I love those commercials sponsored by the corn industry. One person is eating or offering food that is sweetened by corn syrup. Another person makes a comment along the lines of, You know what they say about high-fructose corn syrup, right? Then, the first person lays the smack down and exposes the troublemaker for the shallow follower that they are, by asking what they say about corn syrup. The second person is completely dumbfounded; apparently they simply hadn’t anticipated the possibility of a followup question.

Then, the syrup lover fires back with some very natural sounding points about corn syrup.

• Did you know it’s fine in moderation?
• Or that it has the same calories as sugar?

After this barrage, the original questioner withers and submits to the urges of their suddenly ravenous appetite for maize.

Here’s a little ammo for that first guy:

• What about the fact that it tastes like shit and makes your soda a goopy mess, coating the back of your throat like a dose of Robitussin?

  Seriously, go get a bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola — you can get one at many Mexican restaurants — and try it. Put it next to a can of the American version and see if you can’t tell the difference. Mexican Coke has real sugar in it because it’s cheaper in Mexico to use sugar than it is corn syrup.

• Or that the only reason it exists is to create demand for corn, justifying obscene subsidies given by the federal government to very wealthy agricultural giants? That’s the same reason why it’s in nearly everything, and why it’s so cheap: you pay for it with your taxes whether you like it or not!

  We all pay to have our food sweetened with mediocre crap

• Hey, did you know that it’s made by taking corn starch, soaking it in artificial saliva and then fermenting it in a fungus vat? Yum!

One of the most frustrating things about food in this country is that people demand garbage and they want to pay the lowest price for it. The monotonous flavor, inferior ingredients, made by horribly irresponsible conglomerates who know more about chemical synthesis than they do food production.

People are giving to the lowest bidder the job of providing them sustenance! To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: the American eater knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Category » Food

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