26 Magazine » Food & Wine

High fructose corn syrup: not as evil as we thought?

Brittany — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:00:28 +0000

I’m sure you’ve seen it. The commercial with a bunch of little kids on stage performing a third or fourth-grade play for an audience full of parents, dressed as green, red and orange vegetables and fruits. Everything is sweet and cute until suddenly, out of the corner of your eye (or screen) you notice the oozing, gross blob of a costume, known only as the recently infamous high fructose corn syrup.

If you’ve shopped for a loaf of bread recently, you probably noticed how much bread companies, at least, are pushing the whole anti-high fructose corn syrup movement, as many bread wrappers feature prominently bold text reading, “No high fructose corn syrup!” I guess that’s to make their consumers absolutely sure, without a doubt, that they’re using real sugar and not that bad, evil sugar pretender also known as HFCS.

Well, here’s a kicker. According to PR Newswire, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), led by Executive Director Rick Berman, just launched a million-dollar ad campaign in an attempt to show the world exactly how wrong it has been in falsely accusing our now infamously famous cheaper sweetener.

This nonprofit group blames the Sugar Association, saying that leading nutrition experts say the two are nutritionally equal.

Is this true? What about all the hubbub that’s been circulating? The segments on Oprah featuring real, live doctors, experts in the medical and nutritional fields, swearing up and down that high fructose corn syrup, a cheap, knock-off sugar substitute, is one of the worst ingredients any food product could contain? The countless commercials on TV and the radio about the evils of this thing that’s in just about everything? Or all the movements and changes that have been made in the food industry to accommodate all of these claims?

With all of this seeming evidence to back up the nightmarish story of the evil monster known as high fructose corn syrup, how could this new development be true? Would the food industry lie to us? Would the media lie to us? Would Oprah lie to us?

Well, as far as the article publishing most of this “breaking” news information goes, the only portion that makes any assertion to the contrary of what the world has been seemingly convinced of over the past year comes directly from the mouth of Mr. Berman, “The public will soon understand that they have been misled into thinking that high fructose corn syrup is handled differently by the body than other sugars. What people need to understand is that corn, beet and cane sugar are all processed. And they all contain the same amount of fructose. One is no more natural than another.”

Having looked at all the recent developments and such, this whole thing leaves me with but one question: If the two are the same, why would companies that use sugar to sweeten their products buy the one that costs significantly more than the other? Don’t most things today boil down to money anyway? Why would all of these companies be spending all this money to make such a big change if it’s not worth the time and the dollars?

I don’t know. You tell me.

Food for the Fourth

andrea — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:00:11 +0000

Today is the Fourth of July, and that means it’s time to get that grill ready for some good ole American barbecue. Arguably, the best part of this day’s celebration is the food. (Forget the fireworks, the celebration of America’s independence and spending time with family and friends!)

Food can make or break any get-together. I can’t really help you if you think you’ll mess up the hamburgers or grilled chicken. Meat is not my thing. But, there are some incredible summertime recipes that will go great with whatever you’re making for your Fourth of July meal.

Here are a few of the best recipes that I’ve picked up along the way. They’ll go great with hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue or soy burgers. Enjoy!!

1. Simple Baked Beans – Sure, the baked beans in a can taste pretty good, but they could use some doctoring up. This is a recipe sure to give you great beans every time. (Hint: If you have a Publix nearby, they have Bush’s Baked Beans and Sweet Baby Rays on sale, buy one get one, this week.)

What you’ll need:

4 big cans of baked beans

1 bottle of sweet barbecue sauce

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 sweet onion, diced

1/2 cup brown sugar

Sliced bacon

Baking pan (the size is up to you)

1/2 tbsp. mustard (you might not use it all)

What you’ll do:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Open the four cans of beans, drain off the excess liquid and pour into a medium sized bowl

Add the remaining ingredients and stir until properly mixed

Feel free to add more sugar if you like it sweet

Pour into baking pan of your choice

Add bacon to the top

Bake at 325 for about two hours. (The lower and slower you can cook them the better.)

2. Homemade Potato Salad – This is a family recipe passed down from generations. It does take a decent amount of preparation but it sure beats any store bought potato salad.

What you’ll need:

A dozen eggs, hard boiled

1/2 of a Vidalia onion, diced

4 lbs. of potatoes, peeled and cubed

4 to 6 large sour pickles, diced

1 cup (approx.) mayo

1/2 cup (approx) mustard

2 to 3 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. pickle juice

What you’ll do:

Make your hard boiled eggs, place eggs in pan and cover with cold water

Turn off heat and leave the eggs for about thirty minutes

Pour off water, shake to crack shells and add cold water to make peeling easier

Peel, dice and set aside

Dice your onion and set it aside

Peel and slice your potatoes into cubes (try to make your cubes the same size, and not too thin)

Put in a large pan, add water almost to cover, add salt

Bring the potato’s water a boil, turn down to medium low and cook just until potatoes are soft (start checking at around 14 minutes)

When done, drain well and add your chopped onion on top of potatoes, then add some butter and gently
move around until the hot potatoes cover the onion

Set this aside for about an hour

Make sure your eggs and pickles are diced

Combine mayo, mustard, pickles, pickle juice and eggs in a mixing bowl (this will be your sauce)

Refrigerate the potato mixture and sauce

When ready to serve, mix the potato and sauce concoctions together in a large bowl

Gently fold over and serve

3. Mandarin Orange Dessert – This is a quick, easy dessert! It’s light and (pretty) healthy too.

What you’ll need:

60 Ritz crackers, crushed

1/4 cup sugar

1 can condensed milk

8 oz. container of Cool Whip

1/4 lb. melted Oleo

3 large cans of drained mandarin oranges

One can of frozen orange juice, thawed

9×13 baking pan

What you’ll do:

Crush crackers finely in medium sized bowl

Set aside some crumbs to use as garnish

Mix crackers with Oleo and sugar

Press mixture into 9×13 pan

Blend orange juice and condensed milk

Stir in Cool Whip and oranges (don’t beat)

Pour orange juie and milk concoction over the crumbs in the your pan

Top with leftover crumbs

Refrigerate before serving

Chuck E. Cheese: A “Monstrous Mouse”?

andrea — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:13:47 +0000

Has anyone else been hearing about the horrific things happening at Chuck E. Cheese?

It’s not even what you’re expecting. There are no stories of children getting the herpes from the plastic ball pit. There aren’t even any stories about obnoxious children rising in mutiny. But there are tons of weird stories in the news on the Internet about the insanity surrounding Chuck E. Cheese.

The unfortunate thing is that it’s not the kids’ faults. It is their ridiculous family’s faults.

Ah, Chuck E. Cheese.

I used to love going there! I remember literally begging my parents to take me there after I got straight A’s on my report card in elementary school. I went to countless birthday parties there. Now, I’m hearing about tons of stories where the creepy mouse is molesting people, parents are attacking each other and people are just being really weird.

Just a few days ago there was a brawl in Pennsylvania that between two mothers at a Chuck E. Cheese that left a 4-year-old boy badly injured. A group of adults had been arguing and the argument became physical and engulfed the 4-year-old. He was rushed off to the hospital and has a large cut and over a dozen bruises to prove some street rep.

My favorite story about Chuck E. Cheese being a creeper is from Jennifer Sorbello who claims that she was groped by the large plastic rodent. There’s a picture floating around of Sorbello and our dear President Bush (not together) being groped by Chuck. This just further promotes my idea that (most) people who dress up in those costumes have something to hide.

Now, all of this is amusing, but what is not amusing is how Mr. Cheese is getting the brunt of it all. So what if he grabs a few breasts, he is obviously a male. Other than that, he’s just trying to live his life. He’s been showing up to work just trying to make minimum wage but continues to be attacked.

In New Hampshire, Trahan Pires, 34, attacked the mascot because he thought that his 11-year-old son had been pinned up against a video game by Chuck E. Pires supposedly ran after the rodent, ripped his head off and proceeded to yell obscenities and accusations at the man underneath. He was charged with assault and battery but was recently acquitted. The person Pires attacked was 19-years-old. Great idea!

All of these stories are so unfortunate! It seems like not too long ago that the family was going to Chuck-E-Cheese, enjoying the salad bar and pizza. I even remember going to a birthday party where a kid ate 10 pieces of pizza. Ten! I don’t even think we were 10 years old.

What a wonderful place!

The question remains. What caused this? And what can be done to prevent this monstrous mouse.