Million Dollar Ad Launch Challenges Misinformation about High Fructose Corn Syrup

If you're into shaking your skull in disbelief, be sure to read (via the link below) all about the "nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom" and it's startup funding from Philip Morris tobacco company.

Today, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) launched a new million dollar ad campaign designed to put an end to the blatant inaccuracies surrounding the much-maligned ingredient: high fructose corn syrup. The campaign will communicate to the public what most experts already know, that high fructose corn syrup is nutritionally the same as sweeteners such as table sugar and honey.

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Peeps are Evil - High-Fructose Corn Syrup

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Grace Mugabe's dairy farm in deal with Nestlé

Mugabe and his henchmen should be tried for crimes against humanity. Nestle, in addition to packing their foods with high fructose corn syrup, has chosen to do business with the brutal dictator.


Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, owns dairy farms that sell up to a million litres of milk a year to food giant Nestlé, London's Sunday Telegraph reported.

Grace Mugabe took over six of the country's most valuable white-owned farms around 2002, the newspaper said.

Mugabe, his wife and other members of his administration are the subject of European Union and United States sanctions as a result of their controversial 29-year rule over once-prosperous Zimbabwe.

Nestlé, the multinational food company which is the largest customer of Grace Mugabe's dairy farm, is not obliged to comply with those sanctions as its headquarters are in Switzerland, the Telegraph said.

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Conspiracy for Fat America & High-Fructose Corn Syrup

The connection between high fructose corn and obesity, fast food, Coke, Pepsi & diabetes.

High Fructose Corn Syrup and the Fibromyalgia Connection: Fibromyalgia Recovery Handbook

Relief at last!! Living with fibromyalgia can be debilitating, miserable, and painful. Loss in work time is costly for employers, as well. The "down time" needed to restore energy and recover from bouts of the syndrome is wasteful and unnecessary. The specific guidelines involve no adverse side effects or risky or unhealthy measures. You will need to be aware of substances which are antagonistic and then carefully select and eat a wide variety of appropriate foods. Significant relief for you and millions of others who have been waiting for answers. Be the champion of your own recovery.

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High-Fructose Corn Syrup Spoof

Spoofs inspired by "The Corn Refiners Association" propaganda commercials

Written by Jackie Beat
Starring Jackie Beat, Nadya Ginsburg, Selene Luna
Directed, Shot & Edited by Lawrence Elbert
Sound: Samantha Kuppig
Set Design: Krista Gall
Production Asst: Drew Mancilla

Children of the Corn: Subsidies, Incentives and Health Reform

More awareness of the ills of consuming greater amounts of foods and drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup may create a backlash against the corn subsidies whose agribusiness roots run deep enough to stymie any meaningful reform.

In 1959, as the tensions of the Cold War seethed into their second decade, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev paid a visit to the United States. His stops included New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and, much to the head-scratching of the CIA, a little stop in between: Iowa (and yes, a 50th anniversary commemoration exists).

Russia had stolen the formula for the atomic bomb. She could send satellites into space. But the one area where we the capitalists had her beat wasn't in a secret smuggled around in briefcases handcuffed to wrists but in a practice as old as civilization itself: agriculture.

In Iowa, Khrushchev's eyes confirmed what his spy planes had probably already told him: corn fields sprawled unbroken in all directions like great sheets of Siberian snow. He believed that he could replicate the American agricultural model to break his reliance on an unsustainable and inconsistent supply of imported grain.

Back in the USSR, a perfect storm of inadequate resources, overstretched reforms, and sparse infrastructure left the inept Soviet premier's massive corn fields as withered as his plans to save the famine-plagued masses. Khrushchev had instead sown the seeds of his country's implosion.

Here in the United States, farming constitutes a large part of our national identity, and it is largely misunderstood. The ideal of the family farm has been foreclosed upon by great agribusinesses that replace the amber waves of grain we idealize with regimented row upon regimented row of subsidized corn.

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Sugar makes Dr Pepper special from Dublin, Texas

For Dr Pepper drinkers, this is Mecca.

Tens of thousands of people trek to tiny Dublin in north central Texas each year to buy cases of the nation's third most popular soft drink from a bottling company that uses real sugar in its flagship product. No high fructose corn syrup in sight.

It's been that way since 1891, when Dublin Bottling Works became the world's first bottler of soda pop and the first to distribute the fruit- and berry-flavored carbonated drink that had debuted six years earlier at Wade Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in downtown Waco, about 80 miles to the east.

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High-Fructose Diet Raises Blood Pressure in Middle-Aged Men

A diet high in foods with large amounts of fructose sugar such as sweetened soft drinks increased blood pressure in men, according to a study presented today that also found that a drug for gout blocked the effect.

Men in the study who ate a high-fructose diet had their blood pressure rise about 5 percent after two weeks, while those who also were given a gout treatment increased less than 1 percent, study author Richard Johnson said. Eating great amounts of fructose without the treatment also raised the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors associated with the development of heart disease and diabetes.

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Finding the hidden high fructose corn syrup

Why are companies seemingly allowed to hide ingredients in sub-components of food? Or am I totally off base in my thinking.

In looking for a barbeque sauce without High Fructose Corn Syrup, we have noticed that most of the brands that do no list HFCS as an ingredient show "ketchup" as a main ingredient. What seems shaky about that is that most ketchup brands have HFCS as a component. We have noticed similar things with other foods - fish sauce is an example of something that is often listed but potentially has bad for you stuff like MSG in it.

So, the first part of my question is really about how is that legal (or right/ethical may be a better way to put it) to show something like ketchup as an ingredient but not actually list the ingredients of that sub-product? I understand that would be hard-ish to do although I cannot imagine it would be that hard. It just seems like an easy way to skirt having to list anything bad the package by just using a sub-component that contains the bad things. "Hey, eat this protein bar made up of honey and soylent green..."

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Movie Review: The Informant!

In theory there should be nothing entertaining about watching an FBI case unfold that deals with potential poisoning of the general American public, price-fixing on lysine and High Fructose Corn Syrup, and a compulsive liar.

THE HUMOROUS TALE OF A CORPORATE WHISTLEBLOWER

Watching Mark Whitacre, an employee of Archer Daniels Midland, a heart-of-the-Midwest agricultural company, dig his own grave shouldn’t be funny—but oh, it is. Steven Soderbergh’s latest is a foray into white-color crime, price-fixing, and embezzlement.

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The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald

In part one of a two-part interview, Booknotes host Brian Lamb talks with award-winning New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald about his new book, The Informant, A True Story. His book is about one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, had become a confidential government witness, secretly recording a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. Mark Whitacre, the promising golden boy of ADM, had put his career and family at risk to wear a wire and deceive his friends and colleagues. Using Whitacre and a small team of agents to tap into the secrets at ADM, the FBI discovered the company's scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers. But, as the FBI and federal prosecutors closed in on ADM, using stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings around the world, they suddenly found that everything was not all that it appeared. At the same time Whitacre was cooperating with the Feds while playing the role of loyal company man, he had his own agenda he kept hidden from everyone around him - his wife, his lawyer, even the FBI agents who had come to trust him with the case they had put their careers on the line for. Kurt Eichenwald has written about white-collar crime and corporate corruption for the NYT for more than a decade.

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The Informant (Movie Tie-in Edition): A True Story (Random House Movie Tie-In Books) (Paperback)

"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on."

So reads the cover of this high-powered true crime story, an accurate teaser to a bizarre financial scandal with more plot twists than a John Grisham novel. In 1992 the FBI stumbled upon Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. ADM, which advertises itself as "The Supermarket to the World," processes grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers for products that fill America's shelves, from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna. The company's chairman and chief executive, Dwayne Andreas, was so influential that he introduced Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was his maneuvering that ensured that high fructose corn syrup would replace sugar in most foods (ever wondered why Coke and Pepsi don't taste quite like they used to?). There were two mottoes at ADM: "The competitors are our friends, and the customers are our enemies" and "We know when we're lying." And lie they did. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of ADM executives making price-fixing deals with their corrivals from Japan, Korea, and Canada, all while drinking coffee and laughing about their crimes. The tapes should have cinched the case, but there was one problem: Their star witness was manipulative, deceitful, and unstable. Nothing was as it seemed, and the investigation into one of the most astounding white-collar crime cases in history had only just begun.

Kurt Eichenwald, an investigative reporter, covered the story for The New York Times and interviewed more than 100 participants in the case. He methodically records the six-year investigation, leaving no plot twist or tape transcript unexplored. While his primary focus is on deconstructing the disturbed Whitacre and revealing the malleability of truth, the portrait of ADM (and even the Justice Department) is damning enough to make anyone a cynic. --Lesley Reed --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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City Club Presents: Kurt Eichenwald

New York Times investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald reveals the shocking details of corporate corruption that led to the collapse of Enron as he reads from his new book "Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story" in this address to the City Club of San Diego.

'Informant!' - black comedy with no white hats

The two products involved in ADM's troubles were lysine and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The latter substance has been linked to the increase in obesity in the United States.

Matt Damon's new film character is a kind of undercover agent, but he's a far cry from Jason Bourne. In "The Informant!," the actor plays Mark Whitacre, a real-life corporate whistle-blower who worked with the FBI in the 1990s to uncover a price-fixing scandal involving his employer, agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. Slapped with a mega-fine and a class action suit, ADM eventually paid out $500 million. Several executives went to prison.

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To Bee or Not to Bee

So it’s possible that this high-fructose corn syrup that’s, you know, partially responsible for the obesity epidemic in humans is also having a devastating effect on the bee population.

In part 2 of our bee podcast, we talk with May Berenbaum, entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and inspiration for the X Files fictional entomologist Bambi Berenbaum, about bees, other insects and how life history analysis can make us rest easy during scary sci-fi invasion movies. Plus, we’ll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.

Podcast Transcription

Steve: Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American posted on August 21st, 2009. I’m Steve Mirsky. This week more about bees and all manner of other insect with entomologist, May Berenbaum from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Now, last week I promised you that you’d also get a fellow named John Williams, the beekeeper at Darwin’s home in England; however I’m traveling, and I apparently neglected to bring along that audio file, but this problem is easily fixed because what was supposed to be a two-part podcast is now a three-part podcast. I plan to post the William’s chat on Tuesday the 25th of August, so look or listen for that. Meanwhile here’s more with May Berenbaum. Early in our conversation, she mentions Reed Johnson—you’ll recall from part 1 that Reed is her student working on genomes.

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High Fructose Corn Syrup, Again?

A while back (August 6, 09) I wrote some blogs about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Readers wrote in saying how HFCS is nutritionally very similar in composition to regular white sugar. What I want to clarify is that yes, this is true. But the problem is, white sugar is more obvious on a label to the consumer compared to HFCS. HFCS is more deceptive and hidden in places most people don’t even think to look and it has different names. Sure it’s obvious to find HFCS in a soda but I’ve seen it in juices, breads, cereals, energy bars, condiments, cough syrups, dairy foods (chocolate milk and yogurts), some dried fruits, some vegetable juices, salad dressings, soups and mixer drinks and of course generally processed foods.

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Soft drinks with real sugar tough to find

A lot of people are looking for products that don't contain high-fructose corn syrup, and finding them difficult to locate. In response to Anna Carlton, who's looking for soft drinks with regular sugar, Dean B. Pomerantz and C. John Stark suggested she check Mexican markets. I've noticed that not all soft drinks sold in Mexican markets are made without the corn syrup, but Pomerantz recommended looking for small bottles of Coke and Pepsi in six-packs. "You can tell which ones they are because they have a nutrition/ingredient sticker on the bottles," Stark noted.

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High Fructose Corn Syrup

Scientists know that high fructose corn syrup makes it impossible for persons with diabetes to satisfactorily control their blood sugar. Diabetes leads to blindness, heart attacks, amputations, strokes and many other preventable problems, as well as early death.

What is high-fructose corn syrup? It is not the same thing as the natural, healthy fructose in honey and fruit. "High-fructose corn syrup" is a highly refined, artificial product. It is created through a complicated chemical process that transforms cornstarch into a thick, clear liquid. White sugar and "high-fructose corn syrup" are not the same. "High-fructose corn syrup" is worse than sugar.

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Public sours on Illinois' sweet spot

Another Illinois industry is under siege. Demand for high-fructose corn syrup, the cheap sugar substitute that sweetens most of the nation's soft drinks and many of its foods, has been dropping fast amid suspicions about its health effects.

The sweetener has taken a beating in the media, with everyone from Michelle Obama to the American Heart Assn. badmouthing it.

"You start reading the labels, and you realize there's high-fructose corn syrup in everything we're eating," the organic-minded first lady complained in a magazine interview earlier this year. "Every jelly, every juice."

Actually, not so much anymore. Responding to consumer pressure, Kraft Foods Inc., Pizza Hut, Starbucks Corp., PepsiCo Inc. and others have switched to sugar in some or all of their products in recent months

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Another Reason to Hate HFCS

According to the Washington Post, nearly half of the tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained measurable levels of mercury—mercury that makes its way into many popular name-brand foods and beverages, say a pair of U.S. studies, one published in the current issue of the journal Environmental Health, the other conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

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Five Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

Four words--high fructose corn syrup--describe an alarmingly ubiquitous sweetener that has the potential to make you into one chubby, sick puppy. You can find it in supermarket convenience food, canned goods, soda, juice and fast food. HFCS does nothing good for your body. But it's sweet and it grabs you in its sticky clutches. The intake of HFCS and table sugar, which also contains fructose, has risen to an average of 145 pounds a year per person. And not surprisingly, in part because of the obesity epidemic in the United States, HFCS has recently been the subject of much scientific research.

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What's wrong with high fructose corn syrup?

It's in everything. So what's in the syrup?

Dear Vanessa,

I’ve been told that I should avoid high-fructose corn syrup, and yesterday I read that there is mercury in the syrup. Why would mercury be in a food product, anyway? And what’s the problem with corn syrup in general?

— Feeling Corny in the Heartland

Dear Corny,

There are many issues about high-fructose corn syrup, all of them connected to corn-focused industrial agriculture, a practice that is destroying our health and our environment.

Let's start with corn. How did we transform a native grain that sustained myriad cultures for thousands of years into a symbol of everything that's wrong with our economy, agriculture and health? (This will be an exercise in restraint for me. I will do my best to ignore that high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, originates in a simple corn field and focus on the complex problems surrounding this sticky, adulterated version of corn-stuff.)

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Too Much Government Makes Us Sick

According to the Environmental Workers Group, corn subsidies in the United States totaled $56.2 billion from 1995-2006.

While Congress is busy working on health care reform, policy-makers are reluctant to admit that many of our nation’s health problems are linked to practices subsidized by taxpayers. An American diet heavily dependent on corn and corn-derivatives is linked to obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, Type II-Diabetes, constipation, joint pain, and other ailments. The tragic irony is that government subsidizes the low-cost production of the corn-based, unhealthy foods that make many people sick. Now the Obama administration wants to give these same policy-makers responsibility for our health care.

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Monsanto’s Man in the FDA Hen House

In Jeffrey Smith’s July 23 HuffPo article, You’re Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It’s Not So!, he reports on the ramifications of the July 7 appointment of former Monsanto attorney, vice president and chief lobbyist, Michael R. Taylor, as “senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA.”
The FDA announcement described Taylor as “a nationally recognized food safety expert and research professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services.”

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