AJ v HFCS
A new study was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine that today’s children have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation – us. This is the first time that a parental generation of Americans has a longer life expectancy than their children. Pretty sad. There are two main reasons for this prediction: 1) obesity. We’ve seen this one coming at us for a while. Luckily, like most fat things, it doesn’t come at us too quickly! And 2) poor diet. Yeah, chew on that.
We live in a time and place where food is so plentiful that we can even claim we are allergic to it – you won’t hear any Ethiopians complaining about gluten! Surprisingly, despite this abundance, we have relatively poor diets.
If you’re a Smart Chicken, and you’ve been following this blog, then you know I’m one who leans to the green. I was shocked when ninety percent of my 7th grade science students didn’t recognize a whole, raw chicken. (These were private school kids from Southern California, too!) But I sat with my mouth open for about half an hour after watching a snippet of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. I wasn’t surprised that some inner city kids didn’t recognize the eggplant . . . but when they guessed it might be an apple or a pear, I was . . . appalled.
The problem is that so much of what we eat isn’t so much food as it is plastic. I think it starts as food, but then gets so hybridized with preservatives and guar-gums, that it’s edible, but isn’t really food by the time it’s done. It’s really more of a ‘food type product’.
A kid at my son’s karate school once asked why I wouldn’t let my kids eat the cheez crackers (with a peanutbutter-colored substance in between). I said “I had two years of graduate school biochemistry, and I can’t identify half these ingredients.”
This has all been building up for a while into a battle royale – known in my house as AJ v HFCS. (AJ being me, and HFCS being my mortal enemy – high fructose corn syrup.)
I am NOT a fanatic! (I know, famous words usually spoken by fanatics.) I eat HFCS. There are sometimes Pop-tarts in my house. Or Ho-Hos. (mmmmm Ho-Hos.) On the food-to-plastic scale these rank right next to margarine, which is only one small step below eating Legos. But the vast majority of our household food is actually FOOD.
Where I have issue with HFCS, is that it gets snuck into things where it isn’t needed or wanted. Like bread. Bread is bread. It isn’t dessert. But I stood in the aisle at Kroger one day reading the ingredients of loaf after loaf and constantly finding HFCS. As I got more frustrated, I slammed each package back into place and grabbed the next one. (Yes, that was me, and I’m sorry your bread was flat that week. My bad.) I checked the bakery bread, but it’s just as bad. Go figure. At last, I found one – a bread without HFCS! I went home, triumphant. I showed everyone the bag, so they could buy it the next time without reading all the ingredients. As I was making everyone recite the brand name, it was pointed out that no one would have to read the ingredients, because there was a big banner across the top of the loaf reading. “No High Fructose Corn Syrup.” (Again, I’m really sorry about your flat bread.)
The other one that just kills me – any may be killing kids now, too! – is applesauce. Did you know that it’s sweetened? Really? Really?!?! Who needs their applesauce with added corn syrup? Do you take a bite of that Snickers bar and stop, then pour sugar on it? Do you use Mrs. Butterworths instead of milk on your Cocoa Puffs? Why is it SO HARD to find applesauce without HFCS?? And when you do find the HFCS-free version . . . it has Splenda! Holy crap! This is why our kids are fat.
Did you know that Splenda and Aspartame are actually not on the food-to-plastic scale? They have a ranking on the ‘food-to-poison scale’. The next time you get ants in your house, put out a trail of Equal . . . in the morning, dead ants! If your car battery corrodes, pour a regular coke over it. Corrosion, gone!
Bread isn’t supposed to last for three weeks. And it isn’t supposed to be sweet. Neither is chicken, nor corn.
I may not be allowed back into my neighborhood Kroger after I started reading the spaghetti sauce labels. Most have HFCS as the second or third ingredient. I was so stunned that . . . um, it looked a bit like a murder scene.
My mortal enemy – whom I thought was only in treats – has been laughing at me all along. I thought spaghetti and applesauces were safe foods. Real foods even. I am in shock.
I need a Ho-Ho.
Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS
Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!
Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -
Limited Time Offer – Get Your First 3 Months at Audible.com for $7.49/month!
