In the spirit of fresh food, of consuming what my body welcomes and is enriched by, I’ve embarked on a quest to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from my diet.
A sweetener made from corn as opposed to sugar cane, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is in almost everything we are offered in a package. I won’t pretend to know all the science of the sucroses and the glucoses, but I do know that the components of sugar from the cane are processed more naturally by our body than the large amount of fructose in HFCS.
While glucose, from natural sugar, can be metabolized by cells throughout the body, fructose must go to the liver.
A Weston Foundation article has this to say about fructose:
Pure fructose contains no enzymes, vitamins or minerals and robs the body of its micronutrient treasures in order to assimilate itself for physiological use.7 While naturally occurring sugars, as well as sucrose, contain fructose bound to other sugars, high fructose corn syrup contains a good deal of “free” or unbound fructose. Research indicates that this free fructose interferes with the heart’s use of key minerals like magnesium, copper and chromium. Among other consequences, HFCS has been implicated in elevated blood cholesterol levels and the creation of blood clots. It has been found to inhibit the action of white blood cells so that they are unable to defend the body against harmful foreign invaders.8
Our first step in a long journey away from HFCS is to make our own jam. Ultimately, we hope to make it from fruit that we grow ourselves, but that is in the long run.
So far, we’ve made three batches. Strawberry, with fruit purchased at the store; blueberry, and blackberry, with berries we picked at a local orchard. Pectin and sugar complete the brew and the taste of even our first attempts is out of this world. I am biased toward my own efforts, true.
I’m still many moons away from eliminating refined sugar all together. Frankly, the day will probably never come . . . sweet!
