High Fructose Corn Syrup in Your BBQ Sauce – And You Call Yourself A BBQ Purist?
It’s official. I’m off and gonna get mouthy about the fact that BBQ sauces made by the “big boys” … and some of the smaller shops as well… are using high fructose corn syrup in their recipes. Really? I mean, REALLY? I’m OK with basic corn syrup, or hey – what about honey, sugar, or Agave Nectar… anything but HFCS!
Better living through chemicals!
I’ll have my BBQ Sauce with Extra Crap, Please!
FOUL: Your Barbecue Sauce is FAT… not PHAT
Folks – if you buy or create BBQ sauce that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup, you are promoting a product that is on the world’s Most Wanted list of Crap Food Ingredients. Understand, you’re doing this – while you’re trying to pass off the fact that you are all about Natural Wood Smoked Barbecue. At the very least, you’re using an inferior product, and you’re also an accessory to the crime that has become the State of Our National Food Supply.
Note: I do realize that there is a chance that you’re using BBQ sauce tainted with HFCS because you just don’t know any better.
Finding BBQ sauce without High Fructose Corn Syrup has become a real challenge. K.C. Masterpiece and Cattleman’s, among others – use the stuff. Why? Profit, why else?
To those and other BBQ Sauce manufacturers: I’d gladly pay the extra money per bottle if you’d kindly leave High Fructose Corn Syrup out of your BBQ Sauce!
What’s making it more difficult to avoid HFCS, is that many BBQ Sauce brands that do no list it as an ingredient do use “ketchup” as a main part of their recipe. What’s one of the first ingredients in most national ketchup brands? If you guessed High Fructose Corn Syrup, then “DING!” You win!
Look. I know I’m not going to change the world with this post. I just find it very ironic that folks that spend hours and hours perfecting the art of smoked barbecue – who would never use nitrates to effect a “smoke ring” or “liquid smoke” to add smoked flavor will happily use BBQ Sauce that uses HFCS. Oh, and I feel the same about MSG and other similar ingredients.
And I feel I should mention this simple fact….
Though I try to avoid BBQ Sauce with high fructose corn syrup, I have and will continue to support friends of mine who make sauce with high fructose corn syrup in it. I know. This makes for a quasi-hypocritical position. But, it’s a free enterprise system, and these are good folks. So from time to time, you may see ads or references to sauces that use it in them.
Update on Gates BBQ Sauce
Had to remove Gates BBQ Sauce, Kansas City after Gardner Cole pointed out that they do in fact use high fructose corn syrup. BOO!
Some Barbecue Sauce Makers are Getting Wise to High Fructose Corn Syrup
I have noticed a few BBQ Sauce manufacturers out there who do not, or have stopped using high fructose corn syrup. Here’s a short list, but please – let me know if you are aware of any others!
- Cripple Creek BBQ Sauce
- Stubbs Bar-B-Q Sauce
- Bulls-Eye Barbecue Sauce
- Frontera BBQ (Barbecue) Sauce
- Daddy Sam’s BBQ Sauce (Thanks to “Makettle” in comments below)
- Bone Suckin’ Sauce (Again, thanks “Makettle!”)
- Two Fat Guys Gourmet BBQ Sauce
I’m sure there are folks who read this post who will won’t agree with me here. Either way… drop a line here in the comments section and let me know where you stand on this and why!
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Comments on High Fructose Corn Syrup in Your BBQ Sauce – And You Call Yourself A BBQ Purist?
I did find a bbq sauce that was excellent and didn’t have HFCS. It was made my Giant foods and was one of their “simply enjoy” products. This stuff was the best bbq sauce I’ve every had and they stopped producing it. I am so upset…now I buy Stubbs but it’s a little on the hot side for me. Other than that I have found that the “organic” brands do not have HFCS in them…so I mix sauces to try and get the ideal flavor and heat for me. I wish Giant would bring back their Simply Enjoy BBQ sauce…the sweet and spicy chipolte was the best!!!
We are proud to say our BBQ sauce does NOT contain HFCS and we love your article. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly why we started making our own suce. We’re in the PNW and soon will be national.
All three of the barbeque sauces produced at Bone Doctors’ BBQ are free of corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. Visit our web page at http://www.bonedoctorsbbq.com, read about us at http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/oct10/youraaos12.asp, or join us on facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Bone-Doctors-BBQ/315547924864
Awesome! There’s just no reason to put HFCS in anything. Its only reason for existence is as a cost cutting additive. Plain old sugar, or better yet – honey – is a much better option! Thanks for keeping the sauce the “real” boss!
How hard can it be to make your own barbecue sauce? Caramelize some onions, oven roast some plum tomatoes or use canned roasted tomatoes, put them through a blender with some brown sugar and/or molasses and buzz. Play with the salt, pepper and cayenne, maybe cumin and some adobo chiles. Make a huge batch and cook it down in a crock pot if you want it thick. Let’s not let the agrifood industry sell us what we can make for ourselves.
Amen, Linda! This is all I’m saying! Food companies are starting to come around, but only because some of us have been so damned vocal! We need to keep it up. They’ll sell us what we want to eat if we are persistent enough about telling them! I vote with my $, and continue to support small scale, wholesome food producers if/whenever possible.
You need to correct your article–I found Gates BBQ Sauce here in a Missouri grocery store, and one of the first five ingredients was high fructose corn syrup. It’s sad, I went to buy their specific sauce and figured I’d check before I bought, and sure ’nuff.
If you need a picture for proof, I’ll get one!
Grrrr… thank you. Sugar. Does it really cost that much more?
@Gardner Cole: Yes, Gardner – please do send a snappy of the label and ingredients! Thanks for the heads up!
Will do! I’ll hit the store on my lunch hour and grab a shot–where can I send it to? I’m hanging on to this thing like a bad ex-girlfriend.. I just… can’t get over it! Gates, I love their BBQ when I go to KC for baseball games (we’re 2 hours to the east of KC) but am now seriously doubting what they do as a business.
@Gardner Cole: Sent you the kevin @ bbqsmokersite.com addy. Send it on over! Bummer to hear they use HFCS. I sometimes feel like I’m a lone ranger – or one of the only ones who cares about this stuff being so widely dispersed into our food supply. Thanks for chiming in, bro.
Two of the Best don’t have it . . .
Daddy Sams !! #1
and others favorite Bone Suckin Sauce
@makettle: Thanks! I’ll add these to the list! Keep ‘em coming!
We do not user HFCS, never have. The reason is actually more flavor related than health related. HFCS blends easily with spices in a sauce, and it adheres to your taste-buds. Some manufactures think this is good, because it allows them to use lower quality ingredients to product intense flavor. We’ve fount that this is the primary reason that some sauces “stick with you” all day long. We like for our sauce to provide a good flavor punch that clears the pallet quickly so that you can enjoy the other flavors in your meat. We also use flavorprinting and layering techniques to produce sauces with multiple dimensions of flavor. You cannot do this if you add HFCS. Sugar is sugar is sugar as far as your body is concerned, but your taste buds think otherwise!
@Scott Gaspar: Hey Scott! What’s the name of your sauce. Do you have a website you can share?
Sure. . .http://www.smokinfoods.com
We have Smokin’ Razz, Smokin’ Razz Bold & Spicy, Smokin’ Blues.
It’s available in several retail outlets in OK, KS, MO, and we ship world wide to retailers.
I know what you mean about the use of HFCS, that is one reason i love Cheerwine out of NC they use Real Cane Sugar in their 12 oz glass bottles. here is a link to my blog on Cheerwine.
http://oshawalaser.com/Blog/2011/01/29/cheerwine-north-carolinas-best-known-secret/
Also regarding sauce…. my friends at Horn Dawgs Smokin BBQ make their own sauce for when they sell at ribfests and they are proud of the fact that their sauce is Gluten Free, Their sauce uses sugar for main sweetner but one of their other ingredients (a minor one) has a trace amount of HFCS
@Wilfred Reinke aka @Oshawa Ogre: Hey Fred – thanks for your comment… and for the blog link! Folks, check it out. Fred does some great work. And… he’s a fan of our good friends at C-Dub’s BBQ Rub, so you know he’s a great judge of good BBQ products!
I grew up spending summers at Lake Junaluska in Maggie Valley and have always liked Cheerwine. Don’t drink soda much anymore, but it was definitely a treat for this Florida kid up on a NC vacation!
Re: the sauce w/ trace amounts of HFCS – Heinz Ketchup is a huge contributor to it in most cases. Guess it’s not the case in your friend’s sauce, as it would account for a major vs. minor ingredient.
@Wilfred Reinke aka @Oshawa Ogre:
In many sauces that contain Worcestershire sauce you will find a small trace of HFCS but it’s not enough to adversely affect the flavor. You just have to make sure that if you use Ketchup, you use Hunt’s because it is HFCS free.
Again, our choice to stay away from HFCS is purely flavor based. There is no scientific research that shows that HFCS vs any other sugar is processed differently by the human body. It just tastes worse!
The primary sugar in our products is actually from the fresh fruit we use. It has a lighter sweetness and gives the final preparation a far more complex flavor than even cane sugar.
I don’t know when this article was updated last but I was looking for a blog that could give me info on BBQ w/o any sort of corn in it due to allergies. I LOVE Gates and I was surprised to see that you stated above that it contains HFCS. I wonder if they have changed it. I am looking at a bottle right now and the ORIGINAL recipe DOES NOT have any corn in it. I know the Sweet & Mild does have HFCS so we don’t use it even though its good. Could you guys check into that?
@RW: Thanks for the update! I’ll check it out and put Gates back on the list!
Hey all, I happen to work with a person who is highly allergic to Corn and therefore HFCS, and the sauces that we carry that are clean are below with links to these products. When in doubt, best that you ask someone. We make sure to list ingredients on all of our products as we are sensitive to those people who love BBQ and have food allergies.
Meat Mitch Naked Whomp!
All of the Cripple Creek BBQ Sauces
Blackjack Spicy Vinegar Sauce
@Jeffrey Belmonti: Jeff, Cripple Creek does an awesome job with their sauce flavor profile. Just heard a great BBQ Sauce Pod Cast tonight over at the Hot Sauce Weekly Blog. They add some interesting points about BBQ Sauce… not just HFCS, but Liquid Smoke and a lot more! Check it out here.
Please add Two Fat Guys Gourmet BBQ Sauce to your list of BBQ sauce that does not contain HFCS.
Thanks much for the information.
Julie Thomas
Two Fat Guys Gourmet Sauces
@JulieThomas: Done! http://www.ilovetwofatguys.com Folks – check it out!