Better Libations | Healthy Drink Reviews

Hello libationers! If you are a regular reader, you may have noticed a lack of posts, particularly from me.  Well, my unapproved soda sabbatical has ended, and with my return comes a string of new posts and some information I have recently gleaned from the Internets regarding sugar and HFCS.  Enjoy!

A Syrup by Any Other Name…

It appears that the Corn Refiners Association have been getting tired of the bad rap that HFCS has been getting the past few years, including a mounting belief in its possible contribution to the epidemic of obesity in America.  So, like any good capitalist group, they have decided to avoid the root of the problem and just change the name of their stigmatized product.  What’s the new name?  Corn sugar!  That’s right.  Their reasoning for this name change is that it “more accurately reflects the source of the food (corn), identifies the basic nature of the food (a sugar), and discloses the food’s function (a sweetener).”  They even were so kind to have a website put up full of useful cherry-picked information that supports their belief that you should continue to keep ingesting their highly processed, and now fresh-sounding product.  Way to keep trying to pull the husk over our eyes, CRA.

No Love Lost on HFCS

After PepsiCo’s success with the Throwback line, SoBe ditching HFCS in its main line of drinks and other, smaller companies following suit, others were bound to follow.  The next mainstream beverage to lose its HFCS and have it replaced with sugar is Sierra Mist, which has come out with Sierra Mist Natural, a ‘real sugar’ version of the waning soda.   This is an effort for them to ‘differentiate’ themselves from other, better-selling  citrus drinks like Sprite and 7-up.  And its ingredient count is down to 5, quite impressive for a soda meant to sit on a shelf for months.  There are also rumors of 7-up reformulating their pop, although I haven’t heard what the end result is going to contain as a sweetener.  Dr. Pepper has replaced the HFCS with sugar for its 125th anniversary, although I have yet to try this version.

So, even soda producers have gotten on board with consumers’ growing distaste for this syrupy sin.  And, with the recent spike in corn prices (due to an increase in ethanol plants) and the decrease in demand (thanks Russia) the re-branding done by the CRA comes off as a desperate ploy to keep people, and businesses, interested in corn products.  I hope the future of this over-produced and overused crop is a dismal one, no offense to those who owe their farming livelihood to it.

HFCS, Rants

Recently, the Colbert Report has produced some priceless clips about Big Soda and the issues surrounding it.  Here is their take on a recent soda consumption study, which states that drinking lots of soda can cause decreased muscle strength and even paralysis in extreme cases.  (This clip also has some fun commentary about Oprah and Cheerios).

And in the next one, Steven rages against the proposed 1/4 cent per ounce tax on soda, refusing to relinquish his “unquenchable right to life, liberty, and high-fructose corn syrup”.  I absolutely love the quote from the Beverage Association lobbyist that states: “soft drinks don’t play any role in the obesity epidemic.”  WOW.  The collective “ppppppfffffff!” of disbelief could be heard around the country.

Is it just a coincidence that whenever Steven talks about soda, he has to launch into one of his “extreme” air-guitar solos?  I don’t know, but it just makes me love it even more.

-Danithius-

HFCS, Rants

Here’s the latest propaganda from the Corn Refiners lobby.

– WiseGuise

HFCS

As those of you who read this humble blog with any interest or regularity hopefully know, we are working toward a world without a need for the ubiquitous and unhealthy sweetener known as HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup. This unholy substance is used in almost every production food imaginable, including beverages, flavored alcohols, corn and potato chips, soups, candy, packaged vegetables, cereals and even bread. Bread! Why does bread need sugar? Much less hydrogenated oils and enriched (processed) white flour, but that’s a topic for another rant.

As it turns out, we are not the only ones fighting this massively one-sided battle. As you may have noticed, some companies (even those owned by Big Soda) are beginning to sense a change in the tide and have begun to return to more natural sweet stuff; these include, but are not entirely limited to:

• SoBe: all redesigned bottles I have found now contain sugar, and proudly proclaim it
• Jones Soda: has switched many of their sodas to cane sugar
• Steaz: I have no idea who they are, but use only organic cane sugar
• Goose Island: same as above
• Dr. Pepper: it’s called Dublin Dr. Pepper
• Coke: known as the “Mexican” Coke, it is produced south of the border, with regular sugar, and has a better taste in many persons’ opinions, including my own

In recent reading, I found this surprising and amusing poll. An unbelievable NINETY PERCENT of people are at least trying to avoid HFCS, as I found while reading this article on the poll itself. Also in a related article (by related I mean linked) Coke is coming out with Passover Coke, since corn is not OK on passover, despite Coke being kosher.

It seems a lot of people also prefer the taste of sugar over HFCS, as in the MexiCoke. So you may ask, why the HFCS if people prefer the taste of sugar? There are a lot of reasons, but the main ones are simple economics. First, there are sugar tariffs in the U.S., making it more expensive to import (hint: it doesn’t grow well here). Second, there are subsidies for the corn industry in the U.S., making it cheaper to run that corn through the lengthy process of converting it to HFCS; and therefore, cheaper than just buying sugar. Another reason is that it mixes easier with liquids, being a liquid. Less work for the soda companies.

I have read some rumorings of bringing back a stevia-derived sweetener into use again, since it was banned in the U.S. in 1991. Methinks this was a move by other sweetener lobbies to get it out of the picture since it was competition (300 times the sweetness of sucrose!). It has been used in South America for centuries, and if it was killing people, we’d probably know by now.

In conclusion, if you are making an effort to get HFCS out of your life, keep it up, it appears to be working, and maybe one day it will be as rare to see it in a product as it was to see sugar just a few years ago. Choosing healthier drinks is just the beginning.

Thanks to my sources, Wikipedia, the Consumerist and Google.

– WiseGuise

HFCS, Rants Rants