When I first saw the following commercials, I sort of chuckled - they're corney (sorry...) and the acting is um...great. But then as I thought about it, they kind of scare me.
You know what they say about HFCS? that it's in a whole lot of processed food (in Canada it appears on labels as "fructose-glucose", so keep that in mind); that it is supper processed itself (how else would they get sugars out of corn). Some people also claim it's more of a health risk than sugar, but I have to admit the corn refiners association is right - it is the same amount of calories.
What bothers me about this campaign is that people are going to forget that consuming large amounts of sugar isn't good for you, especially processed sugars (did you know table sugar comes from sugar beats and isn't naturally white?). Western society (myself included) is addicted to sweets, and sugars have virtually no nutritional value.
There are alternatives - honey and cane sugar can be used to sweeten things and aren't over processed - a much more natural route. You can also use fruit juices, or get used to things not being so sugary. Our palates have been trained to expect more sugar than there should be in things. For example, apples are a very sweet fruit. In fact, there is the same amount of sugar in an apple (13 grams) as in the average cookie. Naturally occurring sugars may not be better for you, but they are in foods that have more nutritional value than the average prepared food that is full of processed sugars.
So no, HFCS won't kill you, but it's definitely not the best choice out there. Advertising like this only contributes to the bad state of health in North America - this is another example of the media misleading public opinion for cooperate monetary gain.
2 comments:
It's funny when I was in Venezuela all i had was unprocessed sugar and stuff cooked in fruit juice. Everything tasted a thousand times better. Unprocessed i would say is even sweeter almost like brown sugar, but healthier. Yay us for ruining good food. Plus amazing recipe fry a banana in unprocessed sugar and mango juice, no butter. Very tasty and healthy desert.
A lot of people are mindlessly "going green", following the fads when they have no idea what's going on. (Steph, you are absolutely NOT one of them).
I see it all the time down here in DC- it's now stylish so people are following the current with no thought. Some things have been demonized even though they arn't really that bad.
I think the commercial it trying to combat that, hopefully it will inspire people to do some reserch and find out for themselves! What a novel concept......
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