When you move from one country to another, you often notice some
details of the taste and texture of the local foodstuffs. For example,
pretty much everything in Thailand tasted slightly fishy to my western
tastebuds, due to their widespread use of nam pla, a fermented-fish
sauce seasoning.
In the US, there’s a very definite gooey texture and strong sugary flavour
which crops up in lots of foodstuffs — right down to salad dressings and soft
drinks. Eventually I figured it out — it’s corn syrup, which isn’t really
used at all in Europe. According to this review of
Fat Land, here’s why it’s everywhere:
According to Critser, a leading journalist on health and obesity, America about
30 years ago went crazy sowing corn. Determined to satisfy an American public
that ‘wanted what it wanted when it wanted it,’ agriculture secretary Earl Butz
determined to lower American food prices by ending restrictions on trade and
growing. The superabundance of cheap corn that resulted inspired Japanese
scientists to invent a cheap sweetener called ‘high fructose corn syrup.’ This
sweetener made food look and taste so great that it soon found its way into
everything from bread to soda pop. Researchers ignored the way the stuff seemed
to trigger fat storage.
The book’s thesis seems to be that corn syrup and palm oil are largely
to blame for the obesity epidemic. A quick google shows up
this LA Times story which covers the book in more detail:
‘High-fructose corn syrup is a really low quality, really cheap sugar,’ the
38-year-old (Robyn) Landis says dismissively. The syrup starts out as
cornstarch, which is then made sweeter by converting some of its glucose to
fructose; the more fructose in the end product, the sweeter it is. ‘It is not
something our bodies should be dealing with. It’s completely unnatural.’
She also objects to the fact that high-fructose corn syrup turns up in unlikely
places, such as ketchup, baby food and baked beans. ‘Even chocolate tastes more
like sugar than chocolate when it is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup,’
says Landis …
… Dr. George A. Bray, an obesity researcher and professor of medicine at
Louisiana State University Medical Center, also singles out high-fructose corn
syrup because the meteoric rise in its consumption closely parallels the jump
in obesity rates. ‘Nothing else in the food supply does this. It’s a very, very
striking relationship.’
… Ironically, fructose, which is also known as fruit sugar, was once
considered a healthier, ‘more natural’ alternative to sucrose, that is,
old-fashioned table sugar, because of its presence in fruit. In
addition, diabetics thought it was healthier for them because it does
not raise insulin or blood sugar levels as high as glucose does.
However, animal studies and preliminary human studies have found that a
high-fructose diet leads to some of the same health problems that are
rampant among overweight Americans, including insulin resistance and
elevated triglyceride levels, a marker for heart disease.
(I still plan to get my teeth into a corn dog pretty soon though ;) Gotta
get that low-grade meat product fix!)
RSS: Ben
Hammersley points at this really wierd
posting from Adam Curry. Points and laughs, in fact.
As far as I can see, AC wants development of (N)echo to stop,
because he dropped 10,000 dollars getting a year’s paid placement in
the
Radio Userland aggregator, or something like that. Well, that was
a smart investment. I’m sure all the people thinking about (N)echo are
dropping tools right now, accordingly. ;)
Ireland: P45.net now has
MT blogs. Cool.
