Avaktavyam » Health

HFCS Myths Debunked!

Louis-Dominique — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:04:22 +0000

[After my previous post on sugar and high fructose corn syrup being everywhere, I found this page. "Intellectually dishonest" is the mildest qualifier which comes to mind for that page. Anyway, I decided to produce my own home-grown tripe. Read on...]

Myth: High fructose corn syrup causes cannibalism.

Reality: There is no scientific evidence of a positive correlation between high fructose corn syrup and cannibalism. Quite the contrary, Dr. Fleug of the University of Hamburg has studied the link between high fructose corn syrup and cannibalism. In his study, he found that the control group, the group not fed HFCS, had a higher incidence of cannibalism than the group which was fed HFCS. Additionally, there are many possible causes of cannibalism and these causes are not easily isolated. For instance, zombification, fruit, unicorns and the US tax code are all possible causes of cannibalism. If you filed taxes or had fruit, you could be a cannibal and not know it.

Myth: HFCS is made from puppies.

Reality: Actually, HFCS is made from kittens.

Myth: High fructose corn syrup is high in fructose.

Reality: As a matter of fact, the H in HFCS does not mean “high” but “holy”. HFCS is full of godly goodness. Those who oppose the addition of HFCS in food items are not only unchristian but also hate freedom. They are unamerican and communists, and probably are cannibals too.

Myth: HFCS is made from kittens.

Reality: Actually, HFCS is made from puppies.

Myth: High fructose corn syrup is the sweetest substance known to us.

Reality: The perpetually happy, “think positive” new age types are sweeter than high fructose corn syrup. They taste like peach cobbler while the rest of the population tastes like chicken.

Editor: How do you know what people taste like?

HFCS Executive: We were members of the control group in Dr. Fleug’s study on HFCS and cannibalism.

Sugar, sugar everywhere!

Louis-Dominique — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:13:47 +0000

Yes, I’ve heard before about how food manufacturers put sugar in everything but it is only last weekend that the issue became real for me. (Call me “slow” if you will… or call me “Susan” if it rocks your boat.) Debbie wanted to buy canned soup. (Useful to have in a pinch.) She started looking at this and that can saying “can’t have this, can’t have that.” I asked why and she told me the carbs were too high. (Not due to a fad diet, if you are wondering.) So I started looking too. I was flipping cans left and right like a real grocery store ninja but none of the soups had an adequate level of carbs. I noticed that a soup which had pasta in it had as much carbs as a vegetable soup without pasta. This was counterintuitive so I looked closely at both lists of ingredients and quickly found the problem: the vegetable soup, the one without pasta, had high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) listed as the second ingredient. I checked a few other soups which did not advertise any high-carb ingredient in their name or in the picture on the front of the can but they also had HFCS or sugar listed early in the ingredient list.

We’ll have to start looking at alternatives because this is ridiculous.

Hit the gym today: pleasant surprise

Louis-Dominique — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:31:18 +0000

For about 4 months and a half, I have not been doing any kind of serious physical exercise. As usually happens during these periods of inactivity, I assume that when I return to an exercise regimen of some sort, I’ll have to start from scratch. I assume that everything gained during my last intense period of exercise will have evaporated during my period of inactivity. Actually, it seems to me that my past experiences with weight training proved this expectation to be true. In fact, this expectation turns out not to be the case.

Today, before breakfast, I hit the gym. When I came to weight training, I was expecting having to reduce the weight load to something substantially lower than where I stopped last Fall. Boy, was I surprised! I found that I can set the weight to the same level where I left off. I have to reduce the number of reps but that’s all. This is so wonderful! It lifts some psychological weight off my shoulders. (Ironically, I guess.) I used to think that if I stopped exercising my body’s capabilities would necessarily soon regress from the lack of exercise. I would feel guilty about it. Now I find that I can go for months and not regress. It is still better to exercise than not but at least if I stop for a while, it does not void my previous efforts.

As I mentioned earlier, this is different than my previous experience with weight training. I have to say I cannot be sure about what is different this time but I think that it might have something to do with how I’m exercising. Last summer I decided to be more aggressive with weights. I decided to move on to heavier weights faster than I used to. This might have made enough of a difference to shock my body into not discarding the extra muscle during the period of inactivity. I don’t know.