Reading Ingerdients

This probably falls under the heading of "what not to do"...

I read the indgredients of the sherbet that I just ate. (And how pissed am I at Luis? He probably inadvertantly did me a favour by ensuring that I could not stuff myself, but he ate all of the raspberry, most of the lemon and left mostly - like 97% - orange. My least favourite flavour. But he shouldn't have been eating it at all! And the only saving grace to this is that he did not eat it all. Then I'd have to kill him.)

So here is the fun of ingredients: water, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar syrup, whey, cream, raspberry puree, orange puree (concentrated orange juice, citrus pulp, orange oil), lemon puree (concentrated lemon juice, citrus pulp, lemon oil), citric acid, guar gum, xanthan gum, annatto, (colour), locust bean gum and artificial colour (blue #1, red #3, red #40, yellow #5). Contains: Milk.

Uh... and we wonder why so many people end up with Type II Diabetes (adult onset diabetes). Let's look at the second, third and fourth ingredients. When did fruit not have enough natural sugar on its own? Corn syrup is bad. Cane sugar is pretty bad... but not horrendous. However, high fructose corn syrup is heinous. This is the big culprit, the thing that food companies the world over love to use. It gets kids and adults alike hooked on sugar. It is the poison pill that sells fruit juice, ice cream and almost all dessert foods.

Boston Legal did an episode where Edwin Poole returned to the firm thinking he was okay, but got them embroiled in a law suit against some company that sells the telly equivalent of Ring Dings or Twinkies or whatever it was. (Oddly enough, I never eat that stuff.) They won. Yes, that is completely unlikely. Then again, no one ever thought that Big Tobacco would take a hit and they did. As usual, though, no dent was made - truly made - on the smoking industry. I don't see the food companies ever going to court and losing because they poison people as a whole.

They also follow trends more carefully and have made modifications to the different foods - sugar substitutes, caffeine-free items, fat-free items. Of course advertising has stepped in. Jelly Belly proudly displays NO FAT in their jelly beans. Of course there is no fat in the jelly beans. It is candy! Say it has NO SUGAR and then - wow! The taste would not be the same, but at least those who are diabetics could have them - more than two at a time.

One of the people I know has two young daughters. One is maybe five and has been diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. Type I is much more trying to manage and control than Type II, especially with kids. The younger one, maybe three, parades around eating a huge chocolate bar, and in front of her sister. I really felt like strangling the kid. I know their mother was feeling it, too... it was clear she did not like the younger girl's behaviour. She wasn't as obvious looking as I probably was, but it was not hidden, either. She even told me that the younger child had told her that her sister's condition was not her problem. And people think kids aren't mean.

Well, they say that. Obviously they know better but won't acknowledge it. I give the mother credit here. She sees it and has no trouble acknowledging it for what it is. She tried to manage the issue by keeping the younger one away from her sister. But it was hard with all that was going on and two kids that age - not to mention the many others kids that were around, and all the prevalent junk food.

More cogitating on our unhealthy society. I'm down on society a lot.