Who Knows What Evil Lurks...?

Maybe it's an age thing or maybe I get bored in the morning. Whatever the case, I was reading the sides of my cereal box this morning (with toast, OJ and milk), and discovered that half of what I was eating was not as healthy for me as I suspected it was...and high-fructose corn syrup was the culprit! For the uninitiated healthwise, high fructose corn syrup is a sweetener which is purportedly bad for us because our body does not recognize it the way it does sugar, and as such, treats it differently, allowing it to degenerate into that unsightly fat that commercials say accumulates on our belly and thighs in big, yellow blobs. Ingesting real sugar sends out alarms and forces the body to act quickly so as to avoid too much unwanted cellulite in terms of left behind deposits.
OK, I figure orange juice will have it, and it does, but toast? Both kinds of bread in the drawer have high fructose corn syrup in them: mind you, these are 100% whole wheat breads, not some pasty 3-for-a-dollar loaves. Wow! I was stupefied so I decided that I had better take a look in the cupboard for any other offending items of which I had been unaware, even at the expense of my cereal getting soggy and the milk getting warm. HFCS could be lurking in every corner like Commies during the McCarthy era or unpatriotic traitors during the Bush years. Here is a list of the things I found both tainted by and free of that nasty sweetener.

CONTAINS HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP:
canned peaches Ritz crackers Hungry Jack syrup (natch!) All-Bran (are you kidding me? Glad I'm a regular guy who doesn't eat that stuff) graham crackers tonic water (for my buddy Mark when he visits) Oreos (my wife eats those).

USES NO SWEETENER, REAL SUGAR OR OTHER "'oses":
Total cereal Quaker Oats Tostitos (though the salt isn't great, either) JIF peanut butter Orville Redenbacher popcorn (with fake butter fumes!) Pillsbury devil's food cake mix elbow macaroni (I'd hope not) Frank's cayenne pepper sauce (natch!)

So it became readily apparent to me that there were more than a few ticking, time bombs of fat producers in the cupboard. I have labeled them all with "Mr. Yuck" stickers and will return to eating my Total with real fruit and anything else with real sugar.
Bon apetit!