the davidsonienne •

Maybe you’ve been sitting on your couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, possible beverage of choice dangling from right hand, waiting for Gossip Girl or Project Runway to return from commercial break, idly sifting through channels, when it happens.  Two mothers emerge onscreen.  Oh cute, this is an ad for juice.  Or grilling.  Or something summery and happy.  You can smell the grass growing.  Dialogue: “Wow…  You don’t care what the kids eat, huh?”  Oh yay, this advertisement is about healthy food!  “Scuse me?”  Ignoramus.  Mother A suggests that high fructose corn syrup is bad.  Mother B scoffs.  Mom A idiotically fails to detail why HFCS is bad for you, suggesting that perhaps she has been brainwashed by irrational informants advocating… well, I don’t know, because I’m trying to come up with a phrase that isn’t “healthy foods.”  Madre B goes on… saying that HFCS is “…made from corn, doesnt have artificial ingredients and, like sugar, is fine in moderation.”  Aaaaaah oh noo!!!  Oh, no.  This ad is scary.  There is a cute little voiceover about how high fructose corn syrup is just lovely and fine and how rude of other people to question something clearly made from corn.  

Right, it is made from corn.  Corn is a vegetable!  That’s like saying (see previous post!), “Hey.  This chocolate cake/milkshake/cupcake/inappropriate desserty product is made out of milk!  It must be GOOD for me!  [Because I am an uninformed eater who does not find fault in the prospect of behaving like a calf.]  Here, I will have it for breakfast!  And every meal!” 

No, I am not an HFCS purist, but I do make it a point to try to eat more healthily every day (Do you know someone who is trying to eat less healthily every day?  Didn’t think so.), and eliminating processed items - like processed sugar, which Corn Peeps don’t think is bad to use as a model - or trying not to buy foods with unpronounceable ingredients is a good way to start.  Ditto not trying to eat meat that has spent most of its life being depressed or enraged, or eggs whose mother chickens had no chance to run around outside and lead happy chicken lives.  I’m certainly not perfect, but I am aware, and every little bit of knowledge helps. 

I think it’s sad that the big corn processing plants have enough money to launch this “corn-syrup-isn’t-bad-for-you” campaign (notice they are not saying it is good for you), while it’s going to take some other kind of movement to popularize local/sustainable/organic/non-processed lifestyles.  Maybe I’m just a little hyper about these ideas because I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, and it’s making me want to win the lottery and spend thousands developing a farm.  I think it takes a special writer to make farmers trendy. 

The Corn Refiners Association has detailed information on their website, which I think is bad enough that I don’t have to say anything.  “Generally Recognized as Safe?”  Oh, goodie.  I’d just like a tiny bit of gasoline in my martini, too.