HFCS

American Pho with Bread and Butter
Originally uploaded by nodigio

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1841910,00.html

I can give you 5 reasons why high fructose corn syrup isn’t good –

1. It’s in everything, which means it’s really hard to tell just how many empty calories you’re really consuming. The ubiquity of HFCS is a major contributing factor to the fattening of Americans.

2. Farmers grow it in preference to real food because it sells well, which means they’re growing massive fields of monocrops instead of the more ecologically sound multi-cropping. This also reduces our food choices because farers are growing fewer types of food.

3. A lot of people who are allergic to corn also experience sensitivities and allergy reactions to it and since it’s in everything it’s harder for them to buy food. Since HCFS doesn’t have to be listed on the label or may be listed in a variety of confusing ways (the same way soy is hidden in foods), they may think they’re allergic to a larger spectrum of foods than they really are and their diet is being unnecessarily restricted by this.

4. It’s in foods that shouldn’t have any sweetening anyway, distorting our sense of taste. “Sweet” has become the normal and most common flavor and the flavor most favored by children raised on HFCS-laden foods. People acclimated to “sweet” are not as likely to like “bitter”, “salty”, “sour”, “savory”, “pungent”, or “piquant”; reducing further their food choices*.

And 5. It’s not the “natural” ingredient the Corn Refiners Association claims it is – HFCS comes from cornstarch which is chemically degraded to glucose, and then it’s converted chemically to fructose. It may have started out coming from a real food, but the process along the way is anything but natural.

* Yes, Numenists recognize 7 flavors along with 7 elements and other multiples of 7 – not intentionally, it just worked out that way.