HFCS AND Agave nectar AND fruit juice concentrates are dangerously harmful....

Today’s post:  Tuesday, 6-9-2015

By now most people know that high fructose corn syrup is fattening and many know it’s harmful and a few know that 30% of it has enough mercury to harm your brain and nerves if you consume it regularly.

But just how bad it is for you really is only recently being discovered.

The fructose in high fructose corn syrup, HFCS, is NOT linked to glucose as is the case with sucrose, real sugar.  So consuming HFCS causes faster and larger blood sugar surges.  That in turn causes overuse of insulin and eventually insulin resistance and higher base blood sugar levels and type 2 diabetes. 

And the highs and then lows of blood sugar cause mood swings and rebound hunger or even cravings for more sugary foods.

People then eat more sugary foods PLUS the initial fructose beyond what their body normally would be hungry for and needs.  People who do this on a regular basis then become 15 to over 100 pounds fatter than they would have been from this alone.

And, if you read my blogs, you also know that consuming HFCS causes your triglyceride levels to go up which then causes your level of small particle or dense LDL that is a direct cause of heart disease, heart attacks, obstructive or ischemic strokes, and ED and peripheral artery disease.

In fact, this is direct I just found out because the high intake of fructose causes your liver to get stuffed with triglycerides.  And those that get into the blood stream have that deadly effect.

But THAT can kill you by killing your liver and has done so! 

It seems that if you get a lot of HFCS or free fructose from other sources, particularly if you also ingest hydrogenated oils, you begin quickly to overstuff your liver with triglycerides and fat.

This is called NASH and is essentially a very sick liver NOT caused by ingesting too much alcohol.

So HFCS tends to cause obesity, heart disease and related effects, type 2 diabetes, and we now know it causes NASH, this kind of liver disease too.

In fact, if you do something most teens think is normal and have a commercially baked or packaged cookie or two with both high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils AND drink a soft drink with HFCS too – and that is typical and do it for too many years, you will be fat and your health will be a train wreck!

This is really serious bad news.

But what even people who know about HFCS and excessive sugar have been unknowingly doing something as harmful as consuming HFCS or excessive sugar BUT presented as better for your health.

In fact, this is so little known so far that even a good guy store like Whole Foods is full of foods that do this harmful thing we now know is very nearly as bad as consuming HFCS!

The thing that makes HFCS so dangerous, other than its mercury content, and have all these NASTY effects is the high level of free fructose it contains.

BUT agave and fruit juice concentrates are ALSO sources of free fructose.

So that means that an energy bar or jam in a health food store that has agave or apple juice concentrate instead of sugar is MUCH more harmful to you and fattening than the sugar it replaced!

This is truly too bad since many of these foods and drinks have really well done recipes where all the other ingredients are often organic and good for you.

But this news suggests you will be much healthier and less fat if you take a pass and never buy or eat agave or foods or drinks sweetened with fruit juice concentrates or do so even less than you would if they used real sugar instead!