OK, I"m back. I took a break for a couple of months. But the things I've been seeing on TV lately have incited me to begin again. This will be a soapbox-style rant, but I'm so angry right now, I have to get the word out. I owe it to you fine readers. It's almost enough to make me turn off the TV forever. Let me explain. I LOVE TV. It's on in the background more often than not. But there have been a slew of commercials lately that are enough to make me boycott my beloved TV set. Here's what has me so upset:


The first offender is no shocker, it's the The High Fructose Corn Syrup commercials. You've seen them. One person offers another something with HFCS in it. That person gets offended because HFCS is evil. However, when questioned about WHY HFCS is evil, that person sits there stammering and can't come up with anything. Then the person offering the treat yammers off a bunch of hooey and they both enjoy the treat together. No surprise, it was brought to you by the Corn Refiners Association. The same ones who make sure HFCS is in just about everything these days and profit from the same actions. The commercial tells us to "get the facts", so I checked out their website. I was appalled. They are actually trying to defend HFCS as a safe product. Here are the REAL facts about it:

1) High Fructose Corn Syrup is one of the most highly-addictive substances on the planet. It is also incredibly cheap to produce, creating a higher profit for the company who uses it. That is why it is in so many foods. To get you hooked and become a "loyal consumer".

2) High Fructose Corn Syrup is made mostly of Genetically Modified corn. Corn is genetically modified to over-produce and withstand bugs, drought, etc. It is Franken-Corn. DO NOT EAT.

3) High Fructose Corn Syrup is NOT a WHOLE FOOD. There is NO nutritional value. Corn IS a whole food, this is NOT corn.

Be wary of WHO is presenting you with the "facts".



The second also comes from your "friends" in the corn industry, though it's not as widely shown. This one has a farmer-looking guy talking about the benefits of ethanol (which is a whole other debate), and then goes on to talk about how it's sustainable because they feed the leftovers TO COWS. Now, long-time readers of my newsletters know: COWS EAT GRASS, NOT CORN (see photo). Corn is extremely hard for cows to digest and leads to all sorts of diseases. Feeding cows corn is one of the many examples our system of meat farming is SO screwed up.


The third is on the same topic, and it wasn't actually a commercial, but a news report. Remember how people were dying from eating tomatoes. Then peppers were the culprit. No, wait, it's cilantro. Guess what it REALLY was? Fecal contamination. What? Poop on veg? Yes. How? CAFO (Controlled Animal Feeding Operations, aka bovine sweatshops) farms are growing bigger and bigger and SOMETIMES (read, a LOT) cross-contamination occurs on nearby farms. Sometimes they use fertilizer that came from sick cows on plant crops. Gross? Yes. But it happens ALL THE TIME. Well, NOW the geniuses who run our food system have decided NOT to FIX the way CAFOs operate (which is the real problem), they've instead decided to irradiate all commercially produced veg, because that's what they do with meat (nevermind food poisoning from meat that is supposedly "clean" is still rampant). Irradiating veg essentially kills any of the good stuff in veg leaving it lifeless. You might as well eat styrofoam peanuts. Same nutritional value. So, instead of solving one problem, they've created a whole new one. Awesome. How can you combat this? Easy: Know your farmer. Buy organic. Buy local. Ask questions at your green market. All of the things I've told you before.



The last one I JUST saw and triggered this rant. It shows a guy mowing his lawn wondering why they've banned trans-fats when they're never listed as an ingredient, so they must not really exist. This is another one like HFCS that's easy to fix if people would just educate themselves. You can find transfats on food labels, EVEN IF THE FOOD IS LABELLED AS TRANS FAT FREE. They're listed as partially hydrogenated oil. The food lobby is strong enough to allow for a certain % of partially hydrogenated oils to be allowed in food but still label it as trans-fat free. Indeed. They're a long sciencey explanation about what partially hydrogenated oil is and how it's made, but what it boils down to is: do you want something the texture of margarine in your arteries? Ever played with margarine? I bought a tub once, for fun, and plopped it out on a plate. 3 days later, it had not changed shape, not melted even after using the stove and oven. Nothing. That's something I plain don't want to mess with.


OK. That's about it. Happy Fall, and happy EDUCATED eating.

-Liz