Eat this, not that

I recently watched Jamie Oliver's new TV show on ABC, "Food Revolution" - or I should say that I tried  to watch it. It was horrendous. Oliver, who made his name in the U.K. as the Naked Chef, is trying to help tackle the obesity problem in the U.S., starting with a a re-vamp of the school lunch program at an elementary school in Huntington, West Virginia. After winning the title of the fattest city in the U.S., you'd think Huntington's residents would at least be mildly concerned with their health, their children's health and the fact that the people of Huntington look like they're slowly being consumed by giant marshmallow bodies. I saw only one or two people in the first episode that actually had necks. The rest were - to put it bluntly - overweight and fat.



But the great people of Huntington showed Oliver that he'd have to pry their frozen pizzas, chicken fingers and chocolate milk from their cold, dead and fat hands before they'd covert to a diet of only "lettuce." They were rude, close-minded, and resistant with anything to do with changing their diet. The school lunch workers were more interested in doing their job than actually thinking about the ramifications of what they were doing to the kids.  Apparently diabetes, heart disease and seeing your children balloon into slobs aren't enough to convince people to put down the fries. If the we really wanted to get people to care about obesity, the connection between being overweight and having erectile dysfunction should be at the top of the list. Want to have a good sex life? Lose some weight.

Poor Jamie Oliver. He's up against the worst of the worst. And things are so dire that a man who wrote a book titled "How to lose friends and alienate people," is giving Oliver advice on dealing with Huntington.

Some of Huntington's kids may never taste real chicken as what they're being served in the school cafeteria might list the first ingredient as "chicken" but then has a novel's worth of chemicals on the ingredients list. These kids probably consume more high fructose corn syrup than corn.

I work in a public school in a low-income neighborhood and see what the kids eat: fried chicken patties served along side ranch dressing, chocolate milk, burritos, deep-fried egg rolls and maybe an apple or pear (which as Jamie notes, always end up in the garbage). And the school uses Styrofoam plates. It's depressing.

But some places are doing it right. There's group in Berkeley, California doing the exact same thing as Jamie Oliver. The Berkeley School Lunch Initiative is teaching kids about nutrition, cooking and healthy eating. And the contrast between Berkeley and Huntington is vast. But before the old argument of Berkeley having its leftist hippie-now-wealthy parents take care of their food program, watch the video. Nearly 40% of school kids in Berkeley are living below the poverty level. And they still get feed fresh, healthy and delicious food.



This is proof that change can happen. Food doesn't have to be fake and kids can be healthy. Adults should have necks and not need to request the special fat chair without arms at the Olive Garden. Hopefully Huntington, West Virgina figures that out.

What exactly is High Fructose Corn Syrup?

I was watching tv awhile ago when I saw this commercial with two mildly attractive (if you're into the "mom with the tucked in pants"-type) women talking about high fructose corn syrup. The ad looked to be a well-financed commercial endeavor unlike most political ads, but the bitch factor was high. One mom accused the other of not caring about her kids by letting them drink colored juice-like product that had high fructose corn syrup which was met by a retort of "do you know what high fructose corn syrup even is?"

Oh, snap!

But the sassy momma's comeback stung. In truth, I didn't know what high fructose corn syrup was and had just assumed like anti-matter or New Coke, I didn't to really understand it to know that it wasn't good. And I also wanted to know why the Corn Refiners Association was spending nearly $30 million to convince me that I shouldn't abandon their product  Unfortunately the ad didn't reach an important demographic - executives of huge corporations - as companies like Pepsi and Snapple in the past  year have moved to distance their product from HFCS.


Here's that industry-paid-for commercial on You Tube

What the heck exactly is HFCS?
My journey began on the internet. And it turns out that tons of smart people - some with "doctor" in front of their names! - had already researched and written on HFCS! Specifically one Dr. Will, whose delicious bars I have sampled at many cyclocross events, had a good article breaking down the difference between corn syrup and High Fructose Corn Syrup. High fructose corn sweeter is both a sweetener and a preservative for foods making them cheaper to produce and easier to transport. The process of creating HFCS sounds as simple as creating cold fusion in your bathtub, a complex chemical breakdown that starts with basic corn syrup and ends with product about as "corn" as Heidi Montag's new plastic body. Quoting from a 2006 article in the New York Times, Michael F. Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest,"says that unlike sugar molecules, which reside in the stalks of sugar cane or the beets that are used to make sugar, high-fructose corn syrup is artificial because it is not found anywhere in corn." Dr. Will's blog noted that they use corn syrup in their product as opposed to high fructose corn syrup to provide a "health risk free sweetener."

What the heck does HFCS do?
More specifically, what does HFCS do to me? Michael Pollan called out sweeteners like HFCS back in 2002 for links to diabetes and obesity among other health issues. Since then, research has proven some of Pollan's claims to be true, like this 2008 study linking a diet high in HFCS to obesity in rats. While the Corn Refiners Association has toted the  "all things in moderation" tagline for HFCS, a $30 million ad campaign coupled with somewhere between $40 to $200 billion in government subsidies over the past twenty years seems to suggest otherwise.


After all I've read, HFCS sounds about as appealing as a Heidi Montag album. While it might be good for some huge food corporations, I'd think I'll go through my refrigerator and make some edits.