As a youngster from the South, I thought cane sugar was the only kind there was. Then, four years at a California university didn’t change that. The Safeways of the area sold cane sugar in 5 and 10 pound sacks.
In my first job, a news producer at KFJM-FM and KFJM-AM, Public Radio for the Upper Red River Valley, I didn’t look at the label when I bought sugar for the apartment. It tasted and looked like sugar.
I soon learned it was beet not cane sugar, and the package said so. When North Dakota farmers didn’t grow wheat, they raised sugar beets. Reddish of course, but not the racquetball size lumps that define dinner-table beets — we’re just talking, kids, not forcing you to eat them — these seemed just a little smaller than soccer balls. The sugar you bought in Grand Forks was just as white and granular and tasted right. Cane sugar was not to be found anywhere in the upper Midwest!
Similarly but nationwide these days, we consumers cannot buy high fructose corn syrup, and that’s a shame, because if it’s good enough for Coca-Cola and Nabisco and General Mills and Kellogg, why not packaged in small portions for home baking, if not cereal sprinkling?
HFCS, as it’s called in the food biz, has been getting tainted with vague publicity. No one can find anything wrong with it, but its extraordinarily wide presence in common grocery items makes sensitive sorts suspect conspiracy. In response, the Corn Refiners Association has started a marketing campaign for the high-octane sweetener. (Just corn syrup, though “dark” or “light” sometimes is prefixed to it, doesn’t bother anybody who can metabolize simple carbohydrates, especially if they love pecan pie, yum.)
Ads saying HFCS is just as natural as table sugar or honey may not go far enough, once the campaign begins in earnest in September. Let’s see the product sold in Wal-Mart. It wouldn’t scare people if we could buy it by the jar. Think of the healthy public relations if it was on store shelves, next to the guar gum.
Oh, that’s over in the — which aisle? Maybe you cannot buy guar gum retail either. There are, however, those obscure processed-food ingredients you can buy, if you know where to look. Ascorbic acid and soy lecithin probably are available at your town’s earthy store. I’ve baked with the latter two, finding them at Ozark Natural Foods.
Meanwhile, I use Splenda occasionally, keep it at the house. It’s shelved by the sugar in baking supplies at all the supermarkets. It does have a slight bitterness, but less than other artificial sweeteners. Cola fanatics can tell which use HFCS and which sugar, which never is labeled beet or cane on the can. I’ve heard them call HFCS drinks too sweet.
Let’s help the Corn Refiners Association. It probably has its hands full with cutting gasoline with ethanol. Let’s give it a real marketing campaign, geared to consumers. How about a couple of slogans?
- Hey, Sweetie, Get High on Fructose.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup — just as sweet as sugar — but three times the syllables!
Until I can buy table sugar made from sugar beets in the South — is it banned? — I’ll get HFCS, just as soon as it’s available. Can’t beat it.
