High Fructose Corn Syrup: Three Reasons to Ditch the Not-so-Sweet Treat

Have you ever seen the television commercial where a man refuses to eat a popsicle that his girlfriend offers him because it has high fructose corn syrup in it, as she goes on to explain why the substance is natural, no different from sugar, and fine in moderation? The ad is part of the Sweet Surprise campaign by the Corn Refiner's Association, that attempts to raise public awareness about the "truth" of high fructose corn syrup. However, I see it as more of a Sweet Scheme, ignoring the effects that the production and consumption of the product has on our bodies, our country, and our world.

Numerous scientific studies have linked high fructose corn syrup consumption with obesity, and in turn, diseases such as diabetes. One study at Princeton University found that rats with access to high fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when the overall caloric content was the same. Not only did these lab animals gain weight, but the long-term consumption of high fructose corn syrup lead to an abnormal increase in body fat, particularly in the abdominal area, and a rise in triglycerides, or circulating fat blood cells. Although the cause is yet to be determined, many scientists attribute the phenomenon to the make-up of the molecules themselves: excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles. Furthermore, high fructose corn syrup may hinder our cognitive ability to recognize fullness, actually increasing appetite after it is ingested.

In addition to Princeton's experiment, other statistics make the causality seem obvious. According to the Department of Agriculture, from 1972 to 2002 the amount of sugar and syrup produced annually per American grew 21% from 104 lbs. to 126 lbs. In that same time, the percentage of syrup sweetener grew from 1% to 50%. Coincidentally, the obesity rate in the U.S. increased by about 25% from the years 1985 to 2008. With the presence of high fructose corn syrup in fast food, sodas, and even convenience foods such as peanut butter, bread, ketchup, and spaghetti sauce, moderation is nearly impossible for many Americans. The danger of HFCS as a threat to health has consequences not just for the individuals, but also for the nation as a whole.

Subsidized by $20 billion of taxpayer dollars per year, farmers are not likely to stop corn production any time soon. However, while taxes on corn remain the same, with the new health care bill in place, much of our hard earned taxpayer dollars will be used to treat diabetes and diseases brought on by the consumption of HFCS. And as Americans are getting fatter, they are becoming increasingly unhealthy as well, therefore requiring more medical attention for weight-related problems. By eating HFCS and supporting the government subsidies of the product, we are also supporting the obesity crisis in America, and assuming the responsibility to pay for their medical bills that arise in combination with their low societal status and high consumption of cheap, convenience foods, undoubtedly loaded with high fructose corn syrup.

Not only are we emptying our wallets, but we are draining our environment as well. Most corn is grown in a monoculture, where the land is used solely for corn and not rotated among other crops. This maximizes yields but at the price of depleting soil nutrients, requiring more pesticides and fertilizer while weakening topsoil. Michael Pollan, a well-known critic of industrial agriculture writes, "Look no farther than the dead zone in the Gulf [of Mexico], an area the size of New Jersey where virtually nothing will live because it has been starved of oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt. Then there is the atrazine in the water in farm country -- a nasty herbicide that, at concentrations as little as 0.1 part per billion, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites." Milling and chemically altering corn to form high fructose corn syrup also requires a lot of energy. However, the majority of energy lost due to HFCS production, must be looked at on a global level.

From the same taxpayer dollars we pay to subsidize high fructose corn syrup production and from the same sugary purchases we use to support it, we are also encouraging the production of ethanol from corn. While you may think of this as another way you can join the green movement and prevent global warming, biofuels are a source of something very un-green: deforestation in the Brazilian rain forest. The sharp increase in demand for farm-grown fuels such as ethanol has raised global crop prices to record highs prompting a dramatic expansion in Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at a startling rate. Subsidized corn used for high fructose corn syrup production has a similar effect, as it too inflates pricing standards in world agriculture, leading developing countries to do anything they can to keep up, even if it means hacking away at the lungs of the world.

What the "Sweet Solution" campaign deems as harmless, is actually slowly depleting our bodies, our wallets, and our global environment. What they claim as equal to sugar is provoking a slow suicide, the takeover of abdominal fat in our bodies, unwarranted financial expenses, depletion of American soil, and the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. In avoiding high fructose corn syrup, we could not only evade the energy costs of health care for diseases caused by HFCS consumption, the enzymatic process used to make the compound, the energy used to grow and transport the crops, and the loss of our planet's oxygen providers, but we will also be improving the overall well-being of ourselves, our country and our world.

As I grow older, I find it increasingly obligatory to trace all of my actions to how it affects the world. Even if it is simply watching what I eat, I believe that it is important to understand the global consequences. So, whatever your motivation, be it fat rats, health improvement, fighting the tax system, saving the rain forest, or even hating corny commercials, I encourage you to think about these things when you're making food choices. Be careful what you eat, it could kill you.

(Photos from flickr taken by WriterGal 39 and mivox respectively.)

Teddy Time at Tanglewood

It's amazing what a college campus can do to a person. Beyond the iron arches, past the heart of the city, and through the pathways of cobblestone and rows of labeled buildings lies a whole new world. While often frightening at first, the entirety of the college campus quickly sweeps freshman off of their feet, carrying them, transforming them, shaping them, embedding them into the college culture.

Students spend nine months living in this new society, that at times, can overwhelm the existence of the rest of the world. The daily routine of class in large lecture halls, eating in cafeterias, living in a dormitory, and seeing only the faces of young adult students and middle-aged professors can become quite dull, rather fast. While many college students choose to spend their weekends breaking up this routine going to campus sporting events, having movie marathons in their dorm rooms, and binge drinking to a point of sheer silliness throughout campus, I think it is important to take some of this time and spend it off campus.

This past weekend I had the joy of going hiking at Tanglewood Nature Center with three friends and my roommate's seven-year-old brother Teddy. There were two aspects of my trip that completely re-energized me and gave me some new perspective before returning to the brick and cobblestone world of Elmira: seeing a young face and connecting with nature.

On a sunny, cool, March day, we hiked twelve miles of snowy cross-country trail at Tanglewood. Well, according to Teddy it was twelve miles, according to any working speedometer it was about three quarters of a mile. Watching Teddy's excitement in reading the nature signs, shouting out the colors of trail markers, and tiptoeing to see a rabbit in the woods refueled my childish side of adventure, curiosity, and enthusiasm for the little things in life. These were all it took, in combination with his wide blue eyes and adorable speech impediment to give me what was missing after weeks on the same campus.

Walking outside on the trails, with the blinding white snow, crunch beneath my feet, and slight sting in my nose, I felt instantly refreshed. There's just something about the natural world that gives me the energy to move, think, and live that despite their beauty, all of the castle-like buildings at Elmira College could not replace. It seemed almost as if the buildings were forces harboring stress, anxiety, and boredom that the open air swept away, clearing my mind of any of these crowded thoughts.

As life continues, and I find a job and house in any location, I will always be reminded of this day. Children and nature possess certain qualities that I think are essential to life. Adventure, curiosity, enthusiasm, relaxation, and refreshment can save anyone from a "concrete jungle."

So when you're really stressed out and need a break from your current college or neighborhood society, I encourage you to put down the beer and buy yourself some Teddy time at Tanglewood.

Insanity

Today begins my journey of Insanity. Not craziness of course (everyone knows that I am already crazy), but the start of an extreme work out regimen created by fitness trainer Shaun T. One of the hardest things I've found since I've been to college is to undergo the change from being a three sport athlete to essentially a "no sport athlete." The teamwork, social reaction, physical training, competition, and pushing your body to its limit that had once been just part of my daily routine, is now something that I have to plan for and put into my schedule myself. I love being physically active, but it is often difficult after weeks of monotonous runs on the treadmill, endless laps and chlorine filled ears in the swimming pool, and repeating one bicep curl after another at the gym not to get bored.

Working out is something that I want not only to look forward to every day, but to challenge me as well. Therefore, variety is key. After receiving the heartbreaking news that I have patellofemoral tendonitis in my knee, disallowing me to run for a few months, I began the p90x fitness program just borrowing DVDs from my neighbor. Although I had never done a fitness video before, and actually made fun of them quite often, I fell in love with it. About a month later my family got this crazy idea of buying a fitness video we can all participate in: Insanity.

The workout program is based on max interval training workouts, flipping the traditional style of interval training on its head, forcing you to push yourself to the limit. Although I am not an athlete on a competitive sports team here at Elmira, I can still find and nurture my love for competition by competing with myself. Together with my family I vow to push myself every day and get ripped before my trip to Spain on May 1!

Maybe it's not a coincidence that I begin my journey on the first of March, the month of NCAA basketball madness. Anything can happen, top seeds fall, half court shots swoosh through the net, and the team with the most drive will win. Let the insanity begin.

Sport Fan For Life

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does." - Nelson Mandela

Sport has been a powerful force in my life even before my chubby infant arms and legs had the anatomical ability to partake in it. Nineteen years and hundreds of ball games and races later, and I still believe in athletic competition; it is a psychological vehicle of motivation, teamwork, and human development, a social cause of healthy rivalry and human equality, and a cultural medium through which national pride and international unity and interdependence can grow simultaneously.

As we grow and become more aware of the financial connections between big business and sport, it is easy to lose hope. It takes no effort to lose faith in sport, to dismiss it as a silly, even worthless competition, or to point to flaws in its structure and the focus it puts on big businesses such as Coke and McDonald's in order to raise funds for advertising. It is a simple action to condemn the sports industry, to mock its excessive measures and rituals and blame them for "taking away" from the better of society. While I in no way stand by the connections between fast food, soda, and a healthy Olympic quality athlete, I am not so quick to lose hope.

Rather than take the quick route of criticism that is so easy to take in the adult world of money, bribes, and corporate power, I choose to believe. In the atmosphere of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, let us look beyond the golden arches and red cans of fizzing liquid. Let us not forget they exist or the powers (good or bad) they may possess, but let us focus on the true spectacles, the miracles, the athletes.

It is not Apolo Ohno, Sean White, Lindsey Vonn, or Bode Miller who pay the companies and endorse corporate sellouts. It is they, who, despite the pressures of consumer culture, train and sweat, train and sweat, and train and sweat all over again to test their bodies, to be the best in the world, just as the original competitors in the first Olympiad in Greece did before them.

In the ancient Greek Olympics, spectators held a victorious athlete in the highest prestige. In Homer’s, The Odyssey, he states, “there is no great glory for any man alive than that which he wins by his hands and feet." The Greeks believed in the concept of arête, or excellence. They respected glory and victory and announced only one winner in every contest. Although today we give out medals to the top three victors, I believe this concept still holds strong today.

The connection between the Greek Olympics and athletic competitions of today is not to be forgotten, no matter how old we are, or how many corporate sponsors exist. It is not coincidence that athletes today, even in Vancouver carry on their athletic equipment the sign of the ancient Greek goddess of victory herself, Nike. This popular brand of athletic gear emphasizes the athlete’s drive to be elite, a concept true to competitors from ancient Greece to the modern world. The Olympic motto mirrors the Greek concept of always striving to be the best: “Citius, altius, fortius,” three Latin words meaning faster, higher, stronger, encourage the athlete to reach beyond their grasp. This search for excellence and the joy of competition is the highest motivation for the Games of both times. To me, the influence of franchises on televised events and even some athletes themselves does not change the meaning of sport, rather athletes of all times are undoubtedly connected by their will and power to achieve arête.

Coming of age, does not have to signify the loss of simple joys such as sport. It is this simple joy that can bring complex problems to an end, and bring together people with a love of something simple: sport.

If all of this ranting has still had no effect on your opinion of sport, or even if it has, I encourage you to see the newly released film "Invictus." Maybe then, Mr. Mandela's opening lines will make more sense to you. Sport, even in today's world, is a powerful vehicle of change, a display of athletic excellence, and a joyous activity. The organizations and the competitors deserve your respect. If you can't give it to them, take off your Nikes.

The End of My Sidewalk

For the most part, I have led a pretty consistent life. The second oldest of a family of five girls, I was born and raised in the small town of Inlet, New York , relocating only once to "the next town over" where I had already attended high school and still reside, Old Forge. My routine as a high school student varied only trivially as my advanced courses, musical endeavors, extracurricular activities, and three seasons of sports kept me busy, yet hardly challenged me to a point where I did not know what I was doing or what I wanted to do. I have only dated one other person before my current boyfriend (the stunning Benjamin Russell) of nearly four years. Only now, have the pressures of finding a career, maintaining happiness, not settling, following my dreams, and making the decisions that will determine my future seemingly swept my familiar path away, like a final brushstroke of whiteout, leaving me a daunting blank page.

The inspiration for my blog came about in a sort of whirlwind of self-discovery and epiphany when I decided, just yesterday, to apply to graduate school for journalism and pursue a career as a writer. Despite the array of complaints I have made against the Elmira College Freshman Writing Program, it seems clear to me now that I have always loved writing and have often been praised for my ability. I truly respect the art of storytelling; it is a vital component of society that voices are heard and a gift to be able to present that story with exquisiteness.

In this blog, I will put my writing skills to the test and practice, writing about topics that come about in my journey beyond the sidewalk, that space in between a safe, secure, dependent child, and a responsible independent adult.

So here's to the First Amendment and the significance of my blog, may they help me build more sidewalk.