Barbara J. Hamby

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Food Fallacies

Once in a while, reading the microscopic ingredient lists on food products will reveal one that actually is “sugar free” or has “no sugar added.” Many packages, however, show that they contain “sucrose” or “malt dextrose” or “high fructose corn syrup” or some other pseudonym for sugar. Maybe these ingredients are not derived from cane or beets, but they are sugar, nonetheless.

Probably there is little hope that, in my lifetime, food processors will stop sweetening almost everything they touch.

If we don’t shop with a magnifying glass in hand and spend a lot of time reading labels, we can get a lot more sugar than we intend to. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic.

Some of us also have a sensitivity to “artificial” sweeteners that causes a laxative effect. If we also have a sweet tooth, we have a problem. Either we totally ignore our cravings (hard to do) or risk weight gain or unpleasant side effects if we eat sweets.

Since I’m too old and tired to lobby legislators or picket food processing plants, there’s little I can do to change things, but I can still whine and complain.