The No High-Fructose Corn Syrup List
High-Fructose High
Here is a trailer for the movie ‘King Corn,’ which I highly recommend. It’s an in-depth and entertaining documentary about the corn industry, high-fructose corn syrup and “King Corn” (presumably our beloved Earl Butz, but they never do say).
My favorite quote: “It’s enough to make you distrust everything on your plate.”
Industry officials in the sugar industry have abandoned the fight to renew the restrictions governing the United States/Mexican sugar trade (formerly implemented via NAFTA). The “intense opposition from the Bush administration and the corn syrup industry” proved to be too much, apparently. (SOURCE: Grand Forks Herald)
Sadly, it is unclear why industry officials gave up on their efforts. My questions are: Where are the representatives who are supposed to be standing up for the farmers on these issues? Where do they stand, and why wasn’t there a bigger fight?
(Here is a link to bugmenot.com if you are prompted to log-in when visiting the above mentioned article.)
The man responsible for offending Catholics, Jews, and black people is also responsible for the onslaught of subsidies that eventually brought us high fructose corn syrup. He was hailed as a hero for this by farmers and in Washington. The rest of us kind of curse the day he walked into Washington and into public life. Apparently high fructose corn syrup was his crowning glory in his quest for producing ”cheap food.”
Sadly, he has passed away at age 98. He led a long life of offending people left and right and not knowing when to keep his mouth shut, according to his obituary (found here).
Earl Butz – Would this website need exist if it hadn’t been for him?
CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) believes that consuming too much of any kind of sugar is bad for you. With that, I agree. So they oppose a tax plan by the city of San Francisco that would tax soft drinks containing high fructose corn syrup, but wouln’t add the tax to soft drinks containing natural sugar.
The Corn Refiners Association is against this tax plan, too, for obvious reasons. But my opinion that their view has more to do with their profits than with “public interest.” It probably also has to do with how they feel they would be perceived if an official governemnt body seemingly endorsed regular sugar as being healthier than high fructose corn syrup.
In a way, it’s understandable that each of these bodies oppose the tax plan for their own reasons. But it is really inadvisable, from my point of view, for the CPSI to sign a joint letter with the Corn Refiners Association. In a way, that hints at endorsement of HFCS takes away some of their credibility as a disinterested scientific body.
Corn refiners are siding with the Bush Administration on a deal that would help keep U.S. sugar programs competitive.
The deal proposes to limit imports of Mexican sugar, but corn refiners “fear a backlash” that would harm their export of corn sweeteners to Mexico.
I don’t know, it sounds like a good deal to me. Anything that keeps real sugar competetive and helps limit the spread of corn sweeteners seems like a good thing.
Here is a review and a run-down of the movie “King Corn” which devotes a segment to high-fructose corn syrup. An entertaining documentary which raises a lot of good questions. One of the biggest, to me, “Why no cameras in the high-fructose corn syrup manufacturing plant????”
The President’s Cancer Panel recommends “limiting subsidies promoting production of high-fructose corn syrup.” Story is here.
According to this article, “…subsidies encourage commodity growers to plant an oversupply of low-priced corn and soy, which is processed into high-calorie high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil and fed to feedlot animals bound for burgerville.”
Why does the health department preach moderation and then seemingly force-feed us an over-abundance of high-calorie/low nutritive food? Why is virtually EVERYTHING corn-based in one way or another? Why does nearly everything have to have high-fructose corn syrup in it? Why has soy been shoved down our throats as well (literally – but that’s a whole other subject I will take on when I start my food stuff blog)?
The article above raises a lot more questions than it answers, but they are good questions. And I plan to follow up and see what Diane Feinstein says/does about it in the future, if anything.
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