I don’t care what anyone says: high fructose corn syrup is delicious. So maybe it’s not technically considered “good for you,” but according to whom? The FDA? The CDC? Doctors? What do they know? If I operated solely under their guidelines, I’m pretty sure I would fall somewhere under the classification of irresponsible “binge drinker,” whose internal organs have been irreparably damaged by overconsumption of aspartame and bottom-shelf Russian vodka. Does that sound like an apt description of me? I don’t think so. So like I said, what do they know? Except how to kill my buzz apparently.
It was Halloween recently, so I was eating a lot of candy, and that goes without saying, high fructose corn syrup and a lot of other artificial shit. Don’t worry, Doc, I’ll take a multivitamin and wash it down with an ice-cold Coke Zero. I may have mentioned this before, but I have the palate of an obese child from Mississippi, and to me, Halloween is the greatest day of the entire year. I could eat candy until I lapsed into a diabetic coma. And my thrice daily s’mores-flavored candy corn habit was probably about to land me there – deep-seeded molar cavities and all. Candy corn Oreos? Those are real, too.
Now that Smith’s and Albertson’s have moved all the Halloween-specific candy into the 59-cent shopping carts and restocked their shelves with Christmas-inspired confections, I’ll have to return to some of my former sugar fixes. If you know me at all, then you know I tend to visit Jackson Whole Grocer occasionally and have (unfortunately) discovered their non-GMO gummy bears, Swedish fish and sour gummy worms. They are delectable, and — wait for it — free of genetically modified organisms. The gummy worms even have vitamins in them. Says so right on the package.
Riddle me this, though. Maybe I like genetically modified organisms. Maybe I think the Red 40 in the Kroger-brand gummy bears I usually eat is delicious. And maybe I’m not going to freak out that it will give me cancer … or scurvy … or gout … or Ebola. Do you think I care that one of the ingredients in the bread I eat was also used to make my yoga mat? I don’t. So spare me the apocalyptic predictions that I’m going to die because I’ve eaten one too many sandwiches from Subway in my day. Take out the azodicarbonamide, a bleaching agent and dough conditioner that was until recently in Subway breads and is also used in yoga mats, and there are probably 100 other chemicals in mass-produced, low-cost sub rolls that will kill you … depending on which fruitcake, gluten-free food blogger you are deciding to trust this week. And if this azodicarbonamide really is that toxic, it’s a good thing I’ve only used my yoga mat twice … because mine is from Kmart, so you know it is made out of the cheapest, most unregulated stuff out there.
Don’t sweat the artificial. The guidelines of some government agency with some acronym you can never remember always seem to have a problem with something I am doing in my life, and you know what? The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate regardless of what you do. Ok, so maybe those guys in the white coats with that M.D. after their names know a thing or two about biology and human anatomy. I’ll concede that. But in moderation, most things are not going to kill you. Ebola might, but aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, bleaching agents — you’re not going to die. So lighten up, pass the Cheetos and get this quinoa (I prefer to pronounce it quin-o-a) out of my face. I don’t want to eat “a grain crop grown primarily for its edible seeds.” I’m not a fucking bird.
