“Real” sugar
I heard an ad last night for Pepsi Retro, or something like that (I’m not interested in getting the name right; I won’t be buying it), and it raises a couple of interesting points.
First, I generally don’t care for processed foods. I eat some of them, so it’s not a puritanical thing, but I am convinced that their use is inversely proportional to health. (Speaking just from my experience, I used to eat a lot of it, and I was enormously unhealthy (not to mention enormous), and I’ve gradually moved away from it and grown enormously more healthy. I am not, of course, the originator of this notion; nor am I alone or particularly clever about it.) So the fact that a large beverage manufacturer has shifted from one processed ingredient to another is not big big news.
And yet, it is. What this large corporation is saying (without saying it, of course), is that they’ve decided to make a product with “real” sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. Many readers will already know that high fructose corn syrup is in a huge range of products, and that the explosion of its use in processed foods in the ’70s coincides with the explosion of obesity in America. Fewer readers know about Dr. Rick Johnson’s work that implicates HFCS is a range of other diseases as well.
I don’t think for a moment that Pepsi has seen the light on HFCS; I’ve no doubt they’re still one of the most prolific purchasers of HFCS on the planet. But the company must see a market opening; that’s just about the only reason a corporation makes any product decision. For me, this is proof that those who are wary, or worse, about HFCS have gone from fringe element to market segment, which is a huge leap in a consumer-driven universe.
I went looking today for details about the product, and what I found was inconclusive. In February, the website Serious Eats reported that Pepsi would sell Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback (OK, fine, that’s the name; am I the only one who hears an echo for “Pepsi Throw up”? That’s probably unkind to the good folks at Pepsi.) for a limited period, from April 20 to June 13. It observed that “around the same time, Coca-Cola usually rolls out limited-edition Kosher for Passover Coke, also made with real sugar since observant Jews cannot have corn products, hence no HFCS.” So, it may be no more than that.
But I think it is at least a market trial, to see if consumers are interested in a “real” sugar product. With caffeine-free, diet Cherry Vanilla Coke and a hundred other varieties, the soda giants have already shown they’ll sell whatever sells, so this would be just an extension of that. And by announcing it as temporary, they leave themselves an exit strategy without a down side, because if it does sell, they can just say they’ve changed their mind in the face of overwhelming popular demand.
You may have noted my use of quote marks in referring to “real” sugar, since HFCS is definitely real. Just like table sugar, it is the result of a industrial processes in which a grown substance is broken down into parts, some of the parts are removed, thereby intensifying other parts compared to the same volume.
This is what refinement is. Wheat, for example, is a plant. It has a husk, a germ, a bran, and other parts. You can buy it in different stages of refinement — wheat germ, wheat bran, whole wheat flour and white flour are some examples.
I always like to point out that heroin is derived the same way, by growing a plant, and then removing some parts and keeping others. No, I’m not saying white flour and sugar are the same as heroin, but they both originate as agricultural products and undergo very similar processes.
And yes, I do think that, for some people — including myself — refined substances can have grave effects. I eat no sugar and no flour, because my experience is that these substances are bad for me.
I don’t do heroin either.