A few months ago I was doing some physical labor and keeping myself cool with some limeade I had purchased (rather than made myself). I started to notice that every time I took a swig, I had to ... defecate ... ten minutes later. I'd been having some minor bathroom trouble around then anyway, but hadn't thought of it as being in correlation to anything.

Since there was very little in the limeade besides lime juice, water, and HFCS, and people had been talking about the possibly deleterious effects of HFCS, I thought I'd try cutting it out of my system. (Certainly water wasn't the culprit and I seriously doubted that the lime juice could be.) Since the vast majority of my HFCS intake was due to Coca-Cola, that meant cutting it out, too.

Shortly after I cut it out, my bowels went completely haywire. I was on the can for days. But once that was done, I felt much better. My minor problems in that area mostly went away. Then I started drinking some cane-sugar sweetened colas (Blue Sky and 365 brands). The problems didn't come back. In addition, I found myself drinking many fewer of them. Initially I thought that might have been subconsciously due to the fiscal premium of those beverages, but the 365 ones, despite being Whole Foods brand, were only barely more expensive than Coca-Cola. For some reason, I just drank fewer of them. Of course, I was largely drinking water at restaurants, seeing as they don't have any HFCS-free soda choices, but even just counting the ones I drink at home, my consumption went down by half, if not more.

Then, over the Thanksgiving holiday, I ran out of HFCS-free sodas. I figured that it would be a good test to see if my HFCS theory was accurate. Sure enough, my bowels went haywire again, actually forcing me to take an additional two sick days beyond the regular vacation.

Anyway, the point of this story is that, at least in my personal case, the stories about HFCS being bad for you are true. I simply feel better after cutting it out of my diet. Of course, it's possible that the reduction in my sugar intake is at least partially responsible for that, but, honestly, these days I largely drink sugar-sweetened sweet tea at restaurants, so any reduction in sugar intake is not a conscious decision. I don't take sugar into consideration, only HFCS. I feel, and this conclusion is even less scientific, that somehow the HFCS made me crave more. All I know is that simply by cutting out HFCS, without making any additional effort, I feel better and I consume fewer sodas.

I would encourage anyone to try it out for a few weeks to see if it has any effect. I'd be very interested in anyone else's conclusions.

Also, after the fact, I was looking up fructose intolerance information and ran across something called "metabolic syndrome". Now, this is one of those ill-defined collections of symptoms rather than a verifiable disease, but I found papers that relate it to fructose intolerance. The symptoms are hyperglycemia, hypertension, central obesity, decreased HDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, and elevated uric acid levels. Other than the hyperglycemia, I have every one of those symptoms, to the point of taking medication for all of them except the central obesity. In addition, I was a normal-sized kid and only started gaining weight in the early 80s, which just so happens to be when Coca-Cola started using HFCS. Now, I know that cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, but that data is at least supportive.

I don't really have a point now, but I am curious if HFCS really is affecting me in the way that I think it is, and also if it's affecting other people in the same way.

A friend of mine recently started cutting it out of his diet completely. He says he feels much better having done so.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the stuff myself, although I think I'm a lot less sensitive to it than you are. There was a point a few years ago when I completely gave up all sodas and moved to diet iced teas and water, and I didn't notice those kinds of differences (just decreased heartburn and indigestion).

Overall I think I'm able to stay away from HFCS. It's only because I eat other crap that I'm overweight

It may be important to note that I don't eat or drink "diet" anything. I can't stand any of the artificial sweeteners. I far prefer water to any of those options.

I also don't know if it's the fructose or the corn that's my problem. I haven't tried substituting non-corn-based high-fructose sweeteners (which would include things like honey, invert sugar syrup, and agave nectar) to see what effect they might have.

The only "diet" thing I drink is Peach Iced Tea Snapple. The non-diet is too sweet for me, so I drink the diet. Thanks to Tony for that tip. It's a great drink.

I agree that HFCS is evil. But it's so widely used in the US... I can't imagine how I could ever find any manufactured foods that didn't contain it. Sweet or not.

Keep in mind, I've got someone in my life showing me the advantages of going all natural and all vegetarian right now, so I'm gettng a good understanding of what it takes to simply not eat manufactured foods. It's really fantastic. But as good as this is, I'm completely unable to devote as much time to cooking as she does.

Good be just a generally food allergy you developed. Never heard of anyone being allergic to HCFS specifically but it's a possibility.

It's not just you. I feel better when I'm off it too, I've done it a couple times for long periods of time. I've never managed to stay off it for more than a couple years cause it's so hard not to get bored of the selections at restaurants that don't include it.

Well, there's water (for which I usually add an abundance of lemon), iced tea, which is usually brewed and sweetened in-house (though I do ask if they sweeten with real sugar, and which may be not available places other than the South), and, if there's a bar, there are always a variety of drinks that can be made virgin, although grenadine and other bottled syrups can have HFCS.

My girlfriend and I completely cut HFCS out of our diet about two years ago (as well as most processed foods, honestly) and I'll never touch it again. It's poison, pure and simple. Just a slow one. We also cleanse at each seasonal change, though, so I guess we're pretty serious about health / what we eat / etc. It's amazing how much better you feel when you eat what humans are designed to eat rather than eating what the people selling the product tell you to eat.

Gotta be careful with the iced tea. In Texas, it always comes unsweetened. In other parts of the South, it's generally quite sweet (undrinkably sweet, to my tastes).

My beverage issue turned out to be orange juice. A couple years ago, my wife and I settled into a habit of having breakfast at a cafe that had some nice OJ. I'd have it nearly every day with breakfast. After a while, I realized I was having unpleasant reflux. I experimentally tried cutting out the OJ, and the problem completely went away. Now, I'll only have OJ on occasion, and I'm fine. My guess: the acid in the OJ was slowly eating away at the lining in my throat. Fun stuff. You can get "low acid" OJ in the supermarket, but it doesn't taste quite right and it's only available without pulp. *sigh*

When in doubt, there's always fizzy water (Perrier, San Pellegrino, etc.).

Yeah, Texas isn't really the South; it's its own region, but they lump it in with us.

The sweetness of sweet tea varies tremendously, but seldom is it sweetened with anything other than sugar, unless you see a branded tea dispenser instead of a plain urn/samovar.

At some point last year something made me start noticing how may products have HFCS in them. It's pure insanity. And apparently it's all thanks to subsidizing the corn industry which produces such an overabundance of the stuff that they had to put it somewhere. I read about it a while back but I need to do more looking into the subject. But yeah, go to your average grocery store, and pick up a random item off the shelf... odds are it will have HFCS in it. It's actually difficult to cut it out of your diet completely.

EDIT: The Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and links...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup

EDIT 2: And here's a pretty good list of some basic stuff, by no means comprehensive, but LONG.

http://www.accidentalhedonist.com/index.php/2005/06/09/foods_and_products_containing_high_fruct

Things are going to get very interesting for the American consumer and our dependence on corn in the coming years. Now that Ethanol is basically the only Gasoline additive that's legal to use the food industry and the oil industry will be competing for corn meaning prices will go up. So if all our food is based on cheap corn and our gasoline is based on cheap corn then we are going to be in a tight spot. That is unless the politicians get smart and start allowing third world countries to import food without huge tariffs. Hmm what a novel idea that would be..

Not necessarily. Currently, the government pays farmers to produce corn that they don't take delivery of. If there's more demand for it, the government reduces its artificial demand, meaning that everything stays pretty much the same. The only real difference is that more corn will be delivered and, potentially, more farmers who are getting paid for corn actually have to grow it.

I just had a thought...could the alleviation of your issues be the result of cutting your caffeine intake in half, rather than a result of cutting out the hfcs?

I usually drank Caffeine-Free Coke anyway, so probably not. There is still the issue of restaurant beverages, but the tea I usually drink now seems to have about the same amount of caffeine.

It looks like part of the subsidies are paid based on historical yield per acre. Some are based on the actual yield. So, yes, at least partially, the government subsidies can help tide a poor season.

Not sure if this adds anything or not, but I liked this article.

Well, it's written with an obvious anti-protectionism political bias, but the basic facts are correct. Even if the "soda, capable of loosening rusted nails and removing corrosion from car battery terminals" is due to the citric, phosphoric, and carbonic acids in the sodas, which exist in almost all sodas (all soda, including soda water, in the case of carbonic acid, since that's just a result of carbonating water) rather than HFCS.

Oddly, it was a Jones drink that initially made me consider my problem. I'm glad to hear that they switched away from HFCS. I'll have to start buying them again.

Oh, and I've come to be able to recognize the difference between sugar and HFCS almost immediately now. Sugar tastes sweet towards the front of my tongue. HFCS tastes sweet toward my throat. Sugar is more pleasant, too. HFCS now tastes kinda sickly.

I can tell the difference too. Lately I've been getting glass bottled Cokes imported from Mexico instead of the local ones. They taste way better to me with the real sugar.

I've been buying 365-brand (that is, Whole Foods house brand) cola, ginger ale, and raspberry sodas. They use only cane sugar. And, despite what you'd think, they cost only marginally more than Coca-Cola. The cola is not as good as Coke, but it's very drinkable. The ginger ale is great; it's got some heat and bite to it while remaining crisp. And the raspberry is very good, too. It's almost got a creaminess to it while not seemingly having any vanilla flavoring and while also remaining crisp. It takes the place of black cherry soda for me.

This link does help motivate me to switch from the local stuff to Dublin Dr. Pepper.

Hahaha! Dublin Dr Pepper is the BEST! My wife got me a case for my B'day one year, and it was definitely better than the standard stuff. Not too much more expensive, either, until you add the shipping costs (which are quite high). If they sold it here for the same price, $10 a case, in the grocery, there would be no decision to make, even though I can get the regular stuff for ~$6 a case.

I stopped drinking 99% of soda about 7-8 years ago after watching a roomie of mine drink atleast a 12 pack a day.. and my grandfather getting diabetic as he got older.. neither affect me directly (except maybe a minor genetic disposition to diabetes) but between the carbonation and the sugar content I just couldn't drink the stuff anymore. I switched to tea/coffee as a caffeine source, drank way too much coffee for a while, and droped that to 0 for a couple years.. now I can have a nice cup of black tea or coffee in the morning, but no more per day.

All in all, I feel tons better, but I guess cycling to work every day (7 miles round trip) helps too.

HFCS is crap, yet another thing added to foods to make them cheap and have a shelf life measured in decades.