Do you Believe Corn Syrup TV Commercials?

Lucky Charms, cereal for kids: whole grain oats, sugar, modified corn starch, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, yellow 5&6, blue 1, red 40. Artificial flavor. Sugar. Oat flour. corn syrup. corn starch. salt. trisodium phosphate, color added, artificial flavor. vitamin E added to preserve freshness. + vitamins

Have you seen the latest tv commercials from the Corn Refiners Association in United States?

Here's a brief synopsis of one: A kid is having cereal for breakfast. His brother joins him and calls the kid a doofus because he's eating cereal with corn syrup. The kid with the cereal retorts with So What? and several great reasons for eating corn syrup. His brother steals the cereal bowl from the kid and starts to devour it.

Cute commercial. Alas, I have no money and no access to kid actors to make my own commercial about corn syrup, so instead, I collected some info about why I think consuming corn syrup is NOT a good idea for breakfast or any other meal.

Fact from the commercials: "Corn syrup is made from corn" and "is natural"
High Fructose Corn Syrup is manufactured from corn starch in vats using genetically modified enzymes.

Did you know? Corn syrup is banned in Europe.
On top of that, some corn syrup is manufactured using mercury-grade caustic soda and is routinely contaminated by mercury. Mercury accumulates in the body, and is especially damaging to women and their future children, as it causes brain damage and lowered IQ in the fetus. Granted, the amounts are small, but -- read it again -it accumulates in the body.

And what food was tested to have more mercury levels than any other from the study? Quaker Oatmeal to Go

Source: Not So Sweet: Mercury in HCFS (A Study by Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, published January 2009)

Fact from the commercial: It's nutritionally the same as sugar
True. Both sugar and high fructose are refined sugar mixtures - primarily glucose and fructose.

But why is fructose so bad? Cells in our body can metabolize glucose, but only the liver can metabolize fructose. Because it is metabolized by the liver, fructose does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way the body normally does, and fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar.

Unlike fruits, which have fructose packaged with vitamins, minerals and fiber, refined sugars like corn syrup leech the body of nutrients in order to digest it and metabolize it.

Source: Weston A. Price Foundation and The Double Danger of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Nephrologists (kidney specialists) at the University of Florida, found that fructose consumption raised blood levels of uric acid, which can foster “metabolic syndrome,” a condition of insulin resistance and abdominal obesity associated with heart disease and diabetes.

Source: The Endocrine Society

Translation: There is a link between diabetes and fructose consumption.

Fact from the commercial: It's natural
To me, natural means: Present in or produced by nature. Genetically modified foods created in vats by scientists are not natural. You will not find corn syrup oozing out of corn.

Fact from the commercials: It's just fine in moderation
Anything is fine in moderation, even cyanide, but the reality is that corn syrup is in so many foods that it requires constant vigilance to detect it -- it's in ketchup, in "healthy" energy bars, in cereals, in bread crumbs, in "healthy" salad dressings, in cookies, in sausage, and of course, in so many beverages.

Here's another interesting study that demonstrates that corn syrup, when combined with carbonated beverages, is not innocuous at all:
"Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels."
Source: Press release by the American Chemical Society

Want to eat something natural? Try these tasty breakfasts:
Garbanzo Wonder Salad
Bacteria Breakfast! Kefir with Cranberry Walnut Pecan Raisin Trail Mix
Açai Fruit Smoothie
Winter Red Quinoa with Wild Berry Tea

Photo by headexplodie used under the Creative Commons license

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Winter Red Quinoa with Wild Berry Tea

Chewy and warm with fragrant notes of sweet and sour dried wild berries, this breakfast is nourishing and highly satisfying on a cold winter day.

When you need strength and warmth, the best thing for breakfast is a hearty warm grain. The Scots have their oat groats, which have been known to warm the soul on a foggy cold morning and we all know how good they are for us. (That is, of course, if you don't have an oat allergy.)

And then there's quinoa! Ancient people gathered quinoa in the high altitude plains of Peru's Andes, Bolivia and Equador and thrived in those harsh living conditions. And no wonder - quinoa is a complete protein that rivals other grains in nutrition.

What you will need:
a pot and stove
1 cup of organic red quinoa
2 cups water
1 tablespoon or 2 teabags of wild berry tea or hibiscus tea.*
1 teaspoon of dried mint

Soak quinoa overnight and rinse in the morning. Place in a pot with water, mint and tea on the stove on medium-high heat until boiling. It will look like this:



Reduce heat to low and cover. Set timer for 15 minutes and do whatever else you like. Come back in 15 minutes and take off heat -- drain water and serve.

You can also enjoy it with milk or milk substitute.

* If you are lucky enough to find a cheap wild berry tea in an international / specialty market, all the better. I usually buy a Polish wild berry tea in a Russian store here in NYC. If you are lucky enough to have tea or markets like that nearby, good! If not, any dried wild herbal tea or even hibiscus tea would do.

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Purple Kale Wraps: Raw Food is Delicious

I dreamt of this Spring-inspired breakfast on an unusually warm February morning. I miss springtime -- and salty seaweed, fresh sour-sweet tomatoes, smooth avocado and crunchy sprouts inside a kale leaf smell like spring, taste like spring and if I close my eyes I can pretend it is spring.

What you will need:
5 purple kale leaves
1 tomato
1 avocado
dulse and sprouts to taste

Wrap all the ingredients inside a kale leaf. You're done. Quick and easy.

If you are not used to a lot of raw food, especially in the morning, add a healthy salad dressing to the inside of the wrap. I myself love garlicky dressings on these, but not everyone is brave enough to eat garlic in the morning.

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Customize your Breakfast Cereal

I'm a big sucker for customizing my own food. Usually I do it through cooking or buying my own ingredients, but there's something special about getting a box of cereal that is uniquely yours.

MyMuesli has 75 organic ingredients to mix together and uses no additives or sugar. Pretty cool if you ask me...

Tomorrow is a special pre-Valentines day post with an actual recipe. I promise!

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How Long Does Healing Take?

A month or so ago, Seth Godin commented on the concept of success and Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Outliers in his blog.

The main two points that he brought up are:
-> Where you're born and when you're born have an enormous amount to do with whether or not you're successful.
-> Becoming a superstar takes about 10,000 hours of hard work.

Even though that particular blog post dealt with the idea of extraordinary public recognition as success, what a great concept for people interested in becoming healthier, especially people ravaged by chronic disease. It's an especially interesting concept for me at the Breakfast Lab.

People in the alternative health world are very familiar with a "healing crisis" or a "plateau" -- this is where most people get discouraged and quit. Making a recovery through food and lifestyle changes is hard work. What does it take to truly recover? Is it an open mind? Curiosity? Patience? Hours of hard work? Support from family and close friends?

Knowing that it doesn't take a day, what would it take you now to become a healthy superstar? Are you willing to put in 10,000 hours and push through the self-doubt?

Here's a question out there for people in the blogosphere: how many hours have you put into becoming healthy? How much support have you had? And what enables you to go on?

Since I believe in small steps, one in front of the other, here are some suggestions of small changes that you might want to add to your morning routine to start on the path to a healthier you:

# Drink tea instead of coffee

# Eat 3 carrots before you have your morning pastry

# Switch from white to whole grain bread

# Use fresh fruit instead of processed jelly on your peanut butter & jelly sandwich

# Practice drinking a glass of water and waiting for 3 minutes before eating that thing you know you 'shouldn't have'

# Chew your food, 30-50 times a bite. Take the time to really enjoy it and revel in the flavor.

Seth Godin's post

Malcolm Gladwell's book the Outliers: Story of Success

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Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Apple Pancake Balls

A delicious no lactose breakfast treat, these baked apple pancake balls are made with whole grain brown rice flour. Unlike white rice, brown rice is highly nutritious - especially full of manganese, B6, niacin and magnesium. Combination of these nutrients is especially good for the morning, as they help relax the muscles and support the health of the nervous system.

Ingredients
2 apples
1 egg
1 - 1.5 cups rice flour
pinch of lavender, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg
1/2 cup of cranberries
1/4 cup walnuts

Shred the apples or cut apples in small cubes. Add flour, egg, lavender, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cranberries and walnuts in a bowl and mix until you form a sticky batter.


Once dough is ready, shape into small balls with cranberries in the middle. The size should be about a tablespoon or smaller. Drop onto a hot pan for baking (20-30 min 325 deg F), or steamer for about 10 minutes or until they look and taste ready.

This is how the balls look steamed: (Please be aware that they will be gooey, because apple gets softer as it heats up.)

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