Welcome to my first entry of the 2006 fiscal blogging year (which mere mortals know as the 2006 calendar year). If you’re an astute reader, you may remember that I did a similar entry to this two years ago. In that entry I lamented about being fat and not finishing the bible. Fast forward to 2006, I still haven’t finished the bible, but I’m not as fat, although I need to loose the excess weight I’ve gained over the last few weeks in Texas and Minnesota.
Also, you may recall that I said that I don’t usually make new year’s resolutions. Well, a lot of stuff can change in two years that cause you to rethink that. That means that this year I’ve decided to do some new years resolutions. As I formulate them better I’ll post them in this blog. Here’s my first one:
Eliminate high fructose corn syrup from my diet
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is the incredibly popular sweetener found in just about everything. From Coca-Cola, to Smucker’s Jam, to Frosted Mini-Wheats. If it tastes good and is sweet, there is probably high fructose corn syrup in there. There are some good aspects of the sweetener, it provides additional income for farmers and reduces reliance on foreign sources of sweeteners. It’s also good virtually forever, which is why so many sweets last forever. More information can be found on HFCSFacts.com - a project of the corn refiners association. This page makes HFCS look like pretty good stuff, and it might be.
But you had better beware. Because even though HFCS is found everywhere, there are questions about the actual ramifications of HFCS. A few weeks ago, Sprol did a nice writeup of the possible dangers of HFCS, however, like many Sprol items, it’s a little speculative. Fortunately, I’ve found some other articles from The Washington Post, and The Seattle Times indicating that HFCS might be highly related to the increase in obesity in the United States. Personally, I think that American’s are just lazy.
Well, in any case, I’ve decided that I’m going to try and eliminate it. This means no regular pop, no regular jelly, no frosted mini wheats. I also will be staying away from diet colas because I find they cause joint problems. I’ll post an update in a few weeks on my progress here.
As a full disclaimer, I’m not eliminating HFCS immediately. Any products with HFCS laying around the house will be eaten rather than thrown away. I’ll try to make sure new products have no HFCS. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I need a product with HFCS - we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.