Avoiding High Fructose Corn Syrup

Practical Tips

Even reducing your consumption by a little bit will have a positive effect on your health!

• Carbonated Drinks - Look for cane sugar sweetened. Most major brands (Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, etc) are sweetened with HFCS unless they are diet. Their are alternatives if you look for them. A&W Root Beer has a new bottled "Float" soda which not only has no HFCS, but it's naturally caffeine-free as well!
• Catsup - Look for organic catsup. It tastes no different from "regular" catsup and only costs a few pennies more.
• Salad Dressing - Nearly every brand of bottled salad dressing contains HFCS. Look for natural or organic labels or - believe it or not - the powdered Ranch mix from Hidden Valley Ranch has no HFCS. Just buy your own sour cream or buttermilk and mix it up yourself!
• Ice Cream - Another food that relies heavily on HFCS. Breyer's All Natural (but ONLY the "All Natural" variety) Ice Cream doesn't have any, though!
• Frozen Treats - Most regular popsicles are sweetened with HFCS. Buy bars made from 100% fruit juice, or make your own with frozen fruit pureed in the blender.
• Sports Drinks and "Vitamin Water" - Ugh. Don't even get me started on these. So-called Vitamin Water, Gatorade, and most other "Sports" drinks are NOTHING but water, HFCS, and artificial flavorings. Sometimes with a few vitamins added so they can sell more. Brilliant Marketing. Avoid these like the plague.
• Juice Beverages - As tempting as it may be to buy those fun sports bottles with "juice", little barrel juices, or cheap breakfast drinks for your kids - trust me - it's worth the couple of extra bucks to get the real thing - 100% Fruit Juice (even the frozen or "from concentrate" stuff is better than the fake sweetened stuff.
• Breads- The best advice I have here is just read the labels. I've seen inexpensive store brand sandwich breads with no HFCS and expensive "healthier" brands that do and vice versa. One interesting fact - did you know that most "wheat" (as in white or wheat sandwich breads) are darker not because of the wheat, but because caramel coloring is added to make it look nicer?
• Cereals - Another one where you'll just have to look around and read some labels. Oddly enough, Fruity Pebbles doesn't have any HFCS.
• Meats, Hot dogs, Bacon - Be very careful with hot dogs. I still haven't found a place to buy ones in my town that don't have HFCS in them (even Hebrew National Kosher dogs contain it). The same holds true for most regular bacons. Turkey Bacon usually doesn't, but Turkey Dogs do (go figure!). Nearly all pre-packaged lunch meats have HFCS.
• Cookies - A lot of pre-packaged, un-frosted cookies have no HFCS, but you'll need to check.
• Snacks - Regular "fruit snacks" are basically pure HFCS with some flavorings. Read the labels, it's hard to find a fruit roll up, fruit snack, or the like without it. The same goes for sports bars, power bars, nutrition bars, and similar items - most of them are loaded to the gills with HFCS.
• Pancake Syrup Most brands, like Aunt Jemima, contain not only corn syrup, but added HFCS to make them even sweeter! Your best best is to only buy 100% Pure Maple Syrup (it is more expensive, though).