hfcs update

it's been a rather successful lenten season in terms of the giving up of the hfcs. it wasn't hard to give up the sugary sodas, i rarely have those anyway. but i really miss the flavia cappuccino drinks at my office. i've been good about looking at labels, too, and actually spit a chocolate chip cookie into the trash after finding hfcs in the ingredient list on the package. for those of you that know me, that's pretty much the absolute limit of my willpower. one thing that i've found that has been suprisingly difficult to avoid is ketchup; it's so innocuous sitting there on your burger or waiting for your fries. i'll admit to slipping up a few times with that. i've also been surprised by how ubiquitous hfcs is in items that are supposed to be healthy. for example, it is the first ingredient in power bars and is in hansen's "natural" sodas.

the main reason that i'm really against hfcs is the political aspect, namely the corporate welfare that is involved. corn subsidies and sugar tariffs make corn sweetener really cheap to use. you can't blame companies for using hfcs when its several times cheaper than sugar. however, you can blame the government and the mega-agricultural companies like adm and cargill who conspire to exploit the corn subsidies designed to protect the american family farmer and fatten themselves at the trough of u.s. taxpayer dollars. seriously, someone should bring a r.i.c.o. suit against these people. for your reading pleasure, here's a really good article on the economic realities of hfcs.

in the meantime, only a few more days of lent to go, but i think i'm going to try to keep up with this.