HFCS

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) or more commonly known in Canada as Glucose/Fructose is in EVERYTHING!

This is something I've never really paid attention to before. A friend pointed it out to me and I kind of brushed it off. I started making more things at home to save money and started reading ingredient labels to see if I thought I could make it myself. Lo and behold Glucose/Fructose kept popping up.

To start with, if you don't know how horrible this is for you, and why you should avoid it please find out! It isn't natural...it's completely fabricated and then put into everything...even things that pass themselves off as 'healthy'!

To list everything here would take forever, but just google HFCS or Glucose/Fructose and you will come up with lots of reading...and viewing on YouTube.

In my house this is what I've found HFCS in (so far!):
1.   Bulls Eye BBQ Sauce (It's the first ingredient!)
2.   International Delight French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
3.   Five Alive Juice (Frozen concentrate or Juice Boxes of any size)
4.   Bicks Sweet Relish
5.   Heinz Ketchup (and really any other non-organic ketchup brand) -Replacement Idea: Buy Organic
6.   Quaker Granola Bars       -Replacement Idea: Make your own!
7.   Old Mill 100% Whole Wheat Bread
8.   Aunt Jemima Syrup    -Replacement Idea: Maple Syrup or Honey
9.   Campbells Tomato Soup
10. Kelloggs All Bran Buds
11. Presidents Choice Crunchy Maple Almond Cereal
12. Coke (This one really hurts because I love Coke!)
13. Ginger Ale
14. Powerade Ion4
15. Girl Guide Cookies
16. Corn Syrup (of course!) -Replacement Idea: If you can find actual corn syrup (that only lists corn   
      syrup as the ingredients), grab it! It's hard to find!
17. Primo Pizza Squeeze Traditional (How is that traditional?)

The following have either just corn syrup listed (but unless they specify that it's pure corn syrup (which is actually ok for you), you can't trust that they haven't mixed it to cut costs :( or they have Corn Syrup Solids listed...not sure how that's any different either (But more research is necessary!).

18. Maxwell House Cafe French Vanilla Instant Coffee
19. Gerber Graduates Juice Treats (Really? REALLY?) -Replacement Idea: SunRype Funbites
20. General Mills Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
21. Presidents Choice Blue Menu Crunchy Whole Grain Cereal with Almonds
22. Beef Oxo
23. Chicken Oxo
24. Hamburger Helper
25. Smuckers Jam
26. Welch's Fruit Snacks     -Replacement Idea: SunRype FunBites

This is just a list from my own house...I'm sure if I spent the time to go around the store reading ingredients I would probably be here typing it for hours!

This is a list I am compiling when people let me know things they find it in:

1. Kelloggs Raisin Bran
2. E.D. Smith Cherry Pie Filling 
3. Most fruit popsicles

Now, the question is what to do about it? Well I'm going to say right here and now that I probably wont avoid Coke for the rest of my life, and Five Alive is my husband's favourite juice! However, that being said, there are a number of things on this list that I can either avoid, find a different item to replace it or MAKE IT MYSELF and know exactly what's in it!

So far I have replaced all the bread in the house with bread that I make myself (I do have an emergency loaf in the freezer, but it's a bakery fresh loaf without HFCS). I make all our granola bars (and my husband immediately proclaimed that he wont touch another Quaker bar in his life because these are so much better!). Most recently I found a recipe to replace my beloved vanilla coffee creamer :) I have made my own crispy sweet relish. I am working on a BBQ sauce replacement and am hoping to come up with a chutney recipe soon.

Stay tuned for posts about this topic, containing recipes, 'heads up' about products claiming to be healthy that have HFCS and products that don't have HFCS that can replace your usual brand!