Fast Running Blog

Alright. I've been learning a lot more about nutrition recently, and I've found out that there's a lot more stuff, in our food than we think. Even a lot of store bought wheat bread, for example, has high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. What is everyones take on how much, if any, we should touch this stuff, or if they agree that we shouldn't eat this stuff at all?

I always read the ingredients, and if I see a bad one, I do not eat the food. Sure, 90% of the time this might be overzealous, the amount of added sugar or high fructose syrup could be within range to keep the food in the asset category with regards to running and health in general. But for me it is a matter of principle. Did the manufacturer have to add it to make it sweet? Could they have added honey instead? What does that tell you about them? They advertise their food as a healthy choice, yet they cheat under the table hoping most people would not read the list of ingredients.

I think we should bust them and not give them our hard earned dollar, and encourage our friends to do the same as well.

I agree with Sasha. I'm tired of people throwing the word 'healthy' into the title of something and thinking that consumers are so stupid as to buy it. You know what though, they're right. If it says healthy, people will buy it without knowing anything about it. Stay away from high fructose corn syrup. It is probably the single most influential ingrediant that has lead to the Fattening of America. It is nothing but a cheap sweetener that your body has increased difficulty dealing with. Soda machines in high schools, everything sweetened with HFCS because our children have grown up expecting food to taste sweet. Very frustrating.  Google search High Fructose Corn Syrup. You don't even need to read the articles. Just read the snippet under each link. Read as many as you want so as to not take a biased approach and think that perhaps its just the first few that have negative things to say.

"More stable than sugar against the disintegrating elements (such as moisture), foods with High Fructose Corn Syrup can literally travel thousands of miles and sit on the shelf of your local convenience store forever and (almost) never go bad." You have to wonder about putting such a product into your stomach.

Even the Oatmeal packs you get at the store can be high in Corn syrup and sugars with you don't get the organic and raw oats.  I like to eat raw oats with honey.

Dr. Andrew Weil (a health guru, in case you haven't heard of him) says the number one thing we can do to help our health is to avoid completely anything with partially hydrogenated oils in it.  He says no amount is okay to eat.  So check those labels.

Going along the same lines, how bad is modified starches for you, or are they alright?