It's Okay - The People Who Make And Sell It Say So!

Lately I've been pretty tweaked at some of the anti-intellectual advertising and marketing that we are inundated with. The ones I notice the most come from two fast food mega-corporations trying to convince you that because you enjoy coffee ordered by an Italian name at a place where you can sit down and enjoy a book or surf the internet you must be some kind of elitist snob. Actually, it means I'd rather give my money to a local business than them. But yes, I do frown on stupid people.

Still, that's not my true beef here.

What really grinds my gears is this new "Jedi Mind Trick" by the Corn Refiners Association to convince us that HFCS is not the droid we're looking for. And they are going about their business.



Actually, to invoke another Hollywood metaphor, they're pulling the "Roy Munson cigarette mind-trick" from Kingpin. Listen here and see if you can spot similarities.

Okay, that may be a little harsh. Fine, the stuff is made from corn. Feed corn to be exact. Fine, there are no artificial ingredients. But producing the stuff is hardly a study in the ways of nature. I'll buy that HFCS is nutritionally similar to sucrose, and doesn't contribute to obesity any more than sucrose. But here's the problem...

Nutritionally, sucrose is teh suxx0rz. Hollow calories that easily enable fat storage in excess.

In other words, there's no reason to worry about HFCS - it's just as shitty for you as sugar.

Which is where we get to the last point: it's fine in moderation. But what is moderation for HFCS? The modern, industrial food chain makes it extremely difficult to moderate HFCS intake. In fact, I loves me some of the yummy stuff it goes into, and I have been consuming too much of it lately. But truly "moderating" your intake of HFCS to the point that a regularly active, healthy person should would definitely hit the Corn Refiners Association where it hurts. Their profits. Which is what they are trying to protect with this (and other) ads. Do you really think they want America's 40lbs per capita annual HFCS consumption to go down? Oh, and remember to add about another 15 lbs per annum of straight corn syrup.

I could go on further about why you should moderate it, like how every calorie of HFCS you take in accounts for an additional 10 calories of petroleum energy expended to create it and get it to your mouth, as well as other "hidden costs" of industrial farming in resources and the environment. But you can't pin those costs solely on HFCS.

So no, I won't single HFCS out. I'll say it deserves equal treatment with all caloric sweeteners - STRICT MODERATION. Again, which is not what they really want.

Corn Refiners' Association, I fart in your general direction, and call your high fructose corn syrup advertisement buying request a silly thing!!! You don't frighten me you empty-headed, animal food trough wiper!