High Fructose Propaganda

How is it possible that an artificial ingredient could itself be free of artificial ingredients? Take your time and think about it. It sounds like a riddle, doesn't it?

Or, if you're representing manufacturers of a subsidized chemical food additive, like the Corn Refiners Association does, this defiance of logic just sounds like the creative brief you send to your ad agency to polish up your tarnished reputation. The additive in question here is high fructose corn syrup, which has recently been given its own shiny new national television advertising campaign, along with supporting newspaper and magazine ads to tout that it's safe to eat.

Obviously, they're so proud of their syrup, they can't keep its wholesomeness to themselves. High fructose is high fun!

First, we see a clip eerily reminiscent of a political ad, where the only thing missing is a big American flag sticker on the fruit punch jug:



And then, my personal favorite, the Adam and Eve-esque temptation in the garden. I'll bet the popsicle is apple-flavored:



I'd like to step in on behalf of our befuddled heroine and hero with a response to the smarmy and condescending vituperation that stops their protests short. 'Like what?', say the Corn Refiners Association shills, to which I provide the following observations:

It isn't natural.
Simply being made from corn, or any natural substance, isn't enough to make something natural. Petroleum is ultimately made from decomposed plant matter, after all; could we expect kerosene-enhanced breakfast cereal to boast a 'no artificial ingredients' claim too?

Natural foods are minimally processed. Enzymatic conversion using an insoluble glucose isomerase enzyme preparation followed by liquid chromatography does not constitute minimal processing. If its production requires technologies that didn't exist until the 1970s, I don't consider it natural.

So what might our friends at the CRA be using as the basis for this 'no artificial ingredients' claim? Doesn't the government regulate claims like that?

Sadly, our underfunded FDA, in a long tradition of filling its payroll with staff from the industry it was designed to police, takes a loophole-ridden stance on words like natural and artificial, terms which, inanely, it does not consider to be mutually exclusive. Trawl through Title 21, section 101.22 of the Code of Federal Regulations yourself and you'll see how loose the rules actually are. Consider this ridiculous example of the semantic weightlessness on Planet FDA: Even though the FDA stated in April that high fructose corn syrup is not natural, it's perfectly permissible to claim that it's free of artificial ingredients, because the definition of natural has not been defined. Yeah, go ahead and read that sentence again; that's how clear this issue is.

It isn't used like sugar.
Let's assume the natural/artificial issue isn't important to us. Let's dig a little deeper with the level of skepticism appropriate when evaluating an argument put forth by the organization with the most to gain from its acceptance. The CRA says that HFCS isn't used by food makers because of its price - they use it because it's just so darned useful.

From their bright and cheery Sweet Surprise site, they say that HFCS "... offers numerous benefits. It keeps food fresh, enhances fruit and spice flavors, retains moisture in bran cereals, helps keep breakfast and energy bars moist, maintains consistent flavors in beverages and keeps ingredients evenly dispersed in condiments."

Well, as a consumer, I sure love me some pragmatic food. I mean, flavor and nutrition are nice and all, but let's be frank; shelf life is what's really important when I'm feeding my family. Whatever must food have been like before this miracle substance was invented? I mean, with HFCS, I get fresh, enhanced, moist, consistent and evenly-dispersed food, and all it costs is a few more calories.

So, from the CRA's own data, we see that HFCS is more than just a sweetener - it's also a preservative, but with as many calories as a sweetener. Food manufacturers might add a little salt to counteract any excessive sweetness created by using a sweetener as a preservative, but don't worry, consumers - salt's good for you too.

Take another look at the CRA's first ad. Now take a look back to the 1950s, for its predecessor. Just like today's ads, it was created when some executives, in response to growing public interest in some pesky scientific data that began linking their precious profit-yielding product to medical problems, decided to respond. And respond they did, with some claims of their own. I wonder how successful their campaign was.

Summer Can Can

It's already September. And even though summer weather may still be lingering for awhile longer, the plant world knows what time it is, and is in the throes of its final burst of color and energy before it retreats into the taupe expanse of autumn.

It was with this seasonal urgency in mind that I gathered an unusually large haul of late summer goodness at the farmers' market. In one hand was a bag of crimson dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes, and in the other, a brimming bag of candy-sweet white peaches. My intent? To take an edible snapshot of this brief moment of the year when the long shadows and hazy heat of summer have just put their last energies into these two ephemeral fruits.

I'm putting them into glass, where they'll stay, preserved, until they can be unscrewed to brighten a dreary January next year.

The final purposes for these peaches and tomatoes might be entirely distinct, but the process of trapping them into jars is almost precisely the same.

Loosen up in the hot tub, little tomate.

With a bowl of ice water at the ready, and a large pot of boiling water rolling, gather up the fruit of choice. Load them up in batches onto a frying spider and allow them to descend gently into the spa. After about 45 seconds or so (or longer, in the case of any stubbornly taut-skinned peaches), scoop them again with the spider and plunge them into the ice water. This Finnish sauna-style trick shrinks the fruit back from their skins, and will make it easy to peel them cleanly off, although a paring knife could still be useful.

Shrinkage can be a good thing

Tomatoes can be peeled and left whole

Peaches will need splitting and pit removal

Now your fruit needs a sterilized vessel and a liquid in which to be suspended. The liquid can be almost anything, as long as your overall pH remains below 4.6. For tomatoes, I'm using water, with a bit of lemon juice for acidic insurance, and a few leaves of sage or oregano from the garden. For the peaches, a mildly-sweetened simple syrup (the kind you'd mix up for your fancy cocktails) will do just fine. If you're clamoring to reproduce childhood memories of Class A Insulin-Assault Heavy Syrup, then feel free to crank up the sugar/water ratio. Science says that the maximum saturation rate of sucrose in water at ambient temperature is 67%, so go as crazy as you like. I like the actual flavor of peaches themselves, so 1:2 worked just fine for me.

Into the jars

Cram your fruit into the hot jars, fill to near the brim with your packing liquid of choice, wipe the rims, secure the lids, and process the cans under boiling water as usual. At sea level, my tomatoes needed 50 minutes, and my peaches went for 25.

And there you have it - a bare minimum amount of effort, and you've bought yourself a lovely present to be opened when the weather has turned malevolent and the memories of dark red summer are faded and distant.

Suspended animation

Slow Food Nation - Of Course It's Political

After three solid days of listening, talking, watching, and tasting, I can declare that the inaugural Slow Food Nation celebration in San Francisco has been a resounding success.

Food is a connecting force between many different issues, from labor policies and immigration law to problems of healthcare, energy policy and climate change. Everyone is a participant in food, and whether the discussion at hand relates to the taste of a peach or the system of farm subsidies, everyone who eats has a stake in the debate. This weekend, Slow Food Nation united people by this shared interest in eating food that is good, clean and fair.

Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's mayor, at left, receives high praise, via translator, from Carlo Petrini, right.

Roast chicken at Civic Center

Teaching the compost gospel

Crowds downtown for Slow Food Nation

As Wendell Berry says, eating is an agricultural act.

Tasting at the Taste Pavilion in Fort Mason

Sharing the wonders of a good tomato

The conversations and foods shared this weekend have filled my notebook and my belly, and have strengthened my faith in the power to effect change that is inherent in the shared passion that people have for good food.

In the age of industrial nameless food, it can sometimes be easy to forget that food begat civilization itself - agri cannot be divested from culture. The move from hunter-gatherer to cultivation-based societies hinged upon the idea that by working together to fulfill our basic needs, each individual can have a better quality of life. So in this light, events like Slow Food Nation are not simply a celebration of food or gluttony or elitist culinarianism, but rather a celebration and reminder of our common humanity.

Such noble expectations of a food festival become more understandable when we consider that the International Slow Food movement began as a political organization with markedly socialist attitudes toward the symbiotic relationship between producers and consumers of food. Food is the original political issue, and in my view, the most important one, because it is embodied and affected by nearly all questions of social justice and responsibility. And as Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Wes Jackson, and countless others attested this weekend, it affects us all.

Carlo Petrini and a starstruck Food Crusader