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Sweet and Lowdown
Sweet and Lowdown
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2008 - 1:40pm
Speaking of moderation, before HFCS became ubiquitous, we ate a lot less sugar, and we were a much slimmer people. In 1980, according to nutritionist Marion Nestle in her book What to Eat, each American on average ate about 120 pounds of sugars from all sources per year. By 2004, we were eating 142 pounds. The use of HFCS more than doubled in that time, and people now consume about 60 pounds of it every year on average.
Nestle herself recently commented on the "Sweet Surprise" campaign on her blog. She admits that a lot of people have vaguely heard that HFCS is bad for you, and so they wrongly think of it "as the new trans-fat."
"It isn't," Nestle writes, "but is insulting your intelligence an effective way to deal with that concern?"
According to SourceWatch, the Corn Refiners Association, whose members include agribusiness giants Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, spent between $20 million and $30 million on the campaign.
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Comments
HFCS
The problem with HCFS is that has become so passe for upper crusty intellectuals that even having it in the home is grounds for exile from the culinary elite. Having grown up on it, I don't think it too be that bad--however; I'm a hefty size. Thanks to alternatives like splenda, keeping sweet isn't so hard.
The problem again rises that some companies don't seem to care (that is in the public eye) about obesity. Market research shows that companies who are "green, i.e. health friendly" don't have HFCS and get better consumer confidence. I ran across this blog post:
"By showing that companies care, they will simultaneously gain new insights into markets. Social opportunity could be the next great insight into finding your new market."
http://themarketresearchevent.blogspot.com/