On High Fructose Corn Syrup and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Welcome to Almost Fit. This is part one in a series on my opinion on High Fructose Corn Syrup. I’ve broken it into three parts, with the next two focusing on the specifics. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit. It is free, as always. Thanks.
There are very few things that I avoid more consciously these days than High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). And despite what you may have been led to believe recently by a gigantic ad campaign, people like me do not make this choice out of ignorance as a consumer.
As you have likely seen, the Corn Refiners Association is in full swing on a huge ad campaign to restore the broken faith of the American public in the benefits of using HFCS in our collective diet. In one ad, the CRA suggests that there are not solid reasons for avoiding it – in fact, it is kind of, well, what all the healthy, cool kids drink. The Mother who avoids HFCS is portrayed as far less informed (she is made to look like the fool, actually) than the Mother who happily feeds her children HFCS-laced products. In fact, the Mother who avoids HFCS for her kids has nothing better to say then, “….um….nice shirt?”
What are not mentioned in the ads are, well any real facts at all. Things like the minor detail that HFCS is not considered safe, even by the food producers themselves, for infants. Though from anything I’ve been able to find, they won’t say exactly why. Or that HFCS, not just fructose, has recently been linked to increased rates of obesity and diabetes, yet again.
Is it any surprise that the Corn Refiners Association and Big Tobacco are related through their PR companies and strategists?
So what is the truth about HFCS? And what are the solid answers surrounding why I think it should be listed next to industrially produced trans fats as something we should avoid?
High Fructose Corn Syrup. It Does a Corporate Body Good.
Like most people my age, I grew up with HFCS as a staple food ingredient in most of the things I ate. By the time I was about 10, the HFCS revolution was in full swing, finding its way into everything from industrial lowfat milk to toothpaste. Being cheaper than traditional refined sugar, (about 20% cheaper, on average, which is a substantial savings when you’re talking millions of units), and a friendlier sounding (and again, cheaper) preservative than other chemicals, HFCS gave the food industry a welcome economic boost. In fact, when Coca Cola switched to HFCS, it was estimated that it gave Coke a $70 million dollar advantage over Pepsi, which was a lot of advertising dollars 30 years ago.
HFCS was that benign new substance that was integrated into as much of 80% of the foods we eat, by some estimates. And we loved the sweetness. We also loved the perceived added value, as food prices were artificially low, and foods with it typically lasted longer because it is such a good preservative. Somehow, the campaign against preservatives (remember the ads with the phrase, “No additives – and No Preservatives”) missed HFCS. I doubt this was a coincidence.
For me, I would be really interested to know how much soda I actually consumed before I gave it up. I no longer drink soda at all – not diet or otherwise, except on the rare occasion when I have to choose between drinking ocean water and a vodka tonic because I’ve been set hopelessly adrift in the Aegean Sea. In that case, the HFCS tonic wins – and I’m good with that. Truth be told, I may, on occasion, pretend to be a castaway and force myself to drink one on the rare night out. Maybe. But only for medical reasons.
(So See? That Proves it! HFCS can INDEED Save Your Life! I may have a future in the PR industry if this whole blogging for dollars thing doesn’t work out…)
Back to uh, reality… When I was in my teens, I easily consumed 2-4 cans of HFCS-fortified soda a day (it was in the days when soda vending machines were still common in schools). By my mid-twenties, working in the boom of the software industry when free drinks were a favorite caffeinated perk, I consumed probably 3-4 cans on an average workday. However, in my time in the gaming industry that consumption rose dramatically. I consumed on some days 8 or more cans of soda looking for energy to keep me awake during the all-too-common back-to-back 20-hour workdays. In those days, my longest workday was 46 hours, all powered by free food and soda.
On that particular workday, I stopped counting Mountain Dews when I hit a dozen.
(Is it any wonder that I’m now overweight?)
The best part of that little story? Shortly after I did that, I realized I was drinking way too much soda, so I gave it up, mostly. And what did I replace it with?
Why, free juice of course! Which..also…contained….HFCS….
As you might imagine, my weight did not improve with that adjustment.
At any rate, I think I’ve drank my fair share of the stuff. And although I no longer partake of soda, I must say that when I see that new Coke ad, it makes me look twice.
The Proverbial Bottom Line, or, “G’head – Eat Dessert First”
Before I give you the reasons why I distrust anything that comes out of the sugary sweet mouth of the CRA (soft-pedal it why don’t ya), I want to be clear: my opinion about what is occurring in their ad campaign is simple. One of the best tactics that a dishonest, for-profit organization or group can use in politics is to encourage the dilution of the truth through rhetorical, meaningless dialog. It’s a war of attrition. The goal is that people will get tired of hearing about it, get confused by conflicting messages, and just want a simple yes or no answer, when often there is none. The result? The awareness of what is wrong eventually just goes away, and people just take the path of least resistance. And when HFCS is everywhere, you can imagine what that path is.
This tactic very clearly works. Whether it is an indictment on the phony reasons for destroying another country (oh not THAT again), or washing over immoral activities while in office, we are more often than not bamboozled by the powers that be into just letting things go based on the ridiculous argument of, ”I’m tired of hearing about it – can’t we just talk about something else?” In other words, the dodging of the truth gets dragged out for so long that eventually we as a group simply become bored with the subject and want to think about something else. As in, “War? Do we still have to talk about that? blah blah blah…What’s really important is “oh no he did NOT just say that to the judges” – - on American Idol.”
And this coming from a household that *may* have voted for Mr. Cook. Just sayin’.
I think this is why it’s important that we keep the discussion about HFCS alive – but with a focus on common sense. The food industry wants us to believe that food science is the privilege of the educated few, and that we mere mortal consumers are not capable of understanding the complexities of how to eat without an awful lot of handholding. In my estimation, this is simply corporate spin to keep us buying whatever they say we should buy. But if you step outside of the consumerist whirlwind for a second, the truth is not so hard to determine.
The dangers and negatives of genetically modified, industrially produced, NON-natural foods (despite what the multimillion-dollar CRA ads say) are not going away despite the idea that we’ve already been talking about it for a while now. Of course, the CRA hopes that in the case of High Fructose Corn Syrup that attrition will set in, as it usually does. If we keep the pedantic side of “discussion” confusing for long enough, maybe the truth will be obscured by sheer volume of opinion, and eventually, when we’re all looking at something else, their subsidized profits will return to the glory days. Either that, or the bait-and-switch will be dragged out long enough until they can find another goldmine to replace it.
Sorry CRA. I’m not giving up just yet.
My Full Meal Deal, or, “Would you like to Upsize that?”
Thanks for reading part 1 in this series on High Fructose Corn Syrup. Part two gets into the good stuff – the first half of 10 Reasons why I Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup at pretty much all cost, being a castaway with a vodka tonic notwithstanding. I’ve broken it into three parts because in case you haven’t noticed, I tend to get a little passionate about the subject. And as my Wife can attest, when I get worked up, I can get a little bit long winded.
And I never even took typing class. Stay tuned.
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Thank you for this very well put together piece, a lot of good information. I look forward to the next posts to come.
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I saw one of those new commercials and my jaw hit the floor — I was shocked!!! HFCS is natural?? And it’s okay to eat it?? Oh.My.God. Outright lies.
When I send my kids to the grocery store (yay! my kids are old enough to drive and do the grocery shopping!), they are under strict orders to read labels and NOT buy anything that has HFCS. This rule has come about in response to their first shopping trip: I gave them a budget of about $50 and told them to buy lunch and snack groceries for a week. They came home with a goodly amount of food; I was surprised, actually, by how much food they were able to buy with just $50. But almost everything they bought contained HFCS. I was appalled — and I was really bothered by the idea that there are a lot of families who can’t afford to buy “better” groceries, groceries without HFCS.
Grrr. I get so angry when I think of those commercials. I agree that we cannot get tired of talking about this. We cannot give up.
One last thing: I was thinking about being an “emotional” eater and also thinking about how many emotional eaters there are. And I thought, but surely, people have always turned to cookies in dire times — heck, the term “comfort food” has been around forever! But there haven’t always been this many obese people — if people have not changed, then what did? The food must have changed. Something about the food they are eating is either more fattening or more addictive — or maybe both. And I think it’s the HFCS. (I also credit our fabulously modern sedentary lifestyles, but I do place the heavier blame on the food. Something about the food is much, much different.)
I loved the tag line at the end of the commercial
“Get the Facts…You’re In For a Sweet Surprise”
My response…
Yeah, Type 2 Diabetes…What a surprise
Looking forward to parts 2 & 3
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Oh type away my friend. Let it ALL out. I seriously want every person in America to read this post. It’s not fair that the big corporate interests have so much power to trick people into thinking HFCS is good for you. I haven’t seen the commercial yet, but I’m already outraged. I can’t wait for what part 2 brings.
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We are not getting bombarded with those commercials here in Canada. I wonder…do they think that we are all stupid? I try hard to avoid those foods that contain HFCS mainly because they fall in the highly processed category and I think that the highly processed foods are bad. I think that I need to read the labels better because they are probably in foods that I never would think had it just like transfats were in just about everything except they are just about gone in Canada now. If we can manage to get rid of those…who knows maybe HFCS will be next, but only if people demand it. Looking forward to the rest of the articles. Oh…sorry about the long run on sentence.
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We don’t get those ads here in NZ yet.
I studiously avoid HFCS wherever I can. That stuff is poison!
Andrew is getting fits last blog post..A not so good run
This was a very useful post. It has a lot to do with marketing. Companies don’t want to tell consumers what’s bad in their products…else who would buy them.
Usman
http://burnfatnbuildmuscle.blogspot.com
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as always your post is well thought out articulate informative and NOT BORING (I in awe
)
this is a sore subject with me (wink) as it’s something I know I need to watch more….but Im not there yet.
(hey, Im honest!)
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I was absolutely appalled when I saw the ad for the first time last night.
What may annoy me more is when I hear from people that we as a country should not demand such false advertising be eliminated through regulation because the consumer should be educated. I don’t want to take personal responsibility away from anyone, but do we not wonder as a society how we have become so confused about the facts? Do we really expect everyone to independently research scientific studies while we are being blasted with false information repeatedly?
Truth in advertising – it really is not that difficult.
Great article.
Two new things I discovered this week
KFC Honey Sauce is a bit of honey, mostly HFCS
I now buy soda in the latino stores, it is still sweetened with suger cane.
Thanks
This is incredible. I posted some of the corn refiners tv commercials on my site and now I’m running google ads for them? Not on purpose of course.
This is incredible. HFCS is so bad for you. I posted some of the corn refiners tv commercials on my site and now I’m running google ads for them? Not on purpose of course.
Great post! I have to say, I have been really annoyed with those commercials. As soon as they came on I really felt sick to my stomach.
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Well, obviously America is not asleep at the wheel when it comes to the dangers of HFCS or these commercials wouldn’t be running. People have started to actually demand foods without HFCS and it must be biting the corn growers in the wallet.
I would say that Drs.Oz and Roizen who have been tauting the sinister effects of HFCS on the Oprah Show as well as the Discovery Health Network are probably partly responsible for people becoming aware that they should not be consuming this faux-food. Since they seem to have access to high visibility programming I hope they keep pushing their whole foods agenda!
Thanks for the fabulous article. Can’t wait to read the rest.
It’s amazing how prevalent it is in all the foods we consume. Almost everything that’s packaged and sweet has it as a main ingredient. Back to the paleolithic diet I guess.
Very good as always….such an important issue facing our children today!
Oh, I almost passed out when thinking about all the Dr. Pepper I used to drink! Whew, that was a close call! My wake up call came when I took a trip to Cancun just before my 40th birthday and came back with what they misdiagnosed as lymphoma. I completely have completely changed my eating habits over the last 8 years, and the first thing to go was the soda. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the HFCS until a year ago, but since then I have lost 65 lbs!
Haven’t seen the ads, but sure enjoyed your passionate response to them. Looking forward to the next sections!
tm
I’m really sorry if you mentioned this already, but where can we read studies on HFCS? I saw this commercial last week and was pretty disturbed and interested in boning up on my knowledge of this subject. I’ve been really working toward a more natural diet for a while now and am always seeking out solid research on the subject of diet.
@Aniela: Hi Aniela! I am going to be publishing the next couple of articles tomorrow, and there will be a ton of references there, including the Bray study which was the big one that kicked off a lot of discussion.
Thanks to everyone for your comments. Glad to see that the opposing school of thought (that the ads are not legit) is alive and well!
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Agree with you