Massive Conspiracy

A few days ago I caught Oprah, and Dr. Oz was on it talking about things we shouldn't eat. No big shockers - hydrogenated oils, white flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup.

He spent some time talking about HFCS, and something he said grabbed my attention. Of course, I've always known it's not great (what artificial sweetener is?) and I do read juice labels in an effort to avoid it (nearly impossible) but I had no idea just how bad it really is.

Studies have now proven that HFCS is instrumental in blocking insulin and leptin - that means it literally prevents the "you're full" signals from reaching our brains. How this translates into real life? If you, say, drink a soda with a meal, you will eat, on average, 100 calories more than you would have before you decide you're full.

Research is now indicating that the introduction of this artificial sweetener in the 70s is very like one of the root causes of the explosion of diabetes and obesity in this country. Because folks, it's is fucking everything.

Normally I would take a piece of information like this and think it was interesting but wonder how proveable it really it. Except for this: about 5 weeks ago, when I started counting calories, one of the things I did was stop drinking soda altogether.

Now, I'm not what you would call a soda drinker. At most, I might have a Sprite with lunch or dinner - lunch and dinner if I was really indulging. So this turned out to be a perfect test case, although I didnt' know it at the time. I was just trying to be a little healthier and cut out a few optional calories.

But something dramatic and unexpected has been happening, and cutting out the HFCS-laden soda with meals is the only thing I can attribute to it.

First: the quantity of food I eat before I am full has diminished by nearly HALF. I am seriously, couldn't-eat-another-bite full on about half the food I would normally eat. And believe me, I'm still putting the same amount of food on my plate I always have, so it's pretty obvious when I can't finish it (the dogs are quite happy with this new development).

Second: After a 9-month plateau, where nothing I did seemed to help, my weight has magically started coming down. When I was working my hardest and losing weight the fastest, in the last 2.5 years of trying the most I was ever able to take off was about 2 pounds a month, and normally it was more like 1 pound a month.

I've lost 5 pounds in 5 weeks.

And no, I did the math, and I wasn't drinking neeeeeaaarly enough soda to account for those calories. In a bad week, I'd have maybe a thousand calories worth for the week, in a good week, none at all.

That's enough to prove it to me. Seriously - add this to a thyroid problem and it sure as hell explains why I fight tooth and nail to lose every ounce. From here on out I'm avoiding that stuff like the plague.

I chatted with RTP about this and posed this question. If we proved an ingredient in our food was causing cancer, it would be pulled in a heartbeat. Drugs have been pulled for much, much less. Yet this goes on unquestioned, an ingredient in nearly every food on the shelves, this information kept under wraps, while this ingredient is now a known contributor to two of the leading causes of death in this country. WTF?! Her response: it's a massive industry, and they have obviously managed to keep it quiet.