As I said in my last post, we have eliminated corn syrup from our family's diet.  Well, since it really is in every thing you buy at the grocery store, we had a few products in the fridge and pantry with corn syrup in them and I was not about to throw those out so we finished them up.  Although we did give away several bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, that one hurt. 

Why are we choosing to not ingest corn syrup?  Everyone knows corn syrup is the sweetener of choice in breads, salad dressings, sodas, ketchups and restaurant foods just to name a few products.  Check your cupboards now and I would be surprised if you aren't appalled by the amount of corn syrup you are feeding your family on a daily basis.

Corn syrup is made from corn starch.  It's a complicated process, involving a few steps where enzymes are added which convert the sugar in the starch to syrup.  Despite the complexity, it's still cheaper to make corn syrup than it is to purchase sugar.  Plus corn syrup acts as a preservative and extends the shelf life of the foods.  So for food manufacturers it's a win/win.  Corn syrup is cheap, plentiful and allows their product to stay fresh in our pantries longer than home made food could.  In our busy world don't we love convenience?

But what is it doing to your body?  According to the Mayo Clinic corn syrup is a major contributor to the obesity problem facing the United States.  The scariest thing about corn syrup is that only one organ in the body can process it, the liver.  Unlike every other sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, fructose or glucose which can be processed by every cell in the body - even blood cells!  Think about it, that is how diabetics check their blood sugar level, by testing their blood.  But you can't test your blood for your corn syrup level.  And it contributes to obesity b/c the liver is so efficient that it readily converts the corn syrup to FAT which goes straight to the blood stream - heart disease in a bottle. 

Considering the sheer amount that the average person consumes in a single day is dizzying.  That is a lot of work for the liver.  In fact, it can cause the liver to become cirrhotic and plugged with fat, not unlike an alcoholics liver. 

There is good news for us and you though.  By and large, organic products do not contain corn syrup.  My son's "special sauce", poppy seed dressing had corn syrup as the FIRST ingredient, but we found one by Breanna's which tastes delightful and has none of the nasty stuff.  Heinz sells an organic ketchup which does not contain corn syrup. 

Oh and yesterday's bread had a slight mishap, I forgot it in the oven.  Hubby has to go to the healthfood store during lunch again today for another mix.  If anyone has a yummy gluten free-egg free- dairy free bread recipe let me know.

Namaste