The American Diet

I used to think that the European uproar over American food in general and GMO's & additives in particular was simply another example of anti-american hysteria. But now I've really started to wonder.

I read recently that the average US Citizen eats over 60 pounds of corn syrup every years. When was the last time you remember sprinkling Karo over your wheaties? My mom is a good cook and she goes through, like, 1 bottle a year. And my god, do you know how many products you can find dextrose or malto-dextrose in? It's all over the place!

For those of you in the peanut gallery, dextrose is a tasteless complex carbohydrate that is added to many, many foods as a flowability agent (I think it prevents caking). Granted, our bodies can't digest dextrose but the intestinal flora & fauna in our digestive tracts can. And what is consumed encourages growth...

My larger point is that a lot of things are being put into our food supply that we're not aware of. Not that I'm a tinfoil-hat freak, but you really don't want to know about the processes that create trans-fats or how Splenda is really made...