Do not go quietly into that good night, Rage, rage against the HFCS

Ok first off, I would like to apologize to Dylan Thomas for butchering one of his more famous poems but for some reason it just popped into my head like a giant squid (10 points if you get that reference). But I'm not here to talk about squids or dying (well not directly anyway), but about something that I now have a personal vendetta against. A jihad if you will. I am here to tell you that I am fed up with and disgusted by a completely inanimate object. Something that through reckless government subsidization and rampant commercialism of our food supply has been slowly killing us years. It's gotten to the point that the average life expectancy for some Americans has DECLINED for the first time since the 1800s.

Now I don't know all the reasons for this but some researchers believe this is the leading edge of the obesity epidemic. And I know one of the reasons American's are heavier than they've ever been: HFCS or High-Fructose Corn Syrup.

Ok, not quite what you were expecting, eh? Perhaps you were looking for some horrible chemical that has been secretly been added to our food by an evil government? Well that's not far off, but there's no actual malovolence behind the use of HFCS in modern food. Just pure proffit. Which could technically be considered evil due to that whole greed being one of the seven deadly sins. Where's Kevin Spacey when you need him?

So what's so bad about HFCS? Well first, let's start with a bit of science, throw in a dash of history, and see what a horrible, syrupy mess the USDA and the FDA have managed to cook up.

HFCS is essentially sugar. It's a sweetener that is used to make things, well, sweet. What most people don't realize is there are actually several different types of sugar as we commonly know it. Sugar itself is actually a classification of chemical compounds, but what we refer to the white crystal stuff we put in our coffee as "sugar" is more specifically sucrose, which is a combination of glucose and fructose molecules bonded together. When we eat this type of sugar, our bodies regulate the breakdown of the molecules using a special enzyme.

HFCS, by contrast, contains the same molecules of glucose and fructose as sucrose does, however they are separate and thus our body does not need to break them down. The downside to this is that the enzyme that breaks down sucrose also helps regulate the body's intake of sugar into the bloodstream. Without this process, the body has a tendency to absorb more sugar that it normally would.

We haven't always eaten HFCS. In fact until very recently, the majority of sweeteners in the US came from sucrose extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. The rise of HFCS actually began in the mid 70s, and has been increasingly invading the processed foods market since. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is cost. The US is a major producer of corn, from which HFCS is derived. Massive government subsidies on the corn industry created artificially low corn prices to the point where HFCS was cheaper than cane or beet sugar. As such, companies started to replace the cane and beet sugars used in their products with HFCS.

HFCS is now found in nearly every processed food in the US market. It is used in breads, cereals, soft drinks, condiments, and a myriad of other food products. Why is this a problem? HFCS has been linked to not only obesity and diabetes, but can actually cause liver damage when coupled with a high-fat and sedentary lifestyle (a la most Americans). [source] Now to be fair eating large amounts of table sugar is not really good for you either, but at least when you eat that kind of sugar your body is better able to regulate the absorption. There is no such benefit to HFCS.

What made me so upset about this HFCS issue that I felt I needed to create a whole lesson out of it? Well, the other day I was at Fry's picking up some food for dinner. We decided to have sandwiches using these rather good fake grilled chicken patties that Jen likes. So I was picking up all the ingredients and I was trying to make sure I got stuff that was as healthy as possible. Whole-grain bread, fresh veggies, low-fat cheese, etc. Now those of you that know Jen know she's a big fan of pickles. So I went to grab a jar of Mt. Olive sandwich-stacker kosher dills. I've always thought pickles are quite healthy apart from the sodium content as they are basically cucumbers soaked in salt, spices, and vinegar. However, on a whim I decided to check the ingredients. Surely pickles would be free of the evil of HFCS!

Ingredients: Water, high-fructose corn syrup, salt ...

Wait, what? The SECOND ingredient in a product that is essentially a vegetable sitting in saltwater contains frakin' CORN SYRUP? I check to be sure I didn't grab the bread and butter pickles by mistake but nope, definitely the dill. I couldn't believe it. I grabbed another brand nearby of the same type, and checked it as well. No HFCS. I check the Fry's brand. Again, no HFCS.

I was pissed. I mean I understand the need to produce a good tasting recipe and adding sugar to a highly salty or acidic food can take the bite out of the flavor and make it more enjoyable. But PICKLES?!!?! At that point I decided that I would check every label of everything I buy and try and avoid anything that contains HFCS. And I mean EVERYTHING. If I'm going to eat it, I'm going to check if it has HFCS first. If so, I'll get the organic or find some other brand if possible. I've had it with this crap.

It's not all doom and gloom however. Many companies are starting to ditch HFCS and go back to cane or beet sugars. Jones Soda for example has a new line of pure cane sodas. Pepsi has an experimental soda called "Pepsi Raw" that contains only fresh, non-processed ingredients. I've also started shopping at the new "Fresh and Easy" stores that are opening up around the country. The food is a bit more expensive, but it's almost all made with fresh ingredients and nearly everything is HFCS-free, even the desserts.

HFCS has secretly replaced nearly all the sweeteners in the US food market today. It was done without knowing the full extent of the health effects of the stuff, and it was done almost entirely in the background. And what's even more insidious is that since the FDA's definition of the term "natural" is rather loose, this has led some manufacturers to label their foods as "all-natural" even though they use HFCS as sweetener. Snapple and Nature's Own are just a few such examples.

My point in all of this ranting is that people simply can't depend on someone else outside of a dietician to tell them what to eat and what is best for you. Food companies do not necessarily have your best interests in mind as they are first and foremost corporations that exist to make money. If they can make a product that sells well that is cheaper to produce with something like HFCS rather than cane sugar, they will obviously go that route. That being said, it's not in their best interest to kill their customers with dangerous and poor-quality food either, but the type of long-term effects of many processed food additives cannot be studied for many years, and even then the results are not always conclusive.

I don't blame the food companies for the obesity epidemic; that blame lies squarely on each and every one of us. We eat too little of what is good for us, and we don't exercise enough. Plain and simple. What we, as consumers, should do is pay more attention to the food we eat. Take 15 seconds and look at the ingredient labels. If you see things you don't recognize, think twice about buying that product. As with a lot of things, many of these chemicals and additives are not harmful in small doses; everything is good in moderation and all that. But if you take one thing away from this, it's that overly processed goods like HFCS are not what humans were designed to eat. Our bodies are damn good at turning just about everything into food and dealing with a lot of the crap that it can't, but it can't handle everything.

You can't completely avoid it, but if you can reduce the the amount you eat by even a little, I think your body (and your waistline) will thank you in the long run.