Back in my day . . .

Thankfully, after a long, hard, and sick winter, Dave and I are finally walking every day again. Getting back to our routine is wonderful, but it also reminded us recently of how different our childhoods were from the lives of kids today.

And that's because almost every time we walk through Kereiakes Park, we pass the playground on the far side of the park where kids play on the jungle gym, ride the swings, and—wait for it—eat fast food.

I am not kidding when I say that almost every single time we see a family at the playground, we also see a mom or dad cleaning up the fast food meal they just served their children.

We had seen it so many times that, after a while, we stopped noticing. But being away from the walking trail for weeks this year made us look at this now familiar scene with fresh eyes.

Four kids, two adults, six sets of hamburger wrappers, french fry cartons, and to-go cups.

What's wrong with this picture?

I think we all know.

"Did you ever take fast food to the park when you were little?" Dave asked me the other day. "When I was young, there was only one McDonald's on the entire west side of Cincinnati. And going there was a big deal, like going out to a fancy meal or something."

And he's right. When we were kids, going out to eat—fast food or otherwise—was a big deal. Sure, on a special occasion or holiday, our families took homemade picnics to the park, but now, for too many American kids fast food is a daily occurrence.

Though this is partly the fault of parents, it's hard to blame parents alone for this problem when there's a McDonald's on over corner. When you have to drive right past one on the way to the park, it's easy to wonder why you shouldn't stop and feed the kids while you're out?

(There is, in fact, a McDonald's, a Wendy's, a Rally's, and now even a Dairy Queen all within four blocks of Kereiakes Park.)

It's also hard to blame parents when it costs about two dollars to feed each kid at a McDonald's.

What's weird is that I really think a happy meal used to cost more when we were kids than it does now. Am I wrong or didn't a happy meal in the seventies used to cost three dollars and now they're just two bucks? Or maybe they're three now, I'm not sure.

Either way, that doesn't make any sense! We have had forty years of inflation, but prices at McDonald's have gone down, not up. How is that possible???

It's possible because technology is always making it easier to make our food even more processed, meaning that fast food is cheaper today because it's less real. It's also possible because the main ingredient in almost all American fast food is corn and/or corn syrup, and corn is heavily subsidized by the federal government in our country, which means that fast food restaurants can sell products made with corn byproducts cheaper than ever before.

Translation: our kids get fatter every time they eat fake, er, I mean fast food.

Sugary haze

196 pounds
As some of you may know from my post about Pepsi Throwback, I'm a fan of soda made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. Real sugar—or real anything (sugar, butter, cheese)—is almost always better for you than chemically processed sugar, so I've been thrilled to see a few soft drink companies bringing back soda made with beet or cane sugar.

While it's true that too much sugar—whether it's processed or not—isn't good for anyone, it's also true that in moderation it's better to have the real stuff than to shovel a bunch of carcinogenic chemicals in your body along with it.

And that's why Pepsi is introducing Sierra Mist Natural this weekend. Not only have they replaced the high fructose corn syrup with real sugar, they've also cut all the preservatives, which is a move I can definitely get behind since "Preservatives are toxic and tumor-causing. Most impact the nervous system, changing behavior. Some have an impact on reproductive health or weaken the immune system."*

But what's strange about this is the way I heard about, which was in an Associated Press article called, "Pepsi Giving Away Cans of Sugary Soda."

Say what?

The way this headline is written, it sounds like Pepsi is giving away soda made by Satan . . . or at least soda that is much worse for you than the average Pepsi, which seems like an odd choice given that the opposite is true—the new Sierra Mist Natural is better for you than the old Sierra Mist. So shouldn't the headline say, "Pepsi giving away cans of soda made with natural sugar" or "Pepsi giving away cans of soda without preservatives"? And am I crazy to think that the headline they did use is totally misleading? Am I crazy to think that it almost sounds like the reporter is trying to make Pepsi look bad?

The answer is, no, I'm not.

The article also claims that Pepsi has created this new drink to counteract the "slump in soft drink sales and a rise in sales of juices and teas, which are perceived as healthier than soda." Juice and teas are "perceived as healthier than soda"? Does that sound as funny to you as it does to me??? OF COURSE, juice and tea are healthier than soda. Because real juice is a great source of fruit and vitamins, and tea is rich in antioxidants. But the way this article was written makes it sound like that may not actually be the case.

The article also claims that there is "little scientific evidence" to show that "high fructose corn syrup is more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than sugar." But that's simply not the case. There actually have been several studies that have shown that high fructose corn syrup is worse for you than natural sugar—the most recent one out of Princeton University. Yes, it's true that the Corn Refiners Association questions this research, but to say that little evidence exists is just plain wrong.

So why did this reporter get so many of his facts wrong?

I'll never know for sure, but it almost seems like the article was written by the corn lobby, a group that is fighting very hard right now to re-brand "high fructose corn syrup" as "corn sugar" because Americans are finally learning about the problems with it and the giant subsidies the government gives to the corn industry.

And maybe that's exactly what happened with this article. Some lazy reporter got a press release from the Corn Refiners Association, and rather than check any of the facts, he simply copied the pertinent lines—"percieved as healthier than soda" . . . "little scientific evidence"—word for word. What's sad about this is that most people will probably take what he says as fact and think, "If it's in the newspaper, then it must be true."

Incidentally, as Michael Pollan explains in his bestselling book The Omnivore's Dilemma, corn farming "undermines small farmers, depletes soil nutrients and weakens topsoil—which, in turn leads to more fertilizer use, and further environmental damage."‡

All of this means that cutting back on high fructose corn syrup will be good for farming and good for our planet. Just one more reason I'm glad Sierra Mist Natural was invented.

* http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/231968/why_you_should_avoid_artificial_preservatives.html

‡ http://www.salon.com/food/feature/2010/03/26/high_fructose_corn_syrup_study