Page 19 - Spring2015

Caustic Commentary

fibromyalgia and vulvodynia (http://www.townsendletter. Chex boxes all claim “No high fructose corn syrup” but list
com/Jan2015/green0115.html). “fructose” in the ingredients (www.thesleuthjournal.com/
chex-nefarious-simply-not-true/).
END OF THE JUNK-FOOD ERA?
For years, Big Food has described the art of cooking as a FIGHTING THOSE “ANTI-DAIRY” FOLKS
necessary inconvenience, one that can be circumvented by The dairy industry spent thirty-four million dollars on its
opening a can of soup or putting a frozen dinner in the micro- “GOT MILK?” milk mustache campaign in California—one
wave. But recently consumers have returned to cooking real dollar for every person living in the state. The result: milk
foods, and the industry is feeling the effects. All the major consumption declined. The nation's largest milk processor,
industrial food producers—ConAgra, Kraft and Kelloggs— Dean Foods, has closed twelve dairy processing plants since
reported sluggish sales for 2014. One factor for the decline 2012, sending shock waves throughout the industry. Con-
is the strong U.S. dollar, which sumption of pasteurized fluid milk
makes overseas sales worth less continues its steady decline of one
when converted to U.S. currency. to three percent per year. But the
But the main reason is a “mount- milk industry is trying again, this
ing distrust of so-called Big Food, time with a social media campaign
the large food companies and by the Milk Processor Education
legacy brands on which millions Program, trumpeting the benefits
of consumers have relied. . . for so of industrial milk. The association
long.” Meanwhile, the number of says it needs to act because atti-
farmers markets jumped 180 per- tudes about milk are deteriorating
cent since 2006, to a total of over more rapidly “with vegan groups,
eight thousand. Food hubs have non-dairy competitors and other
jumped in number by 280 percent perceived enemies getting louder
since 2007 (http://www.mother- online.” (The “perceived enemies”
jones.com/tom-philpott/2015/02/ of course are the advocates for raw
has-big-food-passed-its-sell-date). And, of course, there's the milk.) The campaign is intended to “drown out” milk's de-
“Postum effect,” in which sales decline because customers tractors with positive posts about milk on Facebook, Twitter
die off—it was an older generation that embraced processed and elsewhere—that means paid trolls will post pro-milk
foods, and they are plagued with health problems. Is the junk- messages (finance.yahoo.com/news/milk-industry-fights-
food era coming to an end? Stay tuned. back-against-anti-dairy-folks-170243538—finance.html). Our
message for the industry: it's not going to work. No amount
NO HFCS? of advertising or social media can resurrect the reputation of
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) rightly has a bad reputa- nature's perfect food, completely ruined by industrial pro-
tion—animal studies associate this engineered sugar with cessing. Industrial milk is hard to digest, highly allergenic,
everything from weak ligaments to weight gain. The industry associated with many diseases, and it tastes bad.
tried to get FDA approval for a name change—they wanted
to call HFCS “corn sugar,” but FDA did the right thing for ASPARTAME BAD NEWS
once and said no. So the Corn Refiners Association just went As little as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for
ahead and changed the name anyway—to “fructose.” So leukemia in men and women, and for multiple myeloma and
beware of any product containing “fructose,” or “crystalline non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in men, according to researchers
fructose,” even those declaring “No high fructose corn syrup” who analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study and the
on the label. General Mills' Vanilla, Chocolate and Cinnamon Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a twenty-two-year
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