[BEGIN RANT/]
This is driving me crazy. I keep hearing people complain about "sugar content" of menu items. It's not the "sugar" content, folks. We hardly use actual cane sugar anymore. It's corn syrup. Corn syrup, which is cheap due to ridiculous farm subsidies which don't help actual farmers.
Go poke around on the web for a while, and you can see how the farm subsidies are helping corporate, and not family, farming. The cheap corn hurts family farms as it helps giant corporate farms. It also leads to foods which formally had no sugar content or actual cane sugar content to have the ingredients switched, so that cheap corn syrup is used. (I really wish the subsidies actually helped real farmers, as it's terrifically depressing to watch farming families up here struggle the way they do, and the farm stands are the only place up here to get decent vegetables.)
Ever had Coca-Cola outside of the States? You have it in France, and it's so much better. It's not as sticky-sweet and it's fizzier. Okay, so ET would hate it, as she prefers her soda, if she has to drink it, flattish and basically like swilling dark Karo Syrup. (;p) But I think most people who like the occasonal bottle of Coke would prefer to drink what they serve in Japan. Why do they use sugar in Japan and France? Because they don't have the corn (syrup) subsidies. (Unless, of course, they've changed the way Coke's made abroad, too. Which would suck. But then, I can still get my yummy-yummy peach water in Japan and Badoit in France, so, screw 'em.)
Then again, I'm big on tea. Darjeeling, lemon with one sugar. Other black teas, a splash of milk, one sugar. Green, ooloong, or white teas, a bit of honey. Or, if chilled, just the tea. I'm also fond of drinking cold water with a splash of pink grapefruit juice (the actual stuff, not the watered down crap with the--your guessed it!--corn syrup). And cranberry juice, 'cause I'm a crazy Yankee girl. But if I'm eating something like pizza, Coke's the only thing that keeps me from feeling sickish (I've a crazy-sensitive stomach but I love food...and hate Pepto-Abysmal, so I go with my great-grandmother's tummy cure of Coca-Cola). I just wish that Coke, and other beverage companies and food companies, offered the option of buying versions without corn syrup but instead using cane sugar. I'd definitely pay more for that option.
So, please, keep the corn syrup to the delicious, delicious pecan pie and fake blood, and stop yelling at sugar. We weren't so damned fat as a nation before, when we ate sugary foods instead of corn-syrupy foods. Go ask Bill Maher. He bitches about the same thing on his show, too.
[/END RANT]
All right. Comment about my freakish ignorance and horrendous grammar/spelling below. No, I didn't put in any links. You can Google for actual information as well as I can, I'm betting.
This is driving me crazy. I keep hearing people complain about "sugar content" of menu items. It's not the "sugar" content, folks. We hardly use actual cane sugar anymore. It's corn syrup. Corn syrup, which is cheap due to ridiculous farm subsidies which don't help actual farmers.
Go poke around on the web for a while, and you can see how the farm subsidies are helping corporate, and not family, farming. The cheap corn hurts family farms as it helps giant corporate farms. It also leads to foods which formally had no sugar content or actual cane sugar content to have the ingredients switched, so that cheap corn syrup is used. (I really wish the subsidies actually helped real farmers, as it's terrifically depressing to watch farming families up here struggle the way they do, and the farm stands are the only place up here to get decent vegetables.)
Ever had Coca-Cola outside of the States? You have it in France, and it's so much better. It's not as sticky-sweet and it's fizzier. Okay, so ET would hate it, as she prefers her soda, if she has to drink it, flattish and basically like swilling dark Karo Syrup. (;p) But I think most people who like the occasonal bottle of Coke would prefer to drink what they serve in Japan. Why do they use sugar in Japan and France? Because they don't have the corn (syrup) subsidies. (Unless, of course, they've changed the way Coke's made abroad, too. Which would suck. But then, I can still get my yummy-yummy peach water in Japan and Badoit in France, so, screw 'em.)
Then again, I'm big on tea. Darjeeling, lemon with one sugar. Other black teas, a splash of milk, one sugar. Green, ooloong, or white teas, a bit of honey. Or, if chilled, just the tea. I'm also fond of drinking cold water with a splash of pink grapefruit juice (the actual stuff, not the watered down crap with the--your guessed it!--corn syrup). And cranberry juice, 'cause I'm a crazy Yankee girl. But if I'm eating something like pizza, Coke's the only thing that keeps me from feeling sickish (I've a crazy-sensitive stomach but I love food...and hate Pepto-Abysmal, so I go with my great-grandmother's tummy cure of Coca-Cola). I just wish that Coke, and other beverage companies and food companies, offered the option of buying versions without corn syrup but instead using cane sugar. I'd definitely pay more for that option.
So, please, keep the corn syrup to the delicious, delicious pecan pie and fake blood, and stop yelling at sugar. We weren't so damned fat as a nation before, when we ate sugary foods instead of corn-syrupy foods. Go ask Bill Maher. He bitches about the same thing on his show, too.
[/END RANT]
All right. Comment about my freakish ignorance and horrendous grammar/spelling below. No, I didn't put in any links. You can Google for actual information as well as I can, I'm betting.
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