Those High Fructose Corn Syrup Commercials

Posted on 10/06/2009 at 10:13 am by Bob Cesca

You may have seen the new ads on cable promoting high fructose corn syrup. The commercials suggest that there’s no difference between sugar and HFCS. Of course there are significant differences, including the fact that HFCS is processed and chemically altered, and HFCS “forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream.” So the commercials are being less than honest.

But the most suspicious aspect of this campaign is the lobbyist group behind it. According to SourceWatch, the Center for Consumer Freedom, formerly the Guest Choice Network, has been engaged in promoting such excellent “choices” as payday loans (and their 200-400 percent interest rates), Big Tobacco and more lenient drunk driving laws.

Everything that is generally regarded as bad for you, CCF has been involved in trying to convince you that it’s not bad for you. Obesity, mercury in fish, trans-fat, and so forth. So it won’t come as a surprise that the group was launched with funding entirely from the health nuts at Phillip Morris.

Don’t believe a damn thing you hear in these commercials. CCF is very, very bad.

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow last week:

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  • roxsteady

    Rachel Maddow did a segment on this last week. She outed these clowns and it was hilarious. Oddly enough though, MSNBC has actually been showing these commercials. Don’t people check the content of these things?

  • camel54

    They also don’t mention that between 30% and 50% of the HFCS out there has mercury in it. So in addition to the natural health benefits of HFCS, there’s that.

  • http://www.bobcesca.com Bob_Cesca

    @roxsteady: Wow. I didn’t know that about Maddow. I’ll have to look up the video.

  • JackDanieL

    stuff has invaded all of our foods and drinksit is a part time job just fishing through the bullshit to find food free from hfcson a semi-related note, I was reading the nutritional info on one of my kids’ “healthy” fruit roll ups…it was allegedly strawberry flavor, but the first ingredient was peaches, and no mention of strawberries whatsoever!

  • http://www.bobcesca.com Bob_Cesca

    @JackDanieL:The flavors are manufactured by chemists in New Jersey using volitile chemicals. Yummy!

  • J

    Rachel is having the guy behind this company–Rich Newman, I think?–on tonight. Should be amazing.

  • J

    @camel54: I believe one of their ads says that mercury is no big thing and pregnant ladies should eat more fish, so they’d probably see that as a plus.

  • http://tarackian.deviantart.com J M Ashby

    I tell people all the time that corn syrup is one of the worst things for you, and very few people are aware of that fact.Most people are also unaware of the effects of Aspertame in diet drinks which was pushed through the FDA by St Ronny and Rumsfeld (who was the CEO of the company making Aspertame)

  • Rogect8

    It’s curious….when I lived in England for a brief period, I noticed that the English have MUCH less of a problem with obesity than we do here in the States. I’d heard that Americans are particularly overweight compared to other countries, but it was interesting to verify it for myself.Oh, did I mention that they don’t put high fructose corn syrup in ANYTHING? Even in coca-cola, they still use natural sugar.I wonder if there could be some kind of unexplainable, cryptic connection between the above observations…

  • http://www.windonwater.net QueenTiye

    Thank you SO much for posting about those creepy HFCS ads. I’m not a health nut, but I do try to keep healthy – and HFCS is genuinely bad news. But there’s so much deception in the industry. HFCS is hard to avoid (it’s even in whole wheat bread)… but what about the deceptive advertising on the store shelves? One of my favorites was the Ritz Cracker box – never more thrilled than when I found out that Ritz made whole wheat crackers… until I saw in the small (front of the box tiny!) print that said “with Whole Wheat).Gee thanks. There’s quite a difference between whole wheat and “with whole wheat”….QT

  • http://www.bobcesca.com Bob_Cesca

    @Ashby:>>>Most people are also unaware of the effects of Aspertame in diet drinks which was pushed through the FDA by St Ronny and RumsfeldMy wife and I used to drink Diet Pepsi. At the time, we used to get frequent headaches and my wife would get mysterious phantom aches all over her body — Fibromyalgia. When we heard about Aspartame from my brother, who is a chiropractor, we cut out all forms of artificial sweetener. I rarely if ever get headaches anymore and my wife’s pains disappeared.That shit is poison.

  • http://www.bobcesca.com Bob_Cesca

    @Queen:We’ve found that it’s almost impossible to avoid HFCS. It’s in eeeeevvverything. Even so-called “healthy” foods.Hopefully the next step after healthcare reform will be some serious regulation of our food industry. Though they won’t get rid of HFCS until the parties eliminate the Iowa Caucus.

  • http://www.bobcesca.com Bob_Cesca

    @Ashby…Forgot to mention that Aspartame is in *every* brand of chewing gum. All of it. Except Big Red which still uses sugar. But that’s the only one.