Unbounded

What am I eating?

Posted by unbrand on 24 February 2004 | 0 Comments

Tags: learning, subversive, food

There are some lyrics from the excellent NOFX album, The War on Errorism in the song “Franco Un-American” that go:

I never looked around, never second-guessed
Then I read some Howard Zinn now I’m always depressed
And now I can’t sleep from years of apathy
All because I read a little Noam Chomsky

I’m eating vegetation, ‘cause of Fast Food Nation
I wear uncomfortable shoes ‘cause of globalization
I’m watching Michael Moore expose “The Awful Truth”
I’m listening to Public Enemy and Reagan Youth

So let’s talk about food. Sure, we’ve read Fast Food Nation, and that turned us off to Burger King and McDonald’s, but I read something recently that’s quite a bit more insidious than what goes on at fast food companies.

Growing up in the U. S. of A. as a normal kid who drank a lot of soda, I would read the can when I was bored. I remember that “High Fructose Corn Syrup” was the first ingredient listed on any can of soda. And I remember it was the first ingredient listed on lots of stuff I ate. Hell, it was the age of food convenience! Things could be packaged and stored for longer periods of time. I was vaguely aware of this as a kid, but I’m not sure why. It was probably because my mom, like lots of moms, was way into the convenience of not having to worry about food going bad. And hey, this stuff tasted good. All manner of junk food, soda, whatever. I loved it.

When I was a bit older, still reading the soda cans, I figured that High Fructose Corn Syrup was just a fancy way of saying “sugar.” Like how today we have “design patterns” for software development, but I remember when it was called “doing your job.” Anyway, whatever. Who cares what they call sugar on a can of Coke right? At least I’m not drinking Diet Coke with Aspartame that was put on the market by the demon-spawn himself.

So then I read a great Harper’s article that Sibylle wrote up nicely in her Oil Is Food Is Politics. In the article it details where high fructose corn syrup comes from. Basically, we (Americans in particular) are harvesting large amounts of corn, much of it being Genetically Modified, not so we can eat the corn, but so the corn can be further processed into high fructose corn syrup. Let’s forget for a second the amount of oil involved to drive the machines to plant, harvest, etc. Of course that’s a BIG thing to ignore, but ok. Let’s just look at the end product in question. High fructose corn syrup.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a very good summary of the health issues of high fructose corn syrup in the article entitled We’re drowning in high fructose corn syrup. Bottom line, it was something created in the past 35 years that you can’t process very well—your body essentially turns it into fat. Hmmm. This sounds a bit like Olestra. And Aspartame.

So what to do? Well, I’ve decided to cut high fructose corn syrup out of my life. Yes, it’s in lots of foods. And frozen juices. Funny thing is, if you actually buy healthy, natural foods like locally grown fruits and vegetables, you eat healthier and it’s cheaper. And you feel better.

High fructose corn syrup. Typical.

Updated: More on the politics of corn and oil.