This graph shows you why the Sweet Surprise campaign promoting High Fructose Corn Syrup effectively shot itself in the foot. The top blue line represents worldwide Google searches for the phrase “high fructose corn syrup” since 2004. The bottom blue line represents the number of times “high fructose corn syrup” appeared in Google News stories over the same period of time.
Allow me to summarize:
2004 - Little to no awareness of high fructose corn syrup.
2005 - Shhh….it’s still quiet.
2006 - Dum de dum de dum, whoops…a small bump in the road.
2007 - We’re still in the clear…keep putting that sludge into food products.
2008 - Somehow we continue to get away with this….OH MY GOD!!!!
That, my friends, is how you design a horrible, horrible roller coaster.
The key is in the numbered flags, which represent major news stories: lawsuit settlements, scientific analysis, debunking scientific analysis, ruling against the Mexican HFCS tax, etc. Notice that across the entire four years, major news coverage regarding high fructose corn syrup did not translate into increased consumer awareness or interest (when people are interested in something, they Google it). The two lines do not seem to correlate at all.
From a news perspective, things appeared to get rough in 2007 and 2008, with many more bursts of stories covering this overlord of cheap calories. But yet, the googling trends remain flat.
What in the name of government subsidies happened in August of 2008? That’s right: the Sweet Surprise Campaign launched with primetime TV commercials promoting high fructose corn syrup. I’ve written about it before (and you should absolutely click thru and watch the commercials), but if Google is any guide (and it is), the Corn Refiners Association screwed up big time and brought attention to a problem that barely existed.
But don’t stop now, your commercials continue to amuse and entertain the enlightened eaters in TV land. At a time like this, there is really only one thing to say:
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Your article is very interesting. It forced me to go back and do a little research about HFCS. I had not thought about it for a very long time and it would seem that the myths surrounding the substance, the negative effects it has on your body, just became ingrained into my psyche. Taking a second look and realizing that yet another one of those “facts” that came off the evening news a couple decades ago not only answers some questions but may also open up some new avenues regarding the food I eat.
Question: First, if at all, how does this effect the U.S. corn industry? Second, does it have any possible effects on the small farmer? In other words, could news like this create a boost for the small farmers across the U.S.?
Which “fact” are you talking about? I agree that reading through the site does raise some questions, and it does a fairly decent job of pointing out that maybe it isn’t that much “worse” than sugar. More than the substance itself, the main danger in my opinion is it’s uses…it is added to SO many foods, that we’re overloading ourselves on cheap, worthless calories without realizing it.
To answer your questions: How does this effect the corn industry? Unless we see widespread bans (like transfats in NYC), I don’t a shift away from HFCS will be sudden enough to make a big impact. Our processed foods are showing up in developing countries more and more…which is just another great outlet for all the excess corn in our country.
If you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you see that much of our current food choices are a result of growing too much corn in this country (thanks to corn being a “supercrop” and government subsidies that encourage growing as much as possible, even when there is no demand to support it). All this corn has to go somewhere, so it is fed to livestock (whose bodies cannot process it) and processed into high fructose corn syrup.
To be clear, I don’t think the commercials will increase acceptance of HFCS. If you were already against it, they won’t change your mind. People who didn’t know or were on the fence have now had the issue brought to their attention, and many will become anti through their own research on the subject, regardless of the commercials and website.
Semi-relatedly, I do think there is a slow trend boosting interest in small farms across the country that coincides with the growing interest in farmers markets and increased awareness of the need to pay attention to what we are putting in our bodies.
Follow up anecdote. I mentioned this research in the comments of the YouTube video, and flasht75 just posted:
“You are exactly right–my boss drinks tons of cokes and I asked him if he’d seen these ads and he said yes. Now he is wondering why they’re saying it’s ‘okay in moderation’ at all! LMAO!!!”
Thanks for commenting on my blog
I’ll have to spend a bit checking out yours… looks like you’ve got some interesting stuff.
The best way to support small farmers is to buy and eat locally grown vegetables. Using more corn only supports the corporate farms of the Archer Daniels Midland conglomerate - the driving force behind the unnecessary, mindless government subsidy of growing more and more corn at a cost of $5 billion per year to taxpayers.
One good thing has come from this…Mexican Coca Cola is becoming more readily available, and Pepsi throwback. Taste test the American HFCS swill pepsi/coke, and they taste very much the same. Test Mexican Coke and Pepsi throwback, and there in a difference that anyone with tastebuds notices–and that is the way the two brands used to taste before Corn.
Bill, I saw the packaging for Pepsi Throwback…it says “made with real sugar”. Don’t you think that will make people start to wonder what regular Pepsi is made from?