I’ve pretty much given up on drinking anything with corn syrup in it. That means that if I drink Coca-Cola, I get it at a Mexican grocery because Mexican Coke is made with cane sugar. I drink Mexican sodas of varying brands that are carried in the supermarket. But I just discovered Blue Sky Jamaican Ginger Ale, and it is by far the best carbonated drink I’ve ever tasted. I think the only corn syrup I’m still consuming is in WaWa salad dressing and Sweet Baby Ray’s B-B-Q sauce. Although, I have to check everything because they try to put corn syrup in the craziest places. Say no to corn syrup. It’ll kill you.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Yep. I stopped consuming corn syrup years ago, with a couple minor exceptions. For example, I don’t eat a lot of catsup, so when I do, I don’t go out of my way to get a corn syrup free version.
good point. I do eat ketchup…never that catsup crap though. Say no to Hunt’s.
Hah. That should show you how little of the stuff I eat, I didn’t realize they were anything other than mere synonyms.
I was wrong.
Make sure it isn’t in your bread either. I started making my own bread about a year ago and haven’t gone back.
That was hilarious…The Controversy sounds like something Terry Pratchett wrote
check to be sure it’s bottled in country of origin and not here under licensee.
You’re right. Corn syrup is in everything. I went looking for vanilla extract – not the artificial variety – took a read to discover corn syrup in the vanilla extract, meaning it IS artificial. Now, why is corn syrup in vanilla extract. My recipe does not need it. My body does not need it.
PS: I bought vanilla beans and bourbon. Made my own.
Have you read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s dilemma? Great writing that traces the journey of corn into all our food, and finally explains some of the economics/politics of the whole system. If you want to go beyond personal avoidance and understand how all this happens, this is a must-read book.
There’s also a movie called King Corn that I haven’t seen yet that seems to cover much of the same ground.
Vanilla?
Those bastards are pernicious.
Damn. That’s crazy.
These are the deep thoughts I should be thinking: how to stay the hell away from corn syrup. That shit is evil.
For us, we don’t buy sodas. Our family and friends know that soda only comes to our home to die from being unused. I’ve also stopped buying and using salad dressings, including balsamic dressing. I make my own: really, all you need is red wine and balsamic vinegars, dijon mustard, herbs and olive oil–and a battery-operated emulsifier, et voila. Your veggies will thank you.
Out and about: It’s oil and vinegar all the way, except for some homemade blue cheese dressing from a local seafood restaurant.
For french fries, make like the Dutch and dip in mayo. I know, it sounds disgusting because of tradition, but it really is tasty. I just don’t dump it on the fries, but order on the side. Peanut sauce is yummy on fries, too!
Of course, you’ll likely have to make your own.
The other thing we have to watch for is sodium. That is every damned where, too. My doctor told me to quit buying canned goods altogether.
We should stop buying anything that is described as “low fat” because you’re gonna pay for the “great taste” somewhere: either in sugar and/or corn syrup, or sodium.
I totally do the mayo and fries thing. Despite the crazy looks I get from servers.
Mayo and fries, but dump some curry into the mayo and mix it well. I discovered that at a pomme frites stand in Berlin in 1971.
In fact, curry in the potato salad. Curry in everything. Everything but corn syrup.
chipotle in mayo. YUM! for fries & burgers & other stuffs.
Ewwww…
Is mayo and fries weird? Because then there are a lot of weird people in Wisconsin.
You know, until I moved to Texas I would have thought that the idea of french fries with gravy pretty disgusting. Well, I guess it is, but Sonic made these chicken baskets with French fries and cream gravy. Dipping the french fries in the gravy? Yum, yum. Dairy Queen has them up here but most of the local DQs closed down and we have to go way out of our way to get to one nowadays.
Geez, no wonder I need to lose weight.
yes, that did it for me.
“Pure Vanilla Extract” name brand or private label does not exist on the main street supermarket shelves. Not any more.
Here’s another deep thought. If I were ever to write a tell-all book about the behind the scenes crap that goes on in the blogosphere, it would not be very nice to almost anyone. Thank god for Duncan. He never pisses me off.
If I were ever to write a tell-all book about a quarter of the behind the scenes crap that I’m emailed about thatgoes on in the blogosphere, it would not be very nice to
almostanyone. Thank god for Duncan and Booman. They never piss me off.Now you’re talkin’.
I’d buy that book. In fact, I’d buy any book you decided to write if you’d only get off your ass and write one 😉
I’ve been telling him that for years!
You and I need to kidnap him and take to a remote location that he doesn’t like (Michigan) and keep him there until he produces the book.
I do a good Kathy Bates imitation …
I can see that, maryb. I’m your biggest fan you know…
You. You dirty bird. How COULD you?
I knew that admission would surprise no one. Especially you … 🙂
I would definitely buy that book. Y’all are cahrazy. 🙂
bye the bye;
St. John McSame, could be in some more deep doo. Hope the GOP’s big pockets are standing by.
WSJ: Judicial Watch, following the DNC, has filed an FEC complaint not just against McSame but also Hillary Clinton on fundraising violations
one problem. FEC is quorum-less and cannot issue decisions.
Can’t wait until the conspiracy types hear wind of THAT! Them and the Rockafellers stir up conspiracy theories a plenty!
Why? Besides the obvious sugar content, that is.
Sugar (the word stems from the Sanskrit sharkara) consists of a class of edible crystalline substances including sucrose, lactose, and fructose.
Corn syrup is a syrup, made using corn starch as a feedstock, and composed mainly of glucose.
link.
I thought it was something new and interesting that I hadn’t known. I wasn’t raised eating corn syrup (except for peanut brittle) and I don’t buy anything with it in it, save the odd soda here and there.
it seems to be implicated in the exploding (heh) obesity rates since 1970….the body reacts differently to it than it does to cane sugar, somehow circumvents the signal that tells the brain to stop eating…? or something like that…
Personally, it’s not so much because of the personal health side of the story as it is the environmental ramifications of having a population whose diet is so heavily dependent on corn.
This post on the sugar shock blog is a decent summary:
In general I try to eat simple foods. So why eat a sugar substitute when I could just eat…sugar?
You make your own bread? I’m still stuck on that. Next time around I’m choosing a guy who bakes his own bread.
Yep! It’s actually really easy, especially if you have a bread machine or mixer to do the kneading for you. So far I’ve gotten pretty good at making french bread, baguette, wheat bread, pizza crust, and pita. I’m getting more proficient with bagels and pretzels, but results are still inconsistent.
Really? What kind of bread machine do you suggest? How much time does it take? Mr. AP loves french bread and baguettes, so I’d like to make it for him. At the end of the day, it will end up being cheaper and better tasting.
Do dish…so to speak. 🙂
If you have flexible time but not so much energy, here’s a method that needs kneading and no machine, uses no oil or sugar, and makes the best bread I’ve ever tried. I modified it to be like 90% whole wheat, but the method seems to forgive almost any variation. The catch: you let it rise for 18 hours or so (and I do a second 2-hour rise for whole wheat), and you need to find a good heavy metal/glass/ceramic pot/dish with a lid to bake it in at high temp.
If the timing fits the rhythm of your life, this is the one that makes you wonder what you were thinking all these years.
Should have read “needs no kneading”. Kinda blew the whole point there.
Well, this is the type of bread machine I have, but I have barely scratched the surface of using all its features…I mostly just use the dough setting, which kneads the ingredients into dough and then keeps it at the appropriate temperature to make it rise.
The recipe I use for french bread and french baguettes is almost identical, it’s just the end that gets changed. I use:
1 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3.5 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil
The water should be warm, 80-100 degrees F. Mix the yeast in with it, let stand for 5 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients, select dough cycle, and let it do its thing.
Then roll it out into a large rectangle on a lightly floured surface (or a pastry mat…I have one, and it is very helpful!). If you want baguette, cut the rectangle in half, as there will be enough dough for 2 baguettes. Roll your rectangle(s) up into their appropriate shape, then cover and let rise again in a warm place for 30-40 minutes.
For baguette, I’ll usually mix a little bit of water (maybe 1/4 cup) with an egg white, mix together, and brush it on. For french bread, I mix about the same amount of water with a teaspoon or so of salt and brush that on, and then sprinkle oregano and on top of the dough. Bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees on a greased cookie sheet, and voila : bread!
(well, except when you make it it won’t come out half eaten like this loaf is 😉
Wow, thanks for that.
Ooh, pita…
Years ago we got a bread machine that would work overnight. Nothing better than waking up to that yeasty smell of fresh-baked bread.
She got the bread machine after the divorce. When I first moved to San Francisco I lived on Clement Street in the Inner Richmond and had two French bread bakeries within a few blocks of my apartment. I’d go jogging past them in the morning before I went to work.
I make my own breads, brioche, pies, pastries, coffee cakes and cakes and not from boxed pre-mixes…starting from basics…organic unbleached, flour without bromides. evaporated cane juice, etc.
We have a bread machine that I need to use more. There’s nothing much yummier than homemade bread, unless maybe it’s homemade bread fresh and hot with homemade cherry jelly on it. If we had the wherewithal to churn our own butter I’d throw that in too.
If the price of flour keeps going up I may have to start baking bread again. It couldn’t be easier with a bread machine. You measure/weigh out the ingredients, put them in the machine in the specified order (liquids first, then solids, then the yeast on the top), set the timer to start baking at 3 AM and you get up to the smell of fresh home-baked bread.
The only big trick I can think of is to go to a Costco or similar warehouse store to get your yeast. The stuff you buy in packets over at the supermarket for 60-75 cents a packet or $7 for a 4-oz jar is $3 a pound at our local Cash & Carry and a pound will last you a long, long time.
Geez, now I have to go fix myself some bread tomorrow.
I’ve started to sweeten my coffee with Sugar in the Raw. Everyone’s convinced me that Equal will kill me, and I don’t need my sugar bleached and granulated.
Agave nectar doesn’t impact blood sugar levels as much as cane sugar. Maple syrup, grade B (darkest) has some useful minerals (read up on the Master Cleanse diet for more info). Honey has medicinal properites. Stevia has no calories, but can have some aftertaste issues (I don’t like licorice, so that kinda skews me away from stevia).
Agave in coffee tastes no different than cane sugar. Not sure how the others listed above are for baking, but if any appeal, they’re potentially worth exploring.
Really? Where should I purchase? Is there a particular brand or no?
Wow…down in the dumps about Wright, tornadoes in my hometown (my family is OK, but really, seeing that as “Breaking News” during Countdown is not my idea of fun), but at least I can get some useful nutritional info! Yay!
That’s not snark. I mean that.
in central Texas, so I go to “hippy” stores like Whole Foods & Sun Harvest for agave nectar.
Here’s one brand, the lighter the color, the less it should have any distinctive “flavor” (and thus merely be sweetener)
http://www.madhavahoney.com/agave.htm
We used to go there quite a bit when I lived in Austin. There was a big ol’ Sun Harvest in what I remember as a down-on-its-luck mall somewhere along Ben White. We bought a lot of bulk stuff back in the day. (Still do when we get the chance.)
Maple Syrup also has the added benefit of being delicious!
Yeah – I find agave to be disgusting!
Anybody have any experience with Stevia? Is it really any good?
That’s exactly how I feel, I’d just rather have the sugar.
Speaking as someone with food allergies, it’s always worth paying attention to what goes into your food. Not only will it let you avoid obvious crap like corn syrup, but food with better ingredients typically tastes better. We’ve got something like six local bakeries here in Halifax, and everything they make tastes better than the crap churned out by the big chain bakeries. Specialist grocery stores are also great, but it’s worth remembering that import food isn’t always better. Food safety regulations differ a lot from place to place. Imports from Europe are generally good, but India, China, etc. are kind of iffy.
how many more pages just got added to your CIA files due to the presence of a post mentioning “Mexican Coke”
oh shit – my file just expanded too…
Check out how the stuff’s made if you don’t already know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Fructose_Corn_Syrup
Fructose may be the enemy here, glucose being less harmful.
I have learned to recognize the unpleasant, sticky aftertaste that high-fructose corn syrup seems to give to things: More than once I have said to myself, that was good at first but now it is sticky and yucky–let me read the label! But I don’t know why HFCS has this property.
Before I was diagnosed with diabetes I used to enjoy Karo dark corn syrup on my pancakes. I think it’s my father’s fault. He was born in 1918 and was a teenager during the Depression, and my guess is that’s what they had available to put on their pancakes. And it tastes really good warm with melted butter.
Nowadays though when everything has HFCS in it, I’m not sure it’d be such a good idea. I try to avoid it when I can, but it’s insidious. Now if I had a car, I could probably avoid it altogether, beause there’s a grocery co-op here in Seattle that has banned HFCS from the shelves. Unfortunately there isn’t a PCC near where we live, which is a bummer, because before we moved out of Seattle proper there was one within about a mile of the house, and we never took sufficient advantage of the opportunity.
Check your store to see if they carry Goya brand sodas, the Manzana flavor is about the best I’ve ever had.
The Cuban restaurant around the corner has them (not sodas, but nectars); my favorite is Guanabana.
At least here in Mass., Goya sodas are made using HFCS.
I avoid most if not all corn syrup and have done so for another of years now. Most things have good substitues at organic food stores. Fortunately we have one right near us.
Weren’t you wiggin’ about oranges recently? Ah, well, I made the cut because I don’t eat citrus. I am saved this time, too, as I haven’t consumed any products containing corn in a long-ass time. Corn syrup is the devil! (HRC caliber?hehe) Maybe my diet is freaky, but it gets me in good with the Booman. That’s all I need…<grin>
Both HFCS (corn syrup can also be called “glucose” in Europe) and partially hydrogenated oils are the top two Gross & Ubiquitous things to watch out for. I don’t avoid them entirely, just mostly – I need to get high and eat Twix bars once every month or two.
Does anyone know what the requirements are for food labeling when it comes to HFCS? I always wonder when I look at an ingredient list and it says “sugar” if it’s really sugar or if it’s HFCS. I’m thinking of popular brands of bread, crackers, salad dressing, etc. that I swear used to say HFCS or CS on their labels but now say sugar…
Speaking of bread, I just mixed that no-knead recipe up and it’s sitting in my microwave 🙂 Now I just have to figure out what to bake it in before tomorrow evening. Anyone know if the glass lid to my crock pot can withstand 475 degree heat?
In the US, sugar is either beet sugar or cane sugar. In Europe, corn syrup is often listed as “glucose”.
watch out for that Yuengling lager you like Boo, bedcause they lighten the color with…
I thought it was just High Fructose Corn Syrup that was so harmful.
Avoiding processed foods of any kind is probably the most healthful.