I'm sitting in front of the tube, watching Oprah and Dr. Oz, talking with overweight kids and the author of Eat This, Not That, David Zinczenko, about school lunches. Now I'm glued to the tv. Although I'm not crazy about Oprah's new audience voting system, I must say I love, LOVE Oprah. She's a class act in my opinion, and though sometime she still delves into trash tv topics, most of her topics are relevant and aim to help her viewers live a better life. The other thing I love is nutrition, and childhood obesity and school nutrition are really important causes to me.
And I have to say, that many of the things they are saying on the show, are validating my reasons for going corn-free. One stat the David Zinczenko mentioned is that kids (that's just kids, not diet coke addicted adults) eat an average of 450 extra calories a day in liquid form - that's from sodas, fruit juices, and milkshakes. If you're getting cheap fruit juices, that aren't 100% fruit juice (like Sunny D which has high fructose corn syrup in it!), and you're drinking corn. Sodas - corn. Milkshakes - corn. So there you go, cut that corn, cut some calories, lose some pounds.
They also packed some sample school lunches, and they contained minimally processed foods, which is what you eat when you're not eating corn derivatives. And honestly it will save you time and headaches to eat minimally processed foods because trying to figure out what some of those crazy ingredients are gives me headaches. I need to memorize all those weird chemical things, because my grocery trips are much longer when I have to stand there on my iPhone and research every chemical. If you ARE drawn to the more processed foods (I'll turn my head the other way), you should watch this video to get Dr.Oz's lesson on how to read a food label. But I'll let you know, if you go for those processed foods, that anything with corn in the ingredient name, is probably an artificial sweetener, and bringing on the extra calories.
The parents in Oprah's audience expressed trouble over the expense of minimally processed foods (a quandary that I'll never get) and its true, avoiding foods with artificial sweeteners and less processing can be more expensive (thus why high fructose corn syrup became a popular substitute for sugar - its cheap). Ways to fight the high costs - Dr Oz just said eat local! Yay! That its better for us, and many times cheaper.
I'm glad that Oprah and Dr. Oz are on to this. Because honestly, they are some of the most trusted voices in the American media. People WILL listen to them. And hopefully, they'll stop eating less artificial (and corn) sweeteners. And America will stop gaining weight!
-Jess
The other reason corn is so prevalent is the Government subsidies for corn farmers, just like soybeans. Heinz Ketchup in Canada made with sugar, in the US Corn Syrup. Bread, crackers, etc same in Canada made with sugar, across the border in the US CS. Check out the studies that show how HFCS often contains MERCURY, as the processing contaminates it.
ReplyDeleteI think the HFCS commercials are hilarious, it's made from corn. So is dog kibble, but I don't eat that either.
I commend you on you endeavor, and I am going to post a link to you on my blog. Good luck! You are doing a great thing!