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Posts Tagged ‘fructose’

High-fructose corn syrup is a common sweetener and preservative which is made by changing the sugar (glucose) in cornstarch to fructose which is another form of sugar. The end product is a combination of fructose and glucose. It has become a popular ingredient in many sodas, fruit-flavored drinks and other processed foods because it extends the shelf life of processed foods and is cheaper than sugar.

Recent media campaigns have been launched to improve the poor image of high fructose corn syrup or HFCS.  They are basically trying to promote this junk food additive as “healthy”.

Although the advertising campaigns don’t come right out and make the claim that HFCS is “health food”, they do try to cleverly fool people into thinking that it’s not bad for your health.  In fact, they make these claims: Read the rest of this entry »

Recent infomercials for various health food and supplement “miracles in a bottle” brings to mind the old fable of King Jack, the ruler of Anesthesia:

Content with the state of affairs throughout Anesthesia, but sensing the need to be more in touch with his constituents, King Jack appointed members of his staff to seek out the knowledge from the greatest minds in the kingdom. Upon their return they presented the king with several volumes worth of information. Delighted with the response, yet perplexed with the amount of data collected, King Jack responded with a request to condense the information into a single volume.
After an initial assessment of the condensed version, the king then petitioned to have the information expressed in a single phrase consisting of five words or less. The advisors to the king deliberated for several days and returned with their consensus on the single phrase which best represented the wisdom of the intellects throughout Anesthesia; “THERE AIN’T NO FREE LUNCH.” Read the rest of this entry »

While most people only count calories, one equally important but much less well-known number is a food’s glycemic index.

The glycemic index (GI) measures how much a particular food raises blood sugar levels – key for weight loss purposes, since a spike in blood sugar results in a corresponding insulin spike, triggering the body to store fat. Over time, this can even lead to so-called “insulin resistance” (meaning the body releases more and more insulin to respond to elevated blood sugar) and diabetes. Knowing the glycemic index values of common foods and choosing foods that are low on the GI scale can help you lose weight much faster.

The glycemic index of a particular food is established in a laboratory by serving 10 people a 50-gram serving of the food, then measuring how much their blood sugar goes up over the next two hours. The results are then averaged. To figure out the GI values of the foods you eat most often, you do not have to rent out a laboratory, however. Glycemic index information on many different foods is available for free online with only a simple Google search. You can also ask your physician about the glycemic index, and you may be able to get recommendations on how to build low-GI foods into your diet most effectively. Read the rest of this entry »