Friday, March 13, 2009
Corn Wars
Peter May's take-down of corporate corn is worth the read. I saw that the post was in the printed version of The Transcript, but it is not online.
I noticed the letter to the editor that triggered Peter's comments. It was a long winded public relations form letter from the Corn Refiners Association that obviously gets sent out when a Google search turns up negative comments about refined corn products. It was in response to a simple comment in an article from a coffee shop owner that she did not use high fructose corn syrup.
I've become used to the corporate machine PR trying to monitor its own press, (anybody remember Blue Cross of Massachusetts' visits to the site 37 minutes after I complained about them on this blog?) so it did not escape me that corn is heavily subsidized, hence much of the money that pays for the salary of the letter-happy folks at the CRA are actually our tax dollars. It's just the way corporate welfare works. Lobbying groups are created with subsidized tax dollars in order to keep the financial spigot open.
I'll monitor the location of blog hits and let you know if I get any from the Corn Refiners Association triggered by the words "high fructose corn syrup." My bet is that they'll be here by Monday morning.
Sigh. ¶ 4:16 PM
I noticed the letter to the editor that triggered Peter's comments. It was a long winded public relations form letter from the Corn Refiners Association that obviously gets sent out when a Google search turns up negative comments about refined corn products. It was in response to a simple comment in an article from a coffee shop owner that she did not use high fructose corn syrup.
I've become used to the corporate machine PR trying to monitor its own press, (anybody remember Blue Cross of Massachusetts' visits to the site 37 minutes after I complained about them on this blog?) so it did not escape me that corn is heavily subsidized, hence much of the money that pays for the salary of the letter-happy folks at the CRA are actually our tax dollars. It's just the way corporate welfare works. Lobbying groups are created with subsidized tax dollars in order to keep the financial spigot open.
I'll monitor the location of blog hits and let you know if I get any from the Corn Refiners Association triggered by the words "high fructose corn syrup." My bet is that they'll be here by Monday morning.
Sigh. ¶ 4:16 PM
Comments:
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You better believe that the corporate counter-insurgency is at work. WalMart is another outfit that has a staff of spinners that try to dampen down any criticism of that chain.
We are lucky in the Northern Berkshires that we have so many farms and independent farm stands to help people like me learn more about the foods we eat.
When Michael Pollan visited Williams for a lecture about 18 months ago, he described many of the items that use refined corn products as "food like substances." Not only are the genetics different in industrially raised corn, but the chemical and mechanical processing makes it just one more additive to the packaged goods we end up buying.
Just as trans fats were found to be a poor substitute for butter, expect time to prove HFCS had a role in the huge increase in the incidence of diabetes.
We are lucky in the Northern Berkshires that we have so many farms and independent farm stands to help people like me learn more about the foods we eat.
When Michael Pollan visited Williams for a lecture about 18 months ago, he described many of the items that use refined corn products as "food like substances." Not only are the genetics different in industrially raised corn, but the chemical and mechanical processing makes it just one more additive to the packaged goods we end up buying.
Just as trans fats were found to be a poor substitute for butter, expect time to prove HFCS had a role in the huge increase in the incidence of diabetes.
i'm thinking...
if the corn refiners association of america spotted that one sentence ("we want everything to be healthy...we don't use HFCS") in a 4-page small town paper and mobilized their media swat team response...what will they do when they see my article?
this could prove more 'dangerous' than my 8 years of writing about bush and calling for his impeachment!
i keep looking over my shoulder for ninja corn refiners, but i don't know what they look like.
i'm sleeping with one eye open and two EARS of organic corn so i can hear them trying to sneak up on me!
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if the corn refiners association of america spotted that one sentence ("we want everything to be healthy...we don't use HFCS") in a 4-page small town paper and mobilized their media swat team response...what will they do when they see my article?
this could prove more 'dangerous' than my 8 years of writing about bush and calling for his impeachment!
i keep looking over my shoulder for ninja corn refiners, but i don't know what they look like.
i'm sleeping with one eye open and two EARS of organic corn so i can hear them trying to sneak up on me!
# posted by 
: 7:49 PM
: 7:49 PM<< Home
