just an fyi for what this is... it's exactly what it sounds like. high (meaning concentrated) fructose (a form of sugar derived from fruits and vegetables) corn syrup (the sugar is derived from corn). it's processed and concentrated to the point where it's really cheap for companies to shove it in just about anything that you buy in the supermarket - even bread. they've started to figure out recently that it's at least partially responsible for obesity in this country because it permanently fucks up your metabolism if you ingest it consistently. which most people do when they're kids cuz the media nor our parents are going to actually feed us what's healthy for us. basically it makes it harder to digest food later in life and you end up storing more and more fat. this is the fattest country in the world and it uses high fructose corn syrup more than anyone else does so you can figure that they're linked. it's not that it's bad to eat it once. the problem is that if you usually shop at unsafeway, you're probably ingesting tons of it throughout the year and might not even realize it.
while i'm on my soap box, trans fats/hydrogentated oils are basically fats that have an extra hydrogen added to the carbon chain - making it straight instead of crooked. the result is fat that stays stiff at room temperature (instead of being liquid, like peanut butter should be - for example). and guess what - it's stiff in your arteries as well. causes cancer, causes heart attacks. and everything purchased at a regular supermarket is loaded with it too! whoopee.
just shop at your local health food store. saves headaches, helps your community.
Well the trans-fats info answers my question of why weren't those frostie things not melted when I was camping that one time and folks left them on the picnic table overnight. Ew.
Probably going to go home and throw my peanut butter away too.
I live in the urban sprawl and the only health food stores [aka whole paycheck] are so expensive, it's hard to shop there for everything. But in the last 6 months I've given up alot of processed stuff and it does work in helping you lose weight and feel better.
you can still eat relatively healthy without going to special food stores, just cut back on the processed foods. FOr example, get fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables instead of canned. Or get regular or multigrain pasta instead of the boxed rice-a-roni. Anything that comes with a "flavoring packet" should be out (think ramen and hamburger helper). The fresher the food is, the less corn syrup and trans fat it will have.
Also, if you want to see what high fructose corn syrup looks like, go look at the karo syrup in your local grocery store, and imagine it in your bread :P gross