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High Fructose Corn Syrup is the “bad word” in an ingredients list. I read food labels but most of the time, I focused on the calorie count and fat content per serving.

It was only until recently that I was introduced to The Murky World of High Fructose Corn Syrup by the nutritionist from my pre-natal nutrition class.

Soft drinks and processed foods are full of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is not only fattening, it is an inexpensive and ultra-concentrated sugar that has no resemblance to real food made by nature. It is a highly processed form of sugar and almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then processed with genetically modified enzymes.

HFCS is found in the most unlikely foods like ketchup, coolwhip, yogurt, salad dressing and barbecue sauce. Horror of horrors! I have the latter three in my refrigerator! The irony is that even LOW-FAT yogurt and salad dressing contain HFCS!

A July 2006 New York Times article on high fructose corn syrup (”A Sweetener With a Bad Rap“), noted:

“The Food and Drug Administration never established rules on what, exactly, ‘natural’ means, allowing companies to pitch products as natural even if they contain high-fructose corn syrup. Cadbury Schweppes recently began promoting 7-Up, which is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, as “100 percent natural.” Capri Sun fruit-flavored drinks from Kraft are also promoted as all-natural, although they, too, are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Cadbury and Kraft both say they believe that high-fructose corn syrup is natural because it is made from corn.”

So, boys and girls, moms and dads, do read food labels when grocery shopping and be aware that seemingly “natural” products may not be so natural after all.

As for me, I will be taking limited quantities of my yogurt, salad dressing and barbecue sauce just so as to be on the safe side, where the murky world of high fructose corn syrup is concerned.