Commercials: High Fructose Corn Syrup



Commentary: If the industry has turned to advertising, that means they have felt some serious hits to their wallets. Multiple studies link HFCS to obesity, insulin resistance and, most recently, liver damage. An oft quoted source being the studies made by Sharon Elliott, Nancy Keim, Judith Stern, Karen Teff and Peter J Havel. The fact that they use a genetically modified enzyme during processing, let alone the amount of processing itself, removes the "no artificial ingredients" part of their claim.

The fact is that HFCS is cheap. It's Cheaper due to government subsidies for the corn industry, as well as economic tariffs on cane sugar. This has made the industry the booming mega-sector in the market that it is... hopefully, we'll see the day when they are a niche market.

The ads are reminiscent to the "Got Milk" campaign from the early '90s forward. These commercials lack the "stickiness" of that campaign, however. Also, they've launched the campaign too late, when Americans are already switching to organic markets. Americans are already too keen on the effects of HFCS. However, with milk, they launched the campaign before the information age could reach people. Most people remain unaware of the bone erosion and brittleness caused by the animal protein acids in milk, let alone the increased vulnerability to Parkinson's Disease and Prostate Cancer.

Cutting cheese out of my diet may never happen... but going back to high fructose corn syrup will never happen.

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