I saw these on my friend doraphilia's LJ a while ago--I love how the main reason it's OK to eat HCFS is basically "uhhh, I can't think of a reason not to??"
Also, lol @ this: Granted heroin, cocaine, cyanide, mercury, and uranium are also natural but I am not comfortable putting them into my body. How about you?
Although as several of my British acquaintances have pointed out, there's not much to choose between HFCS and sugar--the real issue is that we (collectively) eat way too much sweetened food altogether.
It's remarkable working with 18th century reciepts (as I used to at CW) how bland a lot of the "sweet" foods are compared to modern taste. We're so accustomed to *massive* quantities of sweetener in food (and especially drink) that what made a *huge* difference to taste 200-300 years ago seems like nothing to us now.
Well the drink is huge. When I did a big calorie inventory a few years ago I was staggered by the percentage of calories that came from drinking soda. But that's pretty normal for all these fake foods. Lots of HFCS, sweeter than homemade would be, but also extra to make up for it being a chemistry experiment gone wrong, not an actual item of food.
My favorite were the low fat cookies that were some ludicrous number of calories each--far more than they would have been with fat-- because they used so much HFCS and gods only know what else to make up for the lack of mouth feel from the fat they took out.
The commercials are extra weird creepy though. Like something out of They Live.
Yeah, the sheer Stepford-lookingness of the commercials is disturbing, like some movie where the director is trying to make a fairly ordinary person stand out against a background of plastic, machine-produced "normalcy".
ETA: A guy I worked with lost a huge amount of weight (that is, like 10-15 pounds, not 75+ or something) jsut by exercising a little more regularly and drinking water instead of the two-liter bottle of soda he brought with him to work everyday!
I think it's a move that's backfired on the industry, because they've way overestimated the nutritional literacy of the overall TV audience. People who don't seek out that kind of information didn't know there are serious questions about the impact the overuse of HFCS has had on the health of the average American.
So now instead of living in blissful ignorance, you've got Ye Olde TV Viewer saying 'wow, how come they're having to advertise to tell me that a) this is safe and b) it's safe in moderation?!'
The biggest problem with HFCS, of course, is that if you consume packaged foods or beverages in this country, it is surprisingly difficult to keep it out of your diet, and it's almost impossible to consume in moderation if you regularly consume said packaged foodstuffs. I've seen refried beans with HFCS in it, for feck's sake.
What stealth sodium content was to packaged foods a generation ago, HFCS is now. (And that's not saying most packaged foods aren't still damn high in sodium, but it's not hidden anymore.)
I'd say the processed food industry is inherently prone to unhealthy "food." The combination of mass production, market, required shelf life, "crave-ability," etc. just leads to it. If you take something unhealthful out, they're just going to put something else back in. The problem is too few people cooking and eating real food.
Have you priced out the cost of leading a fresh-foods-only lifestyle recently? A lot of people, particularly those with families, cannot afford to do so. Just because someone lives in an urban area and can't afford to shop at Whole Paycheck, or has to work two jobs or do shift work, doesn't mean they deserve to essentially be poisoned by food manufacturers.
Real food is usually cheaper than processed fake food. Slow food or real food or whatever is not the same as shopping at one of the overpriced boutique "whole foods" markets--which also have a history of poor labor practices as compared to unionized mainstream markets. (And are full of their own versions of fake food anyway.)
IME, it's not the cost of the *food*, it's the cost of the *time* for cooking and the time to go shopping several times a week (good, fresh food doesn't have much shelf life, so you have to market every day or two). People on the edge of poverty are often working two jobs or couples trading off working a job each and taking care of kids when the other is working. Convenience is generally the driver for packaged and preserved foods.
That said, I'm always struck when I buy produce how cheap it is (at a farmers market, at a co-op or high-end grocers, or at a supermarket) compared with anything else I buy. It's even more than the difference between me buying a really nice steak versus going to a really nice restaurant and ordering a steak; that may only be 2-3 times the base price, whereas veg can be as much as 10x the cost of raw.
It's also the cost of the food itself. There was an experiment done last year where members of Congress tried to live on a food-stamp-supplemented budget that represented the average food budget of someone hovering near the poverty line - it was virtually impossible for them to really buy fresh produce . The foods they came up with, to stay within budget, were largely packaged and canned foods, beans, and ramen. It's a big part of social welfpare policy literature, actually, that the poorer people simply can't afford a healthy diet. You're right that the time is a very important factor too - hell, it's hard for us even sometimes, and we're not nearly under the pressures of some other people.
HFCS is really insidious though, and not just in the processed "junk" type foods. I'm pretty adamant about not eating it, and I had to hunt and hunt and hunt to find food that didn't contain it - GRANOLA contained it, which utterly flabbergasted me and pissed me off. I'm pretty sure they'd inject it into fresh fruit and vegetables if they could. =/
There was an experiment done last year where members of Congress tried to live on a food-stamp-supplemented budget that represented the average food budget of someone hovering near the poverty line - it was virtually impossible for them to really buy fresh produce.
It probably was, but it probably wasn't a matter of cost. It would have been a matter of *availability*. IME, fresh produce is *always* cheaper in a US city than comparable preserved foods *if it's available* (obviously a different story if you're talking about an island, a small town in the middle of the desert, etc.) The thing is, large super market chains don't fall over themselves to serve inner city neighborhoods, leaving residents to fall back on small neighbourhood shops that don't stock much--if any--produce and (horrifying to say) convenience stores (7-11, Wawa, Circle K) for buying food for family meals. Try eating right under *those* circumstances, and you have a real problem.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-04-09 12:01 pm (UTC)Also, lol @ this: Granted heroin, cocaine, cyanide, mercury, and uranium are also natural but I am not comfortable putting them into my body. How about you?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 12:06 pm (UTC)Hah! Great site!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:12 pm (UTC)It's remarkable working with 18th century reciepts (as I used to at CW) how bland a lot of the "sweet" foods are compared to modern taste. We're so accustomed to *massive* quantities of sweetener in food (and especially drink) that what made a *huge* difference to taste 200-300 years ago seems like nothing to us now.
ETA: This link to an article on the rise of sweetening
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:34 pm (UTC)My favorite were the low fat cookies that were some ludicrous number of calories each--far more than they would have been with fat-- because they used so much HFCS and gods only know what else to make up for the lack of mouth feel from the fat they took out.
The commercials are extra weird creepy though. Like something out of They Live.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:41 pm (UTC)ETA: A guy I worked with lost a huge amount of weight (that is, like 10-15 pounds, not 75+ or something) jsut by exercising a little more regularly and drinking water instead of the two-liter bottle of soda he brought with him to work everyday!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:16 pm (UTC)So now instead of living in blissful ignorance, you've got Ye Olde TV Viewer saying 'wow, how come they're having to advertise to tell me that a) this is safe and b) it's safe in moderation?!'
The biggest problem with HFCS, of course, is that if you consume packaged foods or beverages in this country, it is surprisingly difficult to keep it out of your diet, and it's almost impossible to consume in moderation if you regularly consume said packaged foodstuffs. I've seen refried beans with HFCS in it, for feck's sake.
What stealth sodium content was to packaged foods a generation ago, HFCS is now. (And that's not saying most packaged foods aren't still damn high in sodium, but it's not hidden anymore.)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 03:49 pm (UTC)Yes, I'm a Slow Food fanatic...
Date: 2009-04-09 05:55 pm (UTC)Re: Yes, I'm a Slow Food fanatic...
Date: 2009-04-09 06:09 pm (UTC)Re: Yes, I'm a Slow Food fanatic...
Date: 2009-04-09 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 07:55 pm (UTC)That said, I'm always struck when I buy produce how cheap it is (at a farmers market, at a co-op or high-end grocers, or at a supermarket) compared with anything else I buy. It's even more than the difference between me buying a really nice steak versus going to a really nice restaurant and ordering a steak; that may only be 2-3 times the base price, whereas veg can be as much as 10x the cost of raw.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-09 11:04 pm (UTC)HFCS is really insidious though, and not just in the processed "junk" type foods. I'm pretty adamant about not eating it, and I had to hunt and hunt and hunt to find food that didn't contain it - GRANOLA contained it, which utterly flabbergasted me and pissed me off. I'm pretty sure they'd inject it into fresh fruit and vegetables if they could. =/
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 01:33 pm (UTC)It probably was, but it probably wasn't a matter of cost. It would have been a matter of *availability*. IME, fresh produce is *always* cheaper in a US city than comparable preserved foods *if it's available* (obviously a different story if you're talking about an island, a small town in the middle of the desert, etc.) The thing is, large super market chains don't fall over themselves to serve inner city neighborhoods, leaving residents to fall back on small neighbourhood shops that don't stock much--if any--produce and (horrifying to say) convenience stores (7-11, Wawa, Circle K) for buying food for family meals. Try eating right under *those* circumstances, and you have a real problem.