Surviving The 21st Century

Surviving The 21st Century - The Corn Refiners Association And More

Radio Wrap For November/13

It was another busy program, this week on Surviving The 21st Century I was joined by the husband and wife writing and research team of Mannie Barling and Ashley Brooks. Also on the panel were Dr. Daniel Dantini, and his wife Chris Dantini. Dr. Dantini has done considerable research in t5he area of delayed food intolerance. He and his wife Chris run Sage Medical Labs which specializes in analysis of intolerances and allergies.

The program began with me explaining my adventures over the prior couple of days. There is quite a debate raging over a substance that seems to be in virtually every packaged or canned food, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Although a ’sweetener’ it is used in a plethora of applications.

As the name implies it is a sugar derived from corn. However it involves a chemical process somewhat akin to what is found in a Meth Lab, it is about as natural as Don Kings hair style!

But is this Frankensugar safe? The food industry say it is, the FDA says it is, and the scientific studies say it is. However it must be understood that these ’scientific studies’ are funded by groups with a vested interest. It is analogous to the Tobacco industry research into the long term effects of smoking and the ‘non’ addictive nature of nicotine!

While out shopping I noticed a bottle of Hunts Ketchup that was emblazoned with the news that it contained no High Fructose Corn Syrup. My interest was piqued, if HFCS was no different from sugar, why would Hunts make such a big fuss?

Not being shy by nature, I decided to investigate. Requests for information from Hunts, and the parent company ConAgra have been ignored. If there is one thing that truly annoys me, it is being ignored!

My next port of call was the Corn Refiners Association, for those of you not familiar with the CRA, they are essentially the industry sponsored mouthpiece for the world of High Fructose Corn Syrup. They call Washington DC home, which of course is a very convenient location for being a lobbying group.

My first telephone call was fielded by a nice lady by the name of Shannon (McNamara?) who explained that I needed to talk to the director of communications, David Knowles, however he was unavailable for the next two weeks (I had to wonder if he was off on a sugar high?). I explained that that time frame was not good, I was merely looking for a comment about the Hunts situation. She promised me an email by close of play Friday. By 4:30 eastern I had not received the promised comment and called back. An unidentified woman fielded the call, and explained that Shannon was unavailable. However my name had obviously set alarms off as I was asked to hold. On the line came Audrae Erickson the president of the Corn Refiners Association.

I gave my pitch one more time, she avoided addressing the issue, however promised to email me a written comment right away. Now this is where it gets interesting, she already knew my email addy! I can only assume that my chat with Shannon had put the CRA SWAT (Sugar Wannabe Association Tacticians) Team on high alert.

That was Friday, today is Tuesday and I am still patiently waiting. Maybe some High Fructose Corn Syrup got spilled on the CRA’s email server?

There were a number of ways that the Corn Refiners Association, Hunts, and ConAgra could have fielded my inquiry that would have been sensible. Ignoring me, or as in the case of Audrae Erickson, deflecting the question has done nothing but increase my interest in High Fructose Corn Syrup. If it is functionally as benign as we are being led to believe why be so defensive? It makes me wonder if there there is an agenda involved. No doubt it would be called the Corn Refiners Association Program, or CRAP for short!

I am also annoyed that the big CRAP (Corn Refiners Association President) Audrae Erickson has obviously decided that my questions are not worth bothering with.

Oh, and that was just the beginning of Saturdays program

If you missed the live broadcast you can listen to the recording here

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/simon-barrett/2010/11/13/surviving-the-21st-century--omg

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