I apologize for giving Spuds such a hard time. In posting the picture of his drink, I was a bit motivated to look at the ingredients of Powerade. The second ingredient is of course High Fructose Corn Syrup. Unless you're in denial, I think most of us realize that HFCS is not a good thing. Sure, it's made from corn, but the advantages stop there.
Here's a short brief from Diabetes.comhttp://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2011/02/17/7057/how-high-fructose-corn-syrup-hfcs-is-made/ on how HFCS is made:
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is, as the name implies, corn syrup whose glucose has been partially changed into a different sugar, fructose. To make HFCS, you start with corn, then mill it to produce starch -corn starch. Starch, the most important carbohydrate in the human diet, consists of long chains of glucose. To make corn syrup, you mix the corn starch with water and then add an enzyme, produced by a bacterium, that breaks the starch down into shorter chains of glucose. Then you add another enzyme, produced by a fungus, that breaks the short chains down into glucose molecules. At that point, you have regular corn syrup.
To make the corn syrup into high fructose corn syrup, you turn some of its glucose molecules into fructose molecules by exposing the syrup to yet another enzyme, again produced by bacteria. This enzyme converts the glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 53 percent glucose, with some other sugars as well. This syrup, called HFCS 42, is about as sweet as natural sugar (sucrose) and is used in foods and bakery items. HFCS 55, which contains approximately 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose, is sweeter than sucrose and is used mostly in soft drinks.
I'm thinking anything subsidized by the US Government should make you question any health benefits whatsoever.
Then I found this great article written by Princeton University. It's too long to post it here, but take a look at it. Click Here for Article. The obesity effects of HFCS are drastic. It's sort of funny that the First Lady's great idea of battling Childhood Obesity doesn't even touch on decreasing the amount of HFCS in our food and drinks. What do kids drink most? Oh and do you know who owns Powerade and Gatorade? Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola respectfully.
Spud's comment is something I used to hear from my wife. "Why be miserable?" Honestly for some reason I'm not. Eating less and eating better this year has not been much of a challenge at all. I feel good and my stomach issues have pretty much disappeared. To top it off, there is no better feeling of getting on the scale and getting to move the slide a little to left each time.
The idea of my pants becoming more loose or hitting that 4th belt loop motivates me when I'm fighting the urge to "cheat". The thought of pedaling uphill with 20lbs less fat this summer is more than enticing. Most of all though, the health benefits are the biggest motivator. I'll touch on this in my next post, but eating better quality food just makes you feel better. There's no downside, in my opinion to eating better.
I believe it helps to know what your eating. Use the fear factor if it helps. Do you really want to be eating sodium nitrite, disodium guanylate, etc.........or is just easier to eat a banana, apple, salad, or anything else that doesn't contain a million different ingredients produced mostly in a laboratory?
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Once again, sorry Spuds for picking on you. Your comment actually force me to do quite a bit of research:) . Thanks
Here's a short brief from Diabetes.comhttp://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2011/02/17/7057/how-high-fructose-corn-syrup-hfcs-is-made/ on how HFCS is made:
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is, as the name implies, corn syrup whose glucose has been partially changed into a different sugar, fructose. To make HFCS, you start with corn, then mill it to produce starch -corn starch. Starch, the most important carbohydrate in the human diet, consists of long chains of glucose. To make corn syrup, you mix the corn starch with water and then add an enzyme, produced by a bacterium, that breaks the starch down into shorter chains of glucose. Then you add another enzyme, produced by a fungus, that breaks the short chains down into glucose molecules. At that point, you have regular corn syrup.
To make the corn syrup into high fructose corn syrup, you turn some of its glucose molecules into fructose molecules by exposing the syrup to yet another enzyme, again produced by bacteria. This enzyme converts the glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 53 percent glucose, with some other sugars as well. This syrup, called HFCS 42, is about as sweet as natural sugar (sucrose) and is used in foods and bakery items. HFCS 55, which contains approximately 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose, is sweeter than sucrose and is used mostly in soft drinks.
I'm thinking anything subsidized by the US Government should make you question any health benefits whatsoever.
Then I found this great article written by Princeton University. It's too long to post it here, but take a look at it. Click Here for Article. The obesity effects of HFCS are drastic. It's sort of funny that the First Lady's great idea of battling Childhood Obesity doesn't even touch on decreasing the amount of HFCS in our food and drinks. What do kids drink most? Oh and do you know who owns Powerade and Gatorade? Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola respectfully.
Spud's comment is something I used to hear from my wife. "Why be miserable?" Honestly for some reason I'm not. Eating less and eating better this year has not been much of a challenge at all. I feel good and my stomach issues have pretty much disappeared. To top it off, there is no better feeling of getting on the scale and getting to move the slide a little to left each time.
The idea of my pants becoming more loose or hitting that 4th belt loop motivates me when I'm fighting the urge to "cheat". The thought of pedaling uphill with 20lbs less fat this summer is more than enticing. Most of all though, the health benefits are the biggest motivator. I'll touch on this in my next post, but eating better quality food just makes you feel better. There's no downside, in my opinion to eating better.
I believe it helps to know what your eating. Use the fear factor if it helps. Do you really want to be eating sodium nitrite, disodium guanylate, etc.........or is just easier to eat a banana, apple, salad, or anything else that doesn't contain a million different ingredients produced mostly in a laboratory?
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Once again, sorry Spuds for picking on you. Your comment actually force me to do quite a bit of research:) . Thanks
1 comment:
None taken. Competition is a good driving force :)
Post a Comment