The Corn Syrup Addendum...

In my last blog, I forgot to tackle the issues of what people are calling the most evil thing since Hitler... High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Remember growing up and baking a cake, you would use Karo syrup or some other sticky sweet liquid? Now people want to destroy that childhood memory and take away our corn syrup!

Problem is, corn syrup is full of sugar - let me rephrase, IS ALL SUGAR. And we all know sugar is evil.

But lets think about why we use it. Corn syrup is cheap. It's plentiful, especially in the corn-rich USA. It's versatile. It tastes good.

But yes, it is bad for you. Like all sugar.

Shouldn't we just be calling a moratorium on all sugar then? Nope. Just corn syrup. Because it's in EVERYTHING now and it scares us.

But like with pesticides vs organics, there are tradeoffs:

Corn Syrup is cheaper than cane sugar. Which makes food made with corn syrup cheaper than food with cane sugar. So can you blame a business for using it? And since we associate cheap food with bad-for-you food, corn syrup gets a bad rep.

But more importantly, we use corn syrup because it is a good substitute for additives that are worse for you. Corn syrup acts as an agglutinator in both baked and processed foods. It's sticky, so why not. You know what this replaces in these dishes? LARD!!! Yes, it replaces shortenings and fat that used to be added to keep food together.

Nowadays people want to watch their calories and eat low-fat. So its a switch from lard to corn syrup. So you can say this all boils down to... wait for it... consumer demand!

People need to realize that you can not have things at 100%. It just doesn't work in society. Remove the fat, you add sugar. Remove the sugar, you lose texture and more importantly, taste. Instead of complaining and blaming corn syrup, watch what you eat and don't go overboard on junky food.


jbx