I often apologize to you, oh loyal 3 or 4 readers (or 8 or 10, as my "followers" list is now telling me), for going long stretches without posting anything. I realize that I have recently been on an exceptionally long stretch, and that is partly due to to all of my usual excuses (busy! BUSY!!) as well as the fact that I've also been overseas.
Just the other day I returned home from an amazing 12 day trip with my family to Israel and Jordan. I absolutely love to travel abroad and it had been a few years since my last jaunt across the pond. Add that to the fact that Israel ranked #1 in my list of places in the world I hadn't yet been and reeaally wanted to see, I was giddy with excitement both leading up to and during the entire trip. This trip did not disappoint.
One of the things I love most about my travels is learning and experiencing different cultures. And one of the curious cultural differences between Israelis and Americans, we all quickly noticed, is that Israelis really don't drink. They have started experimenting with vineyards and wine production-- which really makes a lot of sense considering Israel's strategic location off the Mediterranean and hilly terrain-- and we enjoyed more than a few very tasty bottles of wine. But look around the average restaurant at dinner time and you will see most people drinking soda or water, with maybe the occasional table sporting just one glass of wine. The concept of having a cocktail while we perused the menu was very foreign to almost all of our waiters. We threw around many different theories of why they don't really drink but who knows if any are correct. To someone like me who has spent a lot of time in Europe, where there must be something wrong with you if you don't have a glass of wine in your hand at all times, this was all very strange.
We realized that something must be up our first full night in Eilat, a resort town in the south of the country right on the Red Sea (and in case you're wondering, the sea is in fact a brilliant blue). Before dinner we decided to grab a cocktail at a bar with comfortable outdoor couches and toast the beginning of what was going to be a spectacular adventure. My mom and sis-in-law got a glass of wine, I got some sort of a fru-fru cocktail because it was made with either a pomegranate or fig liqueur (both native plants), and my brother and dad each ordered a vodka on the rocks (which I had the foresight to explain to our patient waiter that "on the rocks" meant "with ice") with two olives and a twist of lemon peel.
The waiter did not return for a while. We joked that perhaps we had a trick order.
When he did finally return with our order, the wine and fru-fru drink were passed with ease. Only then did we realize the reason for the long delay: The glass of vodka set in front of my brother had no ice and two lonely olives bobbing haphazardly around the glass instead of being anchored on a toothpick. My father received a glass with just vodka. The waiter then set down a separate glass filled with nothing but ice, a small plate of olives, and a small plate of lime (not lemon) slices. It was clear that the bartender had never before received an order for a vodka on the rocks with olives and a twist. It ended up being do-it-yourself cocktail night!
Suffice it to say, we got the message very quickly that ordering cocktails was going to be a challenge in this country. And it was. To emphasize the point further: on our very last night before we returned to the States, my brother and dad ordered the very same cocktail before dinner (at this point they had learned to specify whether they wanted ice on the side or in the glass, and pretty much gave up on the concept of olives and a twist). The drinks arrived in a highball glass with a bright blue plastic bendy straw.
So went the tide for the duration of our trip. I mostly stuck with wine. However, there was one evening where the waiter showed up and first asked us if we wanted a cocktail of some sort, even suggesting a gin and tonic. I was encouraged: not only did he understand the concept of the pre-dinner cocktail, he even knew what a gin and tonic was! Considering the G&T is one of my favorite cocktails, I decided to pounce on the opportunity. My drink arrived without incident: a highball glass filled about 2/3 full with gin (par-TAAY!) and a small bottle of Schwepp's tonic water on the side.
Meh, close enough. But of course the Au Naturale side of me automatically went to investigate the ingredient list of the tonic water as I had an instinct that it would look different than it does in the States. I was not wrong. While there were still the same fishy "natural flavors" and a few other not-so-natural items, the most conspicuous difference is that this tonic contained sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
I had pretty much expected as such, considering HFCS is quite an American invention. But then I became curious: are there any countries outside of the US that use HFCS? Once I returned state-side, I decided to investigate.
It's interesting that when you do a search for details of HFCS, the thing you find the most is the never-ending debate on whether HFCS is the same or worse for you than pure cane sugar. Some say it is the proliferation of this corn-derived substance that is the driving force of obesity and diabetes in this country, that our bodies react to it in a different, and decidedly worse way, than natural sugar. Others, most vocally the corn growers of America, insist that sugar is sugar no matter what form it comes in. There have been studies done that compare people who eat X amount of grams a day of HFCS as part of their diet to those who eat the same amount in pure sugar, but some have been discredited because they isolated just the fructose and sucrose into individual forms as opposed to doing the studies with the substances combined into food. The debate is enough to make your head spin.
But what I learned that I found the most interesting is not that yes, America creates and consumes more HFCS than any other country in the world, even though other countries do use some of it, but why. We all know that HFCS is much cheaper than cane sugar which is why you find it in everything. It's also easier to transport because HFCS is a liquid. But it's the extreme government corn subsidies paid to farmers, paired with a high tariff and restrictions on sugar imports, that are the main driving forces behind the low cost. I knew that corn sugar in the US is extraordinarily cheap, but I was unaware of the import factor. In other countries, it would cost more to built the systems needed to convert corn into HFCS than just use the natural stuff. This is why Schwepps uses sugar in their Israeli tonic water and HFCS in their American version. And therein you find so much of what is wrong in the our food industry today.
I, for one, do not consider HFCS to be an acceptable ingredient in the Au Naturale lifestyle. Health debate aside, I have to wonder really how good it is for us to eat any substance that has been broken down, twisted, and reformulated so many times (and in a lab, no less) that it no longer really resembles food. Yes, yes, people will say that HFCS is "natural" because it comes from corn and corn is natural, but you could make a similar argument about a lot of additives (and the food industry certainly does). This is not the same as taking a kernel of corn and just squeezing it hard enough that you get drops of sugar. This is pretty much changing the molecular compound to create something entirely different.
I believe that being healthy does not need to involve breaking down foods into each individual element and then pulling out those elements to be used in a vacuum. Why not just eat the original food in the first place? Enjoying an orange does a lot more for your body than just popping a vitamin C pill. So why should I eat something like HFCS that has to go through such a complicated process to resemble something that I can just eat in its natural form? I am no scientist and certainly do not have all the research, but I just can't believe that something formulated in a lab is as equally good for me (or has the same effect) as something I can find in nature. Our bodies are just not designed for that.
So there is my rant for the day. Of course you are free to disagree with me. But now that I am back in the States and able to make myself a proper cocktail, I will continue to happily make G&Ts with my current favorite brand, Q Tonic. Ingredients: filtered water, organic agave, bitters, handpicked quinine, and lemon juice extract. Tastes great. No laboratory needed.
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