I had one of those funny parenting moments last night...
Our 5 year old daughter had a wonderful little friend over for a play date after school yesterday. We decided to take the kids to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Once again, due to the shortage of fresh vegetation on the menu, this meant we needed to load up with fresh veggies before going. It's our usual ritual... the kids are used to it! Even our polite little house guest wasn't phased by this - probably because they were all "starving"!
Once we were seated at the restaurant, the kids got right to their business of coloring and creating great works of art. I ordered each of them water. This is when it got funny...
When the server delivered the water to the kids, I heard our guest ask our daughter, "Why can't we have lemonade?" My first instinct was to rattle off my usual health lecture, then I decided to let it pass. BUT, I didn't have to deliver my health seminar anyway... our daughter stepped up to the plate without any hesitation!
She turned to her friend and bluntly stated, "We can't have lemonade here because it's loaded with high fructose corn syrup. It's horrible and toxic. It'll kill your brain cells." I may have ruptured something, trying to contain my laughter and keep a straight face. My daughter non-chalantly resumed her coloring.
Almost as if she could sense her friend was still staring at her (trying to figure out what on earth my daughter had just said!), my daughter turned to her and matter-of-factly continued the explanation. "When you go to a restaurant, you need to ask if their lemonade is fresh-squeezed or if it's from the same tap as pop. If it's from the tap... it's junk. Can't have it. It has high fructose corn syrup in it and it's toxic. It'll even make you fat. Just drink your water. Your body needs water anyway." Back to coloring.
By this point, I had the napkin up in my face, trying to hide the fact that I was laughing so hard... silently, of course!
... did I mention she's FIVE??!! Holy cow... what am I in for?!
I guess she has heard this lecture so many times from me that it's second nature for her now! I just didn't know that she had it memorized so well! Granted, it's not exactly how I normally explain it... but close enough to get the point across!
High fructose corn syrup is definitely an ingredient to avoid. It comes with a LONG list of toxic sicknesses and conditions it contributes to in the body. It works directly against our efforts to achieve health. And, yes, my daughter was right about the "it'll even make you fat" comment... high fructose corn syrup is metabolized (broken down in the body) significantly faster than sugar... which means it turns to fat MUCH faster and much more than sugar.
It's bad news all around. Unfortunately, it's in most every conventional processed, packaged, convenience, snack and junk food you see. It's in almost every pop (the biggest offender), the majority of conventional sports drinks, juices, crackers, chips, 'health' bars, condiments and sauces, even bread... the list is dramatically long.
The easiest way to avoid it is to make the majority of your food choices come in the non-packaged variety... fresh food. When you can't do that, definitely read the label. This is one of the reasons I like shopping at Whole Foods Market - they read the labels for me, and won't put it on their shelves if it's overly toxic. Peace of mind.
Once again, a fabulous resource for detailed information on high fructose corn syrup, and what else it can legally be called on labels, is Dr. Mercola's site. Here's the link to sign up for his free e-newsletter:
http://www.mercola.com/forms/subscribe.htm?bid=25&aid=CD25&opt=
By the way, my daughter is available for speaking engagements!
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