Know Your "... ose"

The more research I do on ways to lower cholesterol, the more hidden ways that contribute to the challenge arise! In a recent post, I mentioned participating in a Daily Challenge that offered small ways to improve your life. Today’s challenge was understanding and finding the -ose that is in the food your eating ... you know ... glucose, saccharose, sucrose, dextrose, maltose, fructose (high fructose corn syrup), and xylose ... like take a look in your own cupboards and pantries and see what kinds of sugars you’re really eating. After taking the challenge and chatting with a few folks on their take about the challenge, I Googled “sugar and high cholesterol” just to see if sugar affected high cholesterol, too, and imagine my surprise when sugar DOES affect cholesterol and triglycerides! 

So, here I am ... wondering why my MD didn’t tell me to watch my sugar as well??? We all know the answer to that, don’t we so I won’t expand on it. Perhaps it’s the same reason he didn’t tell me much besides “Let’s get you on a statin, dear.” But I digress.

Sugar of all types is hidden in many, many prepackaged or prepared foods and unless you make everything from scratch, you will find these unwanted sugars. Therefore, if you are an “open the box” type of cook, you can count on it. I have a policy (though there are some exceptions) that I don’t eat anything packaged that has more than six ingredients and I must be able to pronounce them all without difficulty - a challenge in itself. I cook from scratch, most of the time, but on the rare occasion I opt for a convenience food, it is with great care. An example would be our favorite pancake mix which I use because I like it better than most of the homemade ones I have tried ... and are ... well ... convenient ... so the ingredients are:

• whole wheat flour, unbleached and un-enriched wheat flour
• leavening
  
• wheat starch
• buttermilk solids
• sweet whey
• leavening (baking soda)
• salt

The Insta-Bake whole wheat variety bakingmix with buttermilk is made by Hodgson Mills and offers recipes for not only the best pancakes in the world, but waffles, chocolate brownies, streusel coffee cake, pie shells, oatmeal-raisin cookies, peanut butter cookies and whole wheat biscuits! You can visit HodgsonMill for more information about their products.

Now to be fair, my old pancake mix ... well ... you’ll see why I changed brands. It’s list of ingredients are:

• enriched bleach flour
• sugar, leavening (sodium bicarbonate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalicium phospates)
• soy flour
• dextrose
• partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils
• buttermilk
• salt
• mono-diglycerides (emulsifier)
• eggs

Granted the mixes are slightly different in that the latter requires only water to complete it and the other egg, milk, a little oil and sugar (optional). But, you then have the option of using egg whites rather than a whole egg, an alternative milk, like soy, rice, or almond, choosing a healthier oil of your choice, and using sugar or not. Seems like a better option to me.

So, that’s just one example - there are many, many more. What's your choice? Are you worth it?