Sweet Little Lies

Don't be manipulated by the mean mom down the street! High fructose is just as harmless as the safety rating on the Land Rover driven by the lobbyist who thought this up!

Well, that's one way to begin, right? Start off strong. I have been, once again, scandalized by a television commercial, and you get to read the fallout. My goal here is to try to, in my own way, summarize all the conglomeration of facts and opinions about corn syrup into a easier read. It was painful, and I'm sure I've left a ton of important stuff out, but you can easily track it down if you want to. If you don't, here's a quick blitz on what you should know before you trust the messages put out by the Corn Refiner's Association.

First, here's some fun clips from our friends atthe Corn Refiner's Association. I recommend them ALL!

BURN! - A brother is reminded what a "doofus" he is with these corn-friendly factoids.

SIZZLE! - A man is put in his place by his corn-loving girlfriend.

ICED! - An awesome remake of the last commercial. That's how smart you and I are going to sound after this blog.

Radhia Gleis, a certified clinical nutritionist out of Austin, gave a highly enlightening talk on this subject (see it here, though it takes a hot minute to watch it). She contributes the rise in obesity during the 80s with the replacement of cane sugar with high fructose corn syrup (here refered to as HFCS). She insists that it does, in fact, affect your body very differently than typical white granulated sugar, derived from sugar cane. She points out that HFCS is a "synthetic food" because of (1) the chemical process used to create it and (2) the genetic modification used to produce most HFCS corn, both of which equal health problems. She refers to the introduction of HFCS in our diets as the start of a "veritable epidemic of obesity and diabetes" and talks briefly about the links between the amount of HFCS ingested and type 2 diabetes.

She also talks about the Farm Subsidy Act of 2002. Wait, what's that you said? "What this means, guys, is that our government is paying farmers to produce more corn." To boil it down, way down, our tax dollars are being spent on producing more and more corn to be used in HFCS and ethanol, even though we already have more corn than we know what to do with. Why? It's cheaper, easier, and it lasts longer on the shelf and can travel further without spoiling. Small farmers are put out of business, corrupt food monopolies are supported, and once again our health and well being is ignored as we consume corn in practically everything we eat. Don't believe it? Check out the ingredients on, say, the first 5 things you pull out of your pantry or fridge. Government subsidies may mean that our food becomes much more affordable, but our bodies - specifically our livers and fat cells - pay the consquences.

Or so they say. The American Medical Association says that HFCS is an unlikely cause for obesity and other conditions - or at least is as likely as sucrose (sugar). So maybe Ms. Gleis and the King Corn documentary have it all wrong. It's certainly possible. Nutrition is, by it's very nature, a guessing game, and the truth seems to change with each new study. I just hate to see this kind of shameless propoganda on my television and let those slimey promoters get away with it.

"Maze Commercial" (My personal favorite, but unfortunately, I cannot display it here it b/c it's been disabled by request of the Corn Refiners Association. Possibly because of all the spoofs on youtube from their last botched campaign.) If you only watch one video, watch this one!

Seriously? Do you think they are getting off on squeezing every last ounce of patriotic fervor out of us? Don't you think this could have been improved with some fireworks, apple pies, a 21 gun salute and a 20 foot American flag waving in the background? Bring out the marching band! Go Corn!


Please folks. Don't buy this nonsense. I'll leave you with a couple quotes from my wittiest source:

"Watching the food channel, I recently heard that the most delicious pork comes from Spain, where the swine are fattened up on an all-corn diet. This little tidbit reminded me of we Americans. Surely Americans are often enough referred to as pigs, but who knew we held so much in common with this lowly animal? It seems we and they are being fattened up for some strange slaughter yet to come." (Independent Lens)