The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[mousehouse62]

I have been reading the ingredients in the MF bars and have seen that they add HFCS! (High Fructose Corn Syrup) As much as I have read about HFCS, it is horrid and yet, my fave bars contain it! What can I do? I am doing so well with my eating....feeling great...shopping once again in my closet! But I just don't agree with the HFCS contained in the bars.....

[DogMa]

I don't eat them because of that. Several others avoid or limit them, too. I have heard that they're going to be taking the HFCS out of the bars, but they haven't so far. (BTW, the Medifast dressing has it, too.)

[Karli]

Well, if it's not a matter of banning the entire line of food because some of the products contain this, then just cut out the bars (and those other things that do).

It sounds to me as though you are considering dropping the entire program because of it, so either way you would be dropping the bars. If you like the rest of the program and the affects, just drop what you don't want.




Karli

[mousehouse62]

Thanks for the comments but Karli, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I am ready to dump anything. Only thing I want to dump are the clothes I can't fit into anymore. I have been a healthy eater most of my life and most of the time and have just read too much about HFCS and it raised a flag with me. I am doing well with MF as well as my husband is. So, no dumping here.....:0)
I would hope that MF would consider removing HFCS from their products but until then.....onward ho with the eating plan!
Ya'll be blessed!

[Karli]

hmmmm... well, I just went back and re-read. It's difficult to explain over cyber space, but I did just misinterpret you. The best I can describe it is that as I was reading your post, I put a certain tone in your voice while reading your words... and I thought you really didn't know what to do when you said "what can I do?" ... but I gather that is not the case.

Anyway, I am happy that you are not dumping the program, provided it seems to be working for you overall.

Onward and Downward !
Cheers,
Karli

[Nancy]

Ahhh...yes, there's some of that HFCS in the bars...

Many of the products - shajes included, contan fructose. FYI, fructose is a form of sugar with a sweeter taste than cane sugar (sucrose).

Then there is corn syrup. My Mom used to Kayro™ Corn Syrup in my baby formula when I was a wee one. No wonder I have a sweet tooth, eh?

HFCS is an even sweeter form of corn syrup and made its appearance sometime in the mid-1970's and contains fructose and glucose. Since its introduction in the marketplace, Americans are consuming more HFCS each year. Yikes! I probably ate my weight in HFCS per month before I met Medifast. Interestingly enough, sugar consumption in Great Britain and Europe has been declining.

It (HFCS) is not good for our cholesterol and triglycerides and may raise our blood pressure and make our blood clot more easily – not a pretty picture, eh? I hate blood clottage!

I agree with others who do not like it and prefer to avoid it. Robin and Mousehouse, I'm with you!

I am especially fond of sweets and my natural inclination is to be ensconced in satin and fur, lie around on a sofa and expend very few calories! My inactivity and high intake of sugar and fat lead to my obesity. I now know that and I understand it – now I understand it but it took me years of heartache, years of hauling around huge hips and the heart damage is done – it took me a long time to figure it out.

For me, candy and the likes thereof are dangerous because I have a hard time knowing when to stop. Once I get started, I can get out of control very easily. I want more and more. Maybe I’m a HFCS addict? I do my best to avoid it - HFCS is not my friend and most likely it is not your friend either.

Once we lose our weight, we suggest that people eat mainly natural foods – avoid processed foods, select low glycemic foods - eat plenty of low glycemic vegetables, and some fruit. Personally, I would recommend berries such as blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, razzies are good, too. I have an occasional green apple or a grapefruit. I rarely eat oranges – when a person with diabetes has a low glucose reading, they give ‘em a shot of oj to raise it fast. I do my best to keep my blood sugar from spiking or dipping. Bananas, grapes, pineapple, pears, cherries are higher in fructose than berries so I eat them in limited amounts or not at all. Now I don’t want Dole knockin’ on my door ‘cuz I avoid nanners and pineapple! This is not a Medifast Maintenance protocol, it's just what I do because it works for me. Fruit gets me all sugared up and I try to avoid that except for when I want to be really wild 'n wicked and eat something favored like marionberry pie or oatmeal cookies.

I do not totally avoid sugar but I do limit my sugar intake. When I do have dessert, I choose carefully how I ‘spend’ my sugar allotment. Since I started using Medifast, I do not have the uncontrollable sugar cravings that used to plague me. I don’t seem to ‘need’ as much sugar any more and my consumption has declined considerably.

Many of the Medifast products are suitable for people with diabetes and meet the standards for the Glycemic Research Institute’s seal of approval because they do not overly stimulate blood glucose or insulin. They don’t cause problems for people with ADD or ADHD or cause reactive low blood sugar. Products engineered for diabetics also have biotin and chromium which seem to help balance insulin levels and improve glucose tolerance. Only recently has Medifast manufactured shakes and bars specifically for people with diabetes. Many Type 2 diabetics are able to use the regular line of shakes after their blood sugars are within normal ranges. We recommend that they use the diabetic line of bars whenever possible to help maintain normal glucose readings and to avoid spikes in their sugars.

Yep, the bars have some high fructose corn syrup, a drizzle of honey, some high maltose corn syrup, and sugar, too. The shakes have fructose – fruit sugar. Medifast does use fructose in its products and also acesulfame potassium, a non -nutritive sweetener. The bars with chocolate or yogurt coatings have partially hydrogenated vegetable oil as a preservative – it makes the bars shelf stable and keeps ‘em from deteriorating. It is in a very small amount but it is transfat.

The Medifast bars contain corn syrup evidently so they stick together. I’ve been told by Medifast Diet personnel that it is difficult to manufacture the soy in a solid form and the corn syrup helps that process. I am not a nutritionist nor a chemist so I do not fully understand the processes needed to form the meal replacements. As a consumer as well as a Health Coach, I can understand the dilemma of trying to make a product that is foremost healthy and yet palatable enough that the average consumer would eat it.

I truly was so desperate for weight loss that I would have eaten cat doo if it meant I could lose weight. Not everyone shares my psychotic state! There are some people that do not like the taste of the products the way they are and they refuse to use them even though consuming them would improve their health and help them to lose weight.

It frustrates me sometimes to read moanings and groanings about how some people think the food is so yuckolah - none of them are as icky as my triglycerides, blood pressure and flabbage were before I had my first shake. Yeah, I AM a health coach and have used this stuff for four years now but also know that some of the products are not my favorites. We are so blessed to have over 50 products to choose from now so the ones that taste yucky to me never get added to my shopping cart! I only use the ones with the HFCS for emergency situations – when I do not have the time or inclination to make a shake, nuke a soup, fix some oatmeal or stir up a packet of nanner puddin’ then I have a bar.

The granola bars do not list HFCS as the 2nd ingredient and my bar of choice is the fruit ‘n nut granola as it has honey, raisins, and cranberries in addition to the evil liquid made from corn.

The diabetic bars do not contain HFCS and are an option to consider. (However, the diabetic bars do contain malitol (shown to be a great sweetener for people with diabetes) but it can cause a laxative effect for some of us. I am one who is sensitive to malitol. Frankly, sometimes I choose to have a crunchy PB diabetic bar to assist the southerly canal when bindage happens….most people do not experience the diarrhea dash from malitol but I doodly-doo...)

Dr. Andersen, the Medical Director for Medifast Diet and Take Shape For Life is not a proponent of HFCS either. As soon as it is possible for the company to figure out how to eliminate the HFCS, to make a portable healthy food that consumers will like and eat, they’ll do it. Until then, some of us will use them sparingly and be grateful they provide us with an option that helps us in times of emergency.

Hope that helped shed some light on the topic for you. Here's to dumping more of those baggy clothes, eh?

[Serendipity]

I'm with you Nancy, You can have the cat doo, but I'd be willing to eat furr balls if that's what it took to get healthy. I eat a bar every day. I don't get hung up on the ingredients because it's working for me and I am getting healthier every day. I know, I know, HFCS is not good, but the quantity I'm consuming now isn't going to hurt me. To me, anything I eat now does not compare to what I was shoveling in before MF. I don't even what to think about the things I was willing to put in my mouth! I never checked a label for HFCS before MF, so if I have a little bit of it now, so be it.

[Sarya]

I've been thinking a lot about this. I dislike HFCS and transfat, but before MF I'm sure I ate more of that stuff than I even knew. I feel so much healthier now! I know it's the MF, because I went on vacation last week I ate like a normal person who tries to eat well, and OMG did I hurt hurt hurt. I also got head fuzzies and other things reminiscent of my pre-MF days. I used to try to eat organic and health foods most of the time, but not all of the time. I know I still have more changes to make when I hit my goal so that I don't go through that again. But if it requires eating a little HFCS and transfat every day... it's so much less than I ate before. I would love to cut it out, but I need those bars. I need the chew and the variety.

it's a choice we all have to make for ourselves. What works best. I hope that MF figures out how to take it out of their products, but until then I will still eat them.

[mousehouse62]

Thanks so much for the input Nancy and others. I now know that others share my concern and yes, I did eat probably alot of other carpy stuff before MF and am glad that I found MF or rather, my hubby found MF, to help us on our way of healthy eating and shopping within our closet!
I have tried to avoid HFCS in my eating as well as my cherubs eating and found that they can be hooked on it in a heart beat. But, through googling and research, other health organic foods are out there but it takes a village to raise 'em and it also takes a village to change their eating habits! I have 4 cherubs, 17, 15, 13 and 6 and when friends visit, seems like the notion of fresh fruit or vegis at the table is foreign to them because.....well, it is! Families are on the run all the time and it is an easy alternative to make some quick and easy meal without fruit or vegis and that is perfectly acceptable but growing up on the farm, Mom always had the basics covered and that is what I am trying to teach my family....bar the sodas, chips, ready made cookies, etc.
But thanks everyone for your input. We will perservere on our journey, taking into consideration what goes in, must come out and clean out our closet at the same time!
Y'all be blessed!

[ascicles]

Without saying too much, I eat an alternative bar for this very reason. It doesn't contain any HFCS.

I need a bar during the day, because it acts as a "lunch" for me, without it, I would have a tougher time on this diet.

No need to lecture me on the importance of only eating products on plan, because I've cleared this with my doctor...and it's what I'm sticking to. It works for me, not that I recommend anyone else doing it.

[Unca_Tim]

Careful Manly,
You're going to get whipped again...

[Nancy]

Just a teensy little PS here. Medifast products are manufactured in an FDA inspected facility and everything that goes into the packets must appear on the label. Pharmaceutical grade food is carefully scrutinized and because many of the food items are also approved by the GRI (Glycemic Research Institute) or are Kosher, nothin' escapes the eyeball of Big Brother.

I wonder what was in all the stuff I used to eat. Sheesh! Foods didn't have all the labels they do now.

I was a real garbage gut...

I never used to care one twittle about what I poked into the pouch. I know that my lipid panel must have gone up daily because of all the butter I ate!

Standing in front of the fish counter these days is a little scary, too - there's the farm-raised color added salmon, the mercury warnings for the shrimp and tuna, etc. The organic veggies cost a lot more than the non-o's and the edges of the lettuce are brown and wrinkled...it can be so confusing shopping these days. We go to the farmer's market every week, grab bagfuls of veggies from my Daddy's garden and yet every once in a while I feel like being cruddy and I eat chocolate covered gummy bears!

It is hard to do everything perfectly, to eat the perfect food, to BE perfect. What I like about Medifast products - they work. The work's all done for me, too - I don't have to figure out if I'm getting all my international units of vitamin A, if my zinc and potassium levels are right, I don't have to go to the grain store for oats, the market for the a handful of blue berries or the O store for soy milk in the middle of the night when I have a hankering to make a bowl of blueberry oatmeal. I love not having to measure protein powder into a glass jar and shake it for 15 minutes to make a shake. I'm lovin' my Medifast life too much to not use it.

Skinny on, Dudes and Dudettes!

[supermom]

I wonder if Elmer's School Glue would hold the bars together?? Kids eat that stuff all the time and it doesn't seem to bother them!! It could also serve as the "frosting" for the bars!! HEHEHE

[alpha femme]

I drink 100+ ounces of los angeles tap water a day.

that is WAY more harmful than HFCS.

[mousehouse62]

I am laughing so hard!
That is so funny!!!
I guess North Texas water could be considered a hazard.....hmmmmm!
Thanks for the laugh!
You can use it to wash down the HFCS MF bar.......