Sugar vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup

When my friends and I talk about sugar, usually we are talking about all sugars in a general sense. Like 'that glass of chocolate milk has 16 grams of sugar'. The 16 grams are made up of a mix of lactose, sucrose or fructose and glucose (and probably others). All those -ose's together are what we talk about.

When I am talking about SUGAR on this week's posts I need to be more specific. The sugar I mentioned yesterday was all what we'd think of as table sugar, pure crystalline sucrose. Sucrose is a diasaccharide composed of glucose and fructose bonded together with a relatively weak molecular bond. That bond is broken when it's in your tummy being digested.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is different.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is produced by milling corn to produce starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup (think Karo Pecan Pie ingredients). Standard corn syrup is almost entirely glucose and doesn't taste as sweet to the human tongue as sucrose (or table sugar) does. Regular corn syrup was all we had for a while, but it doesn't fit the bill as a sugar replacement because it just doesn't taste right. Anyone who has tasted Karo knows what I am talking about. But in 1957 Richard O. Marshall and Earl P. Kooi added enzymes to that glucose corn syrup. Those enzymes changed most of the glucose into fructose.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is derived by mixing the original standard corn syrup (almost pure glucose) and the altered corn syrup (overwhelmingly fructose). The more fructose you add, the sweeter the mixture tastes on the tongue. HFCS 55 is 55% fructose and has a comparable sweetness to table sugar, only in liquid form. And that is the particular HFCS that is used to make soda.

Why is this significant? The current US Sugar policy began in 1934 to shore up prices for cane sugar. They implemented a price floor so that sugar(cane and beet) grown in the US would fetch a higher price when it was sold domestically. These policies are still in place, and so consequently the price of sugar in the US is about three times as high as the world market.

Conversely, The US Government has been, since the Depression, subsidizing corn growers (among many other growers of commodities). Every year the government sets a price floor for corn that is slightly above the free market price. Let's say that price is $3.00 a bushel. The government promises that every farmer will get no less than $3.00 for every bushel of corn, plus they give every farmer an additional 52 cents(at least that was the 2002 number) on top of that floor price. If the price of corn comes in at $2.95 the government will give that farmer the 52 cent subsidy plus the 5 cent difference between the market price and the floor price of corn, and they will do that for EVERY bushel of corn that farmer sells.

As a result, the only way to make more money as a corn farmer is to grow more corn. More bushels equals more money in your pocket. Only problem is, the more corn there is, the lower the price goes. Nowadays because of these subsidies, we have a whole lot of corn, and a whole lot of farmers who struggle to break even as the price of corn drives lower.

Now I am not going to sit here and bad mouth the Farm Bill. That is not the purpose of my writing. And I am not an economist, nor do I have a formal background in agriculture (or any background other than hailing from a state that still boasts a state agricultural college). But I do know that these policies create an oversupply of commodities like corn. And this over supply gives food processors access to a steady stream of cheap raw materials. The thing that is important about this is that since the thirties the price of sugar has been rising due to the policies surrounding sugar. That makes food made with sugar more expensive. But the price of corn has been falling, or at least holding steady amid inflation and other economic changes. And that makes food made out of corn less expensive. The next step is an easy one.......food processors put HFCS in everything these days because it became cheaper than sugar. And because it is liquid, it is super easy to make it into products like soda and baked good. This has been a win for the processors.

People recently have been fighting back against HFCS and I think they should. As a result, processors are removing it from hundreds of products. They are now advertising having real cane sugar as an ingredient as a health benefit. But because of the switch to sugar, food prices will naturally go up. I wish the dialogue out there at the water cooler, on the playground and on the Internet was more about eliminating HFCS from our diet rather than just replacing it with cane sugar. There has been some talk about HFCS being worse for you than sugar, or being more likely to trigger obesity. And there may be something to it. But I think that if you looked at enough studies and info on the subject you would see that obesity rates have climbed since HFCS has started being included in virtually every food except whole foods. The overall number of calories that are daily consumed by the average American have increased over the last 30 years. I think that better explains our current rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

In my reading I did uncover some interesting finds.

Coca-Cola switched it's operations to use HFCS in 1984. But they still make soda with sugar in other nations where the price remains low. Mexico is one of those countries. Apparently you can find this Mexican Coca-Cola in ethnic groceries. And some people swear they can tell the difference. I was allergic to something in the Coca-Cola formula while I was a child, so I did not have my first Coke until probably 1990. So I am sure that I have never had a Coke made with sugar.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest threatened a lawsuit against Cadbury-Schweppes in 2006 for labeling 7Up as "All Natural". The FDA has no legal definition of the word 'natural'. FDA regulations do define "natural flavoring" to include products of vegetables. The FDA has since stated that the agency does not object to labeling HFCS as "natural". But the CSPI does not believe that HFCS is a "natural" ingredient due to the high level of processing require to make it. (Neither do I) But in early 2007 Cadbury-Schweppes agreed to stop calling 7Up "All Natural" and they now label it "100% Natural Flavors", which does comply to the FDA definition.

And just in case you were waiting for me to say it, whole foods do not have any added sugar of any kind.


Notes:
High-fructose corn syrup. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. wikipedia.org 11 June, 2010.

Agriculture subsidy. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. wikipedia.org 9 June, 2010.

Sugar and Sweetners Policy. USDA Economic Research Servie Briefing Rooms. ers.usda.gov 9 June, 2010.

Virata, Gillian. The Effects of the U.S. Sugar Policy. internationalecon.com 9 June, 2010.

Big Sugar, Day One

This week at The Table of Promise I will relate the findings of my recent Internet digging surrounding sugar. There is a lot more to the story of sugar and sucrose/ fructose as it relates to our diet and health than you might think.

For me it all started as a simple question, "There is a sugar lobby in Washington?" Yes, in fact there is. There are a group of lobbyists in Washington DC whose job it is to promote sugar and it's use, both to the general public and to lawmakers.

Meet the key players to US Sugar Policy:

The Sugar Association: they are who we know as the Sugar Lobby. The Sugar Association was formed by growers and refiners in the US sugar industry. They began in 1934 under the name of The Sugar Research Foundation, dedicated to the scientific study of sugar's role in food and the communication of that role to the public. In 1947, the foundation changed their name it's current name. On their website, they state

"The Sugar Association continues with its mission of educating health professionals, media, government officials and the public about sugar's goodness."

Florida Sugar Growers (among other states): Florida contributes the largest amount of domestic sugar to the US sugar supply each year. Cane grown in Florida account for 24% of all the refined sugar in the US. The single company US Sugar alone contributes 10% of the domestic supply. Sugar Cane and sugar beets grown in cooler northern climes each account for about 50% of the domestic US sugar supply. Many of the cane and beet farms are connected as different branches of the same conglomerate company. But the Florida contribution to the total is more significant that any other.

The World Health Organization (WHO): This international organization conducts research and make statements to the international community on health issues as wide ranging as diet to childbirth. Their current statement on sugar, as made in 2003, is that sugar should not exceed more than 10% of a person's total caloric intake.

The USDA and the USDA Food Pyramid: The USDA and their food pyramid have been taking a lot of heat in recent years for the new and relatively unpublicized discovery that suggesting that we root our diet in grain products actually worked against it's intention to guide the country into better health. Rates of obesity and diabetes have soared in the last 30 years creating the greatest health crisis in modern history. For the first time in US history, our children's generation has a shorter life expectancy than their parents. The USDA has revamped the food pyramid to suggest that we eat more fruits and veggies than anything else, 5cups of veg versus 3 cups of grains. But the way the pyramid is designed breaks up fruits and veggies into their own categories. This makes it look like grains are still the most important, or at the base of the pyramid. This is a great creative way to not have to come out and say "we screwed up, you really should make plant based food the most important part of your diet". I don't have many issues with what is in the pyramid, but at least come clean to the American Public. The public has proven over the last 30-40 to be listening to what the government says about nutrition.

Now that we know the players we can look at their interaction. In 2003, the WHO published it's latest report regarding diet. They stated that sugar should make up no more than 10% of a person's total daily calories.

The Sugar Association fought back hard stating that they had evidence that said that a person's daily intake of sugar could safely be 25% of a person's calories. WHO subsequently reworded their recommendation on sugar stating that no one should eat sugar more than four times a day. But of course they don't say how much you can eat in any of those times, so draw your own conclusions.

The head of the expert team that wrote the Association's scientific evidence saying that sugar could comprise 25% of your calorie intake per day and still be safe, is Harvey Fineberg. Amongst all the highly publicized fighting, Fineberg called the US Health Secretary at the time, Tommy Thompson, to say that his report was being misinterpreted by the Sugar Association. Even he did not want to be associated with the fallout.

The Sugar Association was so outraged by the WHO's report that they contacted our legislature to suggest a law that all future WHO funding should be predicated on an agreement from WHO to base it's reports on science. (Huh? Really?)

The Sugar Association has also successfully fought to eliminate the USDA's ability to mention sugar in it's dietary suggestions. If you click on the link to the new food pyramid I provided you will see that the top part of the pyramid that was up there for years, the "use added fats, oils and sweets sparingly" is now missing. Their recommendations regard only food. This has a couple of effects. It eliminates the sugar dialogue from the consumers mindset, and it levels the playing field among food products. If it is good to eat 6 servings of grains per week, the USDA has made no recommendation that you should limit breads that have added HFCS (Hi Fructose Corn Syrup). And furthermore I bet that a packet of instant flavored oatmeal with 16g of sugar added to the flavoring counts as a serving of whole grain. The fact is that the government is hush hush about even discussing the issue of sugar.

Thousands of products have added sugar. They lurk in the obvious places like cookies and soda. But they also are in less obvious places like breads and yogurts, flavored milk (I kinda think milk tastes pretty good the way God gave it to us), pre-made pizza crusts, rolls and hamburger buns, ketchup, dried fruit, juices marketed as real fruit juice, the list goes on an on. The average consumption of added sugars has reached record highs! In 1996 each American consumed a record average of 152 pounds of caloric sweeteners!! That is about two fifths of a pound PER DAY. By contrast, total meat consumption in 1996 was 192 pounds. That includes all red meat, poultry and fish.

Food for thought.

Tomorrow, Real Cane Sugar vs. HFCS

Notes--

Virata, Gillian. The Effects of the U.S. Sugar Policy. internationalecon.com. 9 June, 2010.

Bosley, Sarah. Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO. The Guardian. guardian.co.uk.com 21 April, 2003.

Big Sugar. The Washington Post. washingtonpost.com 16 April, 2005.

US Agriculture--Linking Consumers and Producers. United States Department of Agriculture. usda.gov 9 June 2010.

An Overview of Florida Sugarcane. University of Florida IFAS Extension. eds.ifas.ufl.edu 11 June 2010.

Cherry Rhubarb Pie

I mentioned earlier this week that I got some rhubarb from the CSA. I have never eaten rhubarb. So I didn't know what to do with it. I looked for a couple of recipes online but they looked kind of basic. I suppose we were supposed to make a strawberry rhubarb pie or some such thing, but I wanted to eat the strawberries that we got on their own. I had some extra cherries laying around, so I came up with Cherry-Rhubarb Pie.

There were several things working against this pie from the start. First, when I cut everything up there wasn't really enough to fill a standard pie pan. Also when I cut the fruit it was around noon and I put some sugar on it, intending to make the pie right away. But Thing 1 was being a handful and Thing 2 needed to nurse and nap, so everything just sat there leaching out juice. I didn't get to make the pie until 4:30 in the afternoon. Whoops.

When finally I was able to make the pie crust, it was so crumbly that I could hardly spread it out. I am not sure if my flour-butter ratio was off, or if I used too much water, or if the butter was just too soft. BTW-I never use shortening, butter tastes better and you know the whole story about trans fat. Anyhow, I did finally get it into the pan and did some minor surgery to get all together. I was right, there wasn't enough fruit to make a nice fat pie, but at least it covered the bottom. There also wasn't enough crust for a top, or even a light lattice. So I took the leftover dough and rolled it out and dotted it on the top. That's why the picture looks so funny.

We had the pie after dinner and it was good. I had several friends reach out to me to say that they loved rhubarb and that I should do this that or the other with my stalks. I am not sure that I understand the devotion to rhubarb. When it was fresh cut, I felt like it smelled a little like dirty laundry. After we ate the pie, I told DH that it tasted like feet. But I don't want to be mean. It was pretty good. And it was definitely different. The rhubarb lent an almost sour vegetable-y taste to the pie. But with all the sugar it was a nice balance. And the sweet cherries were a good idea.

The pie was good. I don't want to offend any die hard rhubarb lovers. I will definitely make this pie again. Because we might get more rhubarb next week from the CSA,but we definitely will get more next YEAR. I am not sure though if I would pull over on the side of a country road and inquire which farm to buy the stuff from.

If any of you have some better recipes for me, please email me or post them. I am open to trying new variations. And I was kind of looking forward to being part of the rhubarb-in-crowd. So I am still searching.

Thank You!!

A dear friend and colleague sent me a lovely and thoughtful birthday present this week. I am trying not to mention full names here since this is a public forum (so you know who you are!) It was a cookbook called Clean Food by Terry Walters. What an amazing book! It has more than 200 recipes and all of them center around seasonal produce. I am pretty sure it is vegetarian, but I haven't been able to delve too far into it just yet.

Walters has a lovely vision of how food should be. And the recipes really are great and simple. Tomato and Chick Pea salad with Cilantro Dressing? Asparagus with Mustard Vinaigrette and Toasted Pecans?? Maple Poached Pears??? She has a great understanding of unprocessed ingredients and speaks at length about organics and their importance.

************************

On another note, On Sunday I will be featured as a guest blogger on the parenting website www.mamapedia.com I have loved Mamapedia for a while. They have an open forum for parenting questions. I have gotten some great advice when I have reached out with questions. Now I am so excited to be able to contribute to their section for bloggers. Please come and check it out at www.mamapedia.com/voices My piece will air Sunday June 13th. Hooray!!

Incidental Strawberry Facts

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love interesting facts and details. I find the smallest things fascinating, and you never quite know what I will find interesting. My biggest problem is that I keep telling everyone all the things I think are interesting. Maybe that is why I am doing this blog at all. I feel like you might just think this stuff is interesting too!


From the CSA this week we got a delicious quart of strawberries. Thing 1 and 2 ate many of them during the day. So when I came home at night there were only about a third of the quart left. I felt that it was the good and responsible thing to share the last of the berries with the kids, but did I do that? Nope. I hadn't eaten a single one since we got them. So I selfishly saved them all for myself.


I thought some fun strawberry facts were in order and I found a great website http://www.vegparadise.com/ that had a twelve page post about strawberries that I thought was just so cool. I have pulled out some of the best of those twelve pages here. In some cases, particularly the etymology and folklore sections, I have taken passages directly from the website, lest anyone think I am trying to take credit for their lovely work.

***************

In prehistoric times, wild strawberries were so small that they were not a great source of food for man. Though some small strawberry seeds have been found in archaeological sites in Denmark, Switzerland and England.


Although strawberries were enjoyed in the Ancient world and are mentioned by some Roman writer, it is unlikely that they were cultivated. Most reference to the ground strawberry, or Fraga, in ancient texts regard the gathering of this berry.


In the 1500's in England, English ladies began planting strawberry patches in their home gardens because they loved strawberries and cream so much.


It was the gardener of King Louis XIV, Jean de la Quintinie at the Palace of Versailles who first kept a detailed account of how to develop larger berries in cultivated strawberries. This was good, because the King declared Strawberries his favorite fruit!


Strawberry plants grow in all 50 states and are very adaptable in nature. There are also indigenous varieties South America and Europe. And all cultivated strawberries throughout the world can trace their history back through the joining of a Virginian and a Chilean variety some time in the early 1700s (the website isn't specific)


The name strawberry came about easily because straw was used freely to mulch the plants during the winter, a practice that discourages weeds and lifts the berries up from the soil. When it came time to harvest the berries, children would pick them and string them on a blade of straw. At the London market the children would sell "Straws of Berries."

Originally strawberries were called strewberries, a name descriptive of how they grew. The berries appeared to be strewn among the leaves, and the runners themselves appeared to be strewn among the plants.

Each of the romance languages, French, Italian and Spanish, refer to the strawberry as Fraise which means fragrant.


The Naragansett Indians called it "wuttahimneash" which translated as heart-seed berry.


Legends often tell about love rituals. Be careful with whom you share a double strawberry. It is destined that the two of you may fall in love.

Because of their bright red colors and heart shapes, strawberries were the symbol for Venus, the Goddess of Love.

Henry VIII's second wife, Ann Boleyn, was thought to have been a witch because she had a strawberry shaped birthmark on her neck.



One cup of fresh strawberries contains only 43 calories. It also comes with a healthy content of every vitamin and mineral except Vitamin B12.

Just 5 medium-sized strawberries will supply your minimum RDA of Vitamin A and includes the following nutritional benefits:
1 g. protein (who knew??)
.5 g fat
10 g. carbohydrates
3 g. fiber
.6 mg iron
1 mg sodium
20.2 mg calcium
30 mg phosphate
39 IU Vitamin A
.03 mg thiamine
.10 mg riboflavin
81.6 mg Vitamin C
239 mg potassium
.02 mg zinc
14.4 mg magnesium
.09 mg Vitamin B6
25.5 mcg folacin

Strawberries do not ripen after they are pick--but they do go bad, so eat them within 3-4 days (sometimes less!)

Wash and cut up only what you will eat that day. Strawberries you want to store should have their stems intact. Wash your berries before cutting the tops off because this will avoid excess water entering the berry.

***************

So I had strawberries and cream for desert. And you know I don't think I have ever had that. When I was a kid my father would make that for me, but I think we always used to put sugar on the berries. I highly recommend that you try just strawberries and cream with no sugar. The sweet and tart flavor of the berries is balanced by the almost salty flavor of the unsweetened cream. It is an altogether different experience. Strawberries and ice cream is great, but try it without all that sugar and you are in for a super simple treat.

The Paper Towel Issue

Paper towels are a hot button issue for my family. We seem to go through them at lightening speed. Which just seems like a waste to me! If you spill a glass of milk, you can easily use a sponge right? Well in my house it seems like the bigger the amount of liquid spilled, the more we will just reach for a roll of paper towels.

I keep a dozen or so cotton dish towels around for spills like that too. But now that I have thought about it a little, I might finally understand the thought process behind wasting half a roll of paper towels. For a spill of something like a glass of milk, it's a yucky sticky mess. If you soak up all the milk with a paper towel, you can just throw it all away. Whereas if you use a dish towel, a few days later you have to confront it again as a damp sour smelling lump in your hamper. It is just me, but I feel that that is worth it to use the towel and suck it up when laundry day comes. DH prefers the easy paper towel though, so we keep buying them. I am starting to get my way sometimes when what is spilled is a glass of water or something non-offensive like that.

I think I might have finally found the thing to get us off the paper towels (or at least a drastic reduction). Seventh Generation. Sorry, this is not news breaking stuff. Virtually everyone I know uses this brand, but today I learned that their paper towels use 100% recycled paper, no chlorine, and at my grocery store they were $5 for three rolls (??!!). I went to grab one yesterday and I thought twice about using them. In fact, I finished the job with the sponge. Whatever the motivation is, consuming fewer paper products are a good thing. FYI-I started using http://www.diapers.com/ to order Seventh Generation products like dish washing detergent and counter top dish soap. So far I am super happy. In case you guys don't know--diapers.com will ship for free on order greater than $50 and they literally have EVERYTHING that you need to raise children. Seriously.

The thing that moved me the most was the quote on the front of the package: "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generation." This is from the Great Law of the Iroquois. And it is a humbling thought because so much of what we do in business, agriculture and foreign policy is not good for future generations. Maybe there is hope for us yet.

CSA Opening Day

CSA Opening Day is one of the best days of the entire year! It signals the beginning of summer, fresh organic veggies and seeing old faces. I love seeing the streams of families walking out of our park with bags of greens and quarts of strawberries.

Today I noticed though that a lot of faces were new. I have had several friends opt out of the CSA this year. And I doubt that I am the only one who has had a few friends. There has been a steady influx of new faces into our neighborhoods in the last couple of years. So it seems understandable that a turnover would happen in the CSA too. Or perhaps it could be the timing. Last summer I was pregnant and then delivered Thing 2 in the summer. So the Tuesday CSA pickup was a weekly highlight. I would go early with the kids and I got to know some of the core members who handle the site organization. I was able to volunteer an extra time, so I grew to recognize many people. But now I am working of course so I see the evening crew. The early crew are the folks who work flexible schedules or stay home. The evening crew are the working folks who probably have to leave work early to make it home in time to pick up their veggies. Like me.

Today, as you can see from the photo, we got Bok Choy, Mizuna, Vita Greens (think of a sturdy chard with greens stems), Kale, Arugula, Red Leaf Lettuce, Scallions, Radishes, and a pot of thyme and oregano. This is the first year I have been doing the fruit share as well and we got a big quart of delicious strawberries and some rhubarb. Now I know you can make strawberry-rhubarb jam or pie, but I want to eat the strawberries raw. If anyone has any rhubarb recipes without the strawberries, let me know. I am a little at a loss.

The herbs will come in handy this week when I make pizza. Thing 1 still has not had my homemade pizza crust (there are never any leftovers). The Arugula and Mizuna and Lettuce will go to make a big salad with the radishes. I bought several avocados this weekend that will work well there too, yum. But I am the most excited about the Vita Greens and the Bok Choy because I have been looking forward to making stir fried noodles.

This couldn't be easier. Take an onion and saute in hot oil. Add any meat that you like. I like pre-cooked meats like chicken or pork (great for leftovers--but more often than not I make this vegetarian) or if you add shrimp, add it raw now. Then I will add the greens and a quick sauce of soy sauce, sesame oil, white wine vinegar (I suppose I should be using mirin, but I don't usually keep it in the house), honey and hot chili sauce. When all the stuff has cooked down I add in cooked Chinese noodles, but regular spaghetti works well too. I last year got really into adding rice. And though I think the Chinese tradition is to use leftover rice, I tried it and I still like adding fresh cooked rice. White or brown, it doesn't matter.

This is a simple unmeasured recipe, but it is one that I look forward to during this time of year when the basic greens are so good and in season. I love the sauce because it is based upon the hot-sour-salty-sweet idea that Asian cooking is balanced and so delicious because it has some ingredients from all of those flavor points. When I make this, I will try to get Thing 1 to eat it. I'll let you know how it goes.