What do you do when you have a corn allergy and you want something sweet to eat? After keeping careful watch and reading labels for a year, I have come to the conclusion that our only best bet is to make our own ‘on the go’ snacks from scratch. And drinks? Just forget about them. As a matter of fact, I challenge anyone in America to read the ingredient listings on every snack product in their favorite vending machine. It would not surprise me if every item had some association with corn, however odd or far removed as it may seem. Heck, even the water bottles are more than likely made from a corn byproduct! I digress. I really want to focus my attention on America’s romance with sugar, corn sugar to be specific, its prevalence in our lives, and a little history about how we became so addicted to the sweet stuff that grows in abundance over our midlands, and now even clutters the landscape surrounding the rocky mountain region. (more…)

A recent study preformed by Chi-Tang Ho, P.h.D., at Rutgers University found extremely high levels of reactive carbonyls in 11 different carbonated soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup. He estimates that one can of your favorite soft drink could contain five times the amount of reactive carbonyls than what would be typically found in the blood of an adult with diabetes, blood that would contain elevated levels of reactive carbonyls as a complication of the disease.

Unbound reactive carbonyls are dangerous as they are thought to cause tissue damage, unlike bound and chemically stable fructose and glucose components found in refined sugar. Published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the study claims that High Fructose Corn Syrup laden soft drinks, when consumed in high doses, leads to the development of diabetes. (more…)