Yesterday I gave you 5 (more) Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup. At the end of the post I mentioned that I would give you an experiment today that you could conduct on yourself. You’ve probably read about many of the dangers of HFCS, but how about you put that information aside for a moment and try this:
For one week, do not eat any food that contains HFCS. This means that you won’t eat any fast food unless you can obtain the complete list of ingredients for the item(s) that you want. For any other food, read every ingredient and if high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, crystalline fructose, fructose, or any other ingredient is listed that you think could possibly be in this category, do not eat it. The reason that I suggest the latter is because I only recently learned of crystalline fructose, so there could be other versions of fructose and corn syrups out there.
After one week, pick out something that you like that has HFCS listed as one of the top 4 ingredients. Pick a time when you can sit down and eat without any distractions; have your notebook handy. Keep the TV and radio off, mute the phone, and focus on your food. Eat the food that you have selected and remain conscious of how your body feels while you are eating it. How does your stomach, your gut, your head physically feel? How long does it take until you feel full? (Remember that HFCS interferes with the hormone that sends the signal to your brain to tell it that your stomach is full.) Write down any notes, anything at all that you learn while you are consciously eating.
After you finish, continue to note how your body feels over the next hour, two hours, during the rest of the evening or day. Keep jotting notes down in your notebook or journal.
Tune in and use your intuition along with the feedback that your own body is giving you to determine whether or not HFCS works well in your body. Does it give you more energy or do you feel sluggish? Do you observe that you have cravings for more food and you aren’t even hungry? How do your intestines feel? (Yes, I mean it, pay attention to your gut!)
Now, this exercise will be much more effective if you eat only whole foods for at least a week, and then eat the food containing HFCS. The way that I have experienced my body’s reaction is when I have eaten processed food after having been eating only whole foods, and doing so for several weeks or months. I get very bloated, lethargic, foggy headed, and overall don’t feel well. Even so, if your diet has consisted mainly of processed foods up until this point, I think that this exercise will be very telling, especially since so many processed foods contain the fructose and corn syrup ingredients (so you will be knocking out a large number of processed foods during your week).
By conducting this experiment, you will learn for yourself how HFCS plays havoc with your body. This way, you will have your own proof that it is not a healthy ingredient to ingest. Not only does it increase your cravings for more and more food, it just makes your body feel bad.
I have a lot of information to share with you based on my own experiences, my research, extensive reading, studying, and the work that I have done on myself thus far, however I believe that you already have all of the answers within you, as everyone does. In order to discover them, you must become conscious of what your body and mind is trying to tell you. I can give you information and help you remember what you already know (just like I am reminded of what I know by reading, the teachings of others, and direct experience), but if you tune in and listen to yourself, you will gain much more knowledge than anyone else can give you.
Please let me know how this goes if you conduct this experiment. I’m interested in what you discover, and others could learn from your experience, too.
