After writing last week’s column it dawned on me: I am actually writing a weekly column trying to persuade people to live healthier lives and take care of themselves. With this realization in mind, I thought it might be a good idea for me to actually start putting healthy habits into practice. The result of this occurrence: I cleaned my cabinets out and got rid of all of my prepackaged food. Yes, the Ramen noodles are gone along with my favorite fruit snacks, canned soup, macaroni and cheese, hot cocoa mix and instant pudding. Can I just say how much I hated having to get rid of my beloved high fructose corn syrup, sodium-loaded and preservative-filled goodies? It was terrible.
After doing a little research though, I was at least at peace knowing that I had made the right decision. Granted, I was still tempted to take back my fruit snacks that I had handed out to friends. With that being said, here are my findings.
High fructose corn syrup: We all know it’s bad for you, but to be perfectly honest, I didn’t know why until I researched it. I just knew that you didn’t want it in your food. According to an article on the Mayo Clinic’s website, high fructose corn syrup is a sweetener found most commonly in sodas and especially in fruit flavored drinks. It was also the first ingredient listed on my fruit snacks, which means those “real fruit juice” snacks were loaded with it. This sweetener is chemically similar to table sugar and although it has not been shown to be any worse than regular table sugar, it can often times be misleading on nutritional information guides. High fructose corn syrup is basically just another word for sugar, so when foods list both high fructose corn syrup and sugar in the ingredients, you’re basically getting twice the amount of sugar than you think are getting. Thankfully, according to a Huffington Post article, the consumption of high fructose corn syrup has gone down in the United States by about 16 percent since 2007.
Remember how I said I threw out my Ramen noodles? Well this college student staple contains 830 mg of sodium – for half a serving. That is 1,660 mg of sodium per one package of Ramen noodles. Even if you ate only half of the package, you would still consumer 35 percent of your daily sodium intake. A Harvard School of Public Health article says sodium should be limited to 2,300 mg on a daily basis and 1,500 mg for those at high risk of health problems from salt. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults are at high risk, according to the Harvard article. Studies have shown that there is a significant connection between salt intake and high blood pressure, heart disease and heart failure. There has also been a connection made to high sodium intake with stomach cancer, according to one Harvard article. And how many packages of Ramen noodles have you eaten in the past week?
I know that most of us are college students living on college student budgets and let’s be real: Eating healthy isn’t cheap. That being said, this is the time in our lives when habits are forming that will be with us for the rest of our lives. So while you may not be able to afford healthier options for every meal, look at the nutritional information guide on packaging and reconsider it. Small changes are better than no changes at all.
