My favorite cooking show host Alton Brown has seen the light, "research has led me to believe that the obesity crises in this country stems not only from lack of exercise but from the uber-ubiquitous use of two ingredients in packaged/manufactured foods: high fructose corn syrup (devised in Japanese labs in the early ?70s) and hydrogenated (or partially hydrogenated) fats. I believe?or at least hypothesize, that were these ingredients completely removed from our diets, we?d be okay. No we wouldn?t be able to eat anything we want and still sit on our butts Tivo-ing Dr. Phil but we?d be a heck of a lot better off". (May 7th 2004)

Well DUH! I respect this guy but I cannot believe it he has just now figured it out. Hopefully he uses his new found knowledge and incorporates it into his show. I came to this realization about 2 years ago and about a year ago I started to reduce my intake of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats. The results: over 25lbs of weight loss without doing anything else. I haven't been able to completely eliminate them but the increased amounts of fiber and heathy foods should be enough to flush out the crap, so to speak.

I'm still not the weight I was when I was 18, that would take another 25lbs. What I really need to do is, as Alton did, work out. I was doing that quite a bit about 5 years ago with good results but I didn't change my diet. Today I'm just not motivated. It's getting more and more a priority, maybe I need to make this a goal for this year.

For you dear reader I implore you. Next time you buy something at the grocery store that's in a convenient factory made package. Look closely at the ingredients. If you don't know what they are should you be putting them in your body or your families body? It's doing more bad than good.