of a flavor to the end dish.

Sorghum Syrup: Sorhum hails from Africa and it was brought to the Americas with the slave trade. Like maple syrup which is harvested and made in the early spring, sorghum syrup is seasonally prepared. Autumn marks the sorghum harvest season. The process begins by harvesting the sorghum canes which are then stripped of their leaves and milled so as to extract the sweet juice. The juice is then heated and reduced to a thick, golden-copper syrup that is nicely sweet with a unique, subtle flavor reminiscent of tropical fruit.

Sorghum syrup is an good source of manganese, vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium and potassium. You can use it any recipe that calls for a liquid sweetener. Prior to corn syrup’s rise in popularity, sorghum syrup sweetened that classic confection of the American South: pecan pie.

Maple Syrup & Maple Sugar: Native Americans were the first to tap the maple trees native to what is now the north-east United States. They, in turn, taught the technique to European colonists. The technique of processing the sap of the maple trees into useable maple syrup and maple sugar has not changed since its inception and making maple syrup is still largely a cottage industry today much as it was several hundred years ago for the colonists.

First, the maple tree is tapped and its sap runs from the injury to its trunk into waiting buckets. That sap is then cooked down to reduce its water content and increase its sugar content until it becomes a fine, sweet syrup. The syrup can be cooked down further until so much of the water evaporates that the sugars crystallize making maple sugar.

Maple syrup and sugar are excellent sources of zinc and manganese and also provide trace amounts of calcium, iron and magnesium. Maple sugar can be used at a 1:1 ratio for white or brown sugar, but it is very costly.

Coconut & Palm Sugar: Popular in southeast Asia, coconut and palm sugar are yet another natural sweetener known in earlier times. Originally extracted only from the palmyra palm tree, it is now made from sago and coconut palms as well. As with other sweeteners, the juice is extracted and then boiled down until it forms the desired consistency: a syrup, thick gooey paste or sugar crystals.

The manufacture of coconut and palm sugars is small, and because of this, batches of coconut and palm sugar can vary wildly in terms of texture and color. Sometimes it’s sold as a gooey, semi-liquid paste. Other times it’s sold in hard cakes. Sometimes it’s light colored like cream, while others it’s a dark gold.

Coconut and palm sugars can be used in confections, but they’re also used to balance strong flavors in curries, sauces and other dishes. You can use it at a 1:1 ratio for white sugar.

Stevia: Stevia is native to South America where it was used by indiginous peoples in tea and as a contraceptive. Steviosides and rebaudiosides are the natural compounds in stevia that lend it a sweet taste (many hundred times sweeter than sugar) but without the calories. As a non-caloric sweetener, it presents and excellent alternative to chemically manufactured artificial sweeteners like sucralose and others.

Take care to purchase only the green stevia which is the least processed form available on the market. Green stevia is simply the stevia herb, dried and powdered. White stevia and liquid stevia are a result of processing which concentrates the steviosides and rebaudiosides and it is a new, modern process. Native peoples didn’t sweeten their teas with liquid stevia, so be wary. Further, it was traditionally used as a contraceptive–a medical use that some studies back up and others do not. So women who are trying to conceive should be aware of this factor prior to using it.

If you choose to use stevia, use green stevia which is an excellent accompaniment to tea and herbal tisanes. Other culinary uses for unprocessed, green stevia can prove challenging.

These represent the most easily accessible natural and traditional sweeteners, so head to your health food store and try a few out. You might be surprised at how easy they are to use in cooking. A word of warning, though: all sweeteners – even natural and traditional sweeteners – should be eaten in limited quantities and only on rare occasions. They are strong foods, rich in simple carbohydrates and that can prove challenging for almost everyone’s metabolism.

We’ll expand upon the discussion of natural sweeteners next week when we discuss when and how to use natural sweeteners. Hopefully, this guide will make your transition into wholesome, traditional foods just a touch easier.

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What They Say

Jenny — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:36:25 +0000

Now that the FDA has officially changed its course and determined that High Fructose Corn Syrup does indeed qualify as “natural” or, rather, that it “would not object to the use of the term â€˜natural’ on a product containing the HFCS produced by [a manufacturing process without synthetic fixatives] ,” the corn refiners association is happily proclaiming its “naturalness” every chance they can find. Indeed, they just launched a $30 million advertising campaign aimed at placing HFCS on the same level as sugar and honey.

A new glut of commercials offers such charmless guidance as “it’s made from corn and it’s fine in moderation” while simultaneously painting those who are concerned about the documented negative health effects of high fructose corn syrup as uninformed worry-worts. The fresh-faced actors begin by saying, “Well … you know what they say” and then stop.

So let me fill you in where they stop. Here’s what they say (they being the scientists, researchers and nutritionists not industrial food producers who have a stake in keeping the American public unwell.):

Rats fed high fructose corn syrup exhibited cognitive impairment.(1)
High Fructose Corn Syrup is linked mineral imbalance and may contribute to osteoporosis. (2)
High Fructose Corn Syrup contributes to epidemic obesity. (3), (4), (6), (9), (11)
There’s a link between high fructose corn syrup consumption and the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. (4) (5)
High Fructose Corn Syrup and excessive fructose consumption is linked with diabetes. (4)
High Fructose Corn Syrup and excessive fructose consumption is linked with atherosclerosis. (4)
High Fructose Corn Syrup contributes to the development of metabolic syndrome. (6), (7), (9)
Rats fed a diet of high fructose corn syrup developed kidney disturbances and disease. (7)
High Fructose Corn Syrup in the adult diet is linked with gastro-intestinal distress. (8)
High Fructose Corn Syrup consumption contributes to high cholesterol. (9), (10)
High Fructose Corn Syrup consumption in conjunction with low intake of magnesium (fairly common) is linked to insulin resistance and hypertension. (10)

The truth is this: high fructose corn syrup is not nutritionally equal to honey as the corn refiners association would have you believe. Beyond that, just because it’s made from corn doesn’t make it healthy; after all, ethanol is also made from corn but I don’t see anyone trying to mix it into fruit punch.

Fructose like that coming from fruit has a place in the human diet as long as it’s consumed in moderation. High Fructose Corn Syrup on the other hand is all but impossible to consume in moderation when one considers its concentrated nature and that it’s included in almost every packaged food available in the super market.

Get your fructose from fruit, and don’t believe the Corn Refiners advertising campaign because you’ll be in for a not-so-sweet suprise.

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