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[av_heading heading=’JUST ANOTHER DAY | It’s the sugar that makes you fat, not fat…’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Friday, March 17, 2017
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WE’VE been talking about corrupt politicians and assassination plots that are definitely not pleasant, let alone sweet. For a change let’s talk about something sweet but not necessarily sweet in the sense of the word. Yes, it’s sweet but it’s also about greed and stupidity and too much of it will make you fat.
Unknown to most people there’s a serious confrontation, perhaps a battle, going on in Bacolod City. And it will affect the region’s number one agricultural industry and the country’s economy, particularly the soft drinks manufacturing sector and the health of the natives of the archipelago.
Yes people, we are going to talk about sugar!
To give you an idea why is there a fuss about sugar which to most people means: hacienda, hacienderos, sakada, the rich and famous with their opulent lifestyles in Bacolod but I’m sure only a few connotes it with soft drinks. Here’s some excerpts from the March 15 issue of Panay News:
“BACOLOD City – Sugar industry stakeholders are staging a rally against the use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) on March 20.
“Protesters will call for the boycott of beverage companies using the alternative sweetener, specifically Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, Inc.
“Participants hope the two-hour rally in front of the Coca-Cola plant in Barangay Mansilingan will become ‘the biggest in years’ against the company.
“The planned protest contributes to the mounting pressure from sugar producers for industry users to reduce the importation and use of the HFCS, which they claim is hurting local planters and farm workers.
“Planters and other farmworkers, agrarian reform beneficiaries, and other sectors are expected to join the rally led by the Confederation of Sugar Producers Cooperative.
“‘Boycott’ is ‘the only language Coke (Coca-Cola) understands,’ according to Nick Ledesma of the First Farmers Association.’”
And now you’re having some idea of what sugar is all about aside from putting it in your coffee every morning.
Well, it looks like the sugar industry is seriously affected by this High-Fructose Corn Syrup or HFCS. Just how serious, let’s put it this way – the more HFCS that comes in and eventually replaces cane sugar (yes, you guess it) it means the end of the sugar industry that we know.
I guess the hacienderos in Bacolod will just go back to “prawns” as they did in the late ‘70s when the sugar industry also went down. Of course, we all know that the “prawns farming” failed and along the way spawned a virus that still affects the prawn industry.
So what is High-Fructose Corn Syrup or HFCS anyway?
According to Wikipidea: “High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) (also called glucose-fructose, isoglucose and glucose-fructose syrup is a sweetener made from corn starch that has been processed by glucose isomerase to convert some of its glucose into fructose. HFCS was first marketed in the early 1970s by the Clinton Corn Processing Company, together with the Japanese Agency of Industrial Science and Technology where the enzyme was discovered in 1965.”
In short it’s artificial sugar and yes it’s cheaper than cane sugar, hence the preference by soft drinks companies, the biggest market for sugar, over the much more expensive cane sugar.
People, take note these soft drinks companies are there for profit and will do anything even if it eventually kills the consumer just to make money.
Just to give you an idea that sugar is bad for you, much more with artificial sugar, here’s some excerpts from an article in the Huffington Post by Elizabeth Rider:
“If you haven’t heard by now, eating fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat. But too much sugar does. The notion that fat makes you fat has dominated our culture and public policy for over five decades, but as nutrition science has evolved, we finally now understand that dietary fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat. In fact, good fats in the right amounts are vital to a healthy body.
“When consumers began avoiding fatty food like cheese, cream, meats, nuts, butter, etc., the food industry had to come up with ideas to keep selling products that tasted good despite not having the savory flavors usually accompanied by fatty ingredients. You see, fat equals flavor. When you take out the fat, you’ve got to replace it with something appealing. Manufacturers started adding sugar, and lots of it! Even in savory food. Crackers are a good example of this. Check out the nutrition label on fat-free crackers and you’ll see boatloads of sugar listed.”
And to cap this sweet article, here’s more from Mark Hyman, MD of the Huffington Post:
“As part of the chemical process used to make high fructose corn syrup, the glucose and fructose — which are naturally bound together — become separated. This allows the fructose to mainline directly into your liver, which turns on a factory of fat production in your liver called lipogenesis.
“This leads to fatty liver, the most common disease in America today. This, in turn, leads to diabesity — pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes. So, high fructose corn syrup is the real driver of the current epidemic of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, dementia, and of course, Type 2 diabetes./PN
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