I used to be terrified of causing change in the world, and now I’m growing terrified of not. – hvc
This post starts what I hope will become a new series/category. In the past I collected quotes, had 100′s of them that I just kept in a file on my computer. I’m going to start digging around for that file so that I can include some of my favorites here, but in the meantime I’ll start things off with a quote found in a friend, Helen’s blog. Finding that file may require some work involving installation of old hard drives, if so it will probably be a while before I get around to it, but we’ll see.
In a follow up to an earlier post about HFCS I just read a on slashfood.com about Pepsi planning to introduce “Throwback” versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew which use real sugar rather than HFCS. While Emily says she doesn’t notice a difference in taste I definitely can. Mexican Coke, in bottles, is readily available at most of the Taquerias here in San Francisco’s Mission District and often shows up at places like Cost-Co in bottle cases. While some of the difference may be attributed to the bottle rather than the can it definitely isn’t the only difference. Some friends and I grabbed a 24-pack of Canadian code on a trip to Vancouver, B.C. when I lived in Seattle and did a side-by-side taste-test and most everyone could tell the difference, granted that isn’t a preference. I prefer the sugar coke taste, but at least some of that may be thanks to nostalgia, reminding me of drinking sugar Coke out of the bottle on a warm summer day at my Granny’s house when I was a kid. I’d be all for sugar Coke being the standard. I’d imagine it’d be slightly more expensive than the HFCS version, but maybe if places like San Francisco continue to pursue HFCS bands/taxes a sugar alternative will be brought back for those markets. I have to admit that I don’t really care about HFCS from a health perspective, I don’t drink enough coke for it to matter to me, but I would be in favor from a taste standpoint. That said reducing HFCS’s use in everything else would probably be good for general population’s health, as well as my own.
I can’t imagine too many people are in favor of high-fructose corn syrup outside of the mega-factory-farms (though I’m sure it’s not limited to them) who make heavy use of the corn subsidies and the food producers who purchase it as a cheaper alternative to sugar in the US. It’s the subsides that make HCFS cheaper. While some people have been complaining about it for a long time, others are just now beginning, including the city of San Francisco. There are a lot of natural/organic-y/whole-foods-y products that shun HFCS, but I was pretty surprised to see Bullseye’s new packaging the other day when I was checking out Duc Loi Supermarket.