Passover's Forbidden Grains

Last year I wrote this short post about {assover. The holiday looms ahead with the first Seder Monday Night. As always, I try and sort out what I feel comfortable eating and not eating. My parents are lenient, and I derive my roots from them They avoid the most obvious things: breads, pastas, cereals, etc. My girlfriend is a little stricter. She tends to avoid corn syrup, beans, rice, and most things that aren't strictly kosher for passover.
Strangely, many kosher for passover products are strange too. Often, they use baking soda. as their chemical leavening is not strictly forbidden. You can get all sorts of cakes and such that are kosher for passover by the letter the law. But what about foods that aren't obviously forbidden? Do we really need kosher soda, kosher mustard, kosher jelly? Is corn syrup really something to be feared?

Now, I don't want to get in to a detailed analysis about what is allowed and what isn't allowed. Mostly it's because I'm lazy and I don't want to dig into a 1000 sources and debates. But I also am not sure it matters that much to me.

I also don't think it's settled. Tamara recently sent me a link from a Rabbi asking why kitniyot (rice, beans, corn etc...) are forbidden among the Ashkenazic (Jews of Eastern-European descent). If she reads this, perhaps she'll kindly put the post up again. Even if one decides to avoid those things, do you avoid derivatives like oils made from these products.

So how do I move forward. Well I like to think about:
1) Tradition: both family tradition and older religious tradition.
2) Community: What does the community around me do?
3) Personal belief

The tradition is a little mixed. Eastern European Jews tend to avoid kitnyot, Jews from Spain and the Meditteranean tend to include them. My family's practice I've already eluded to. I belong to a Reform synagogue, so the communal practice is a bit variable. Reform Jews tend to swing from just avoiding bread to keeping a pretty strict observance.
So that of course leaves personal belief.
I think a good bit of it for me is personal sacrifice. It's about doing something to help you remember what the holiday is about. It's about connecting with your community. It's remembering and honoring what your parents and family have taught you.
So, I think I'm going to try harder not to eat out and avoid foods I don't have control over.
I don't eat very many frozen or pre-packaged foods, so I should be ok on that end. I'll just make simple meals that are as far away from forbidden foods (chametz) as possible. I'll avoid rice and corn,mostly because I think it will make things more meaningful for me. But no one will take away my peanut butter.