Trick-or-Treat: Food Monsters

By Emily Grady

Halloween is one of the best holidays of the year for children. Kids get to dress up in fun costumes, listen to ghost stories, and eat lots of candy! Parents usually tell terrifying stories about the evil cavities that may ensue if their children eat all their candy and dentists hand out toothbrushes. However, there’s a new boogeyman on the block this year and he’s dressed: as a food activist?

With the clamor about children’s health and the obesity rate in American children being almost twenty percent it is inevitable that this topic would come up near Halloween, which is one of the least healthy holidays of the year (CDC, 2010).  In the past the food boogeyman has put a hex on products like high fructose corn syrup, soda and other sweet sensations.

There is a cloud of misconception that concerns high fructose corn syrup. As it states in its name, it is made from corn. What could possibly be scary about corn? It is used in all sorts of products, but somehow it has been determined that it is the creeper in the closet making American children fat. However, as always science tends to ruin the mystique concerning these myths. This time the mythbuster was the American Medical Association who stated, “it does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners (AMA, 2008).” The American Dietetic Association also chimed in saying, “Most scientific experts now agree that high fructose corn syrup and sucrose produce similar effects on human metabolic responses (ADA, 2008).” Well now the boogeyman is out of the closet, but as we all know, there might be a monster under the bed as well.

The monster under the bed in this case is soda.  Somehow this innocent and refreshing beverage is spewing a blood bath the likes of which have only been seen in movies. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg with the help of his cohort New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley have launched a war against food and drink with soda at the center of it. It’s a blood bath the likes of which only Freddy and Jason could have attained. But these two manage to make soda consumption more gruesome than eating maggots on a ghost ship.  Last year the New York City health department launched an advertisement comparing drinking soda to drinking liquid fat (NYC Health, 2010). However, their advertisement was about as realistic as Frankenstein’s monster. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by six Harvard doctors surveyed over 14,000 American children and concluded that their data “did not offer support for the hypothesis that snacking promotes weight gain (NEJM, 2007).”

Unfortunately, these monsters are nothing compared to aliens! It seems that all we hear these days is that the American people need to go green, well personally when I think of green people I think aliens. In the movies brainwashing is a very popular tactic used by the aliens, as it seems to be in real life as well. Organic food groups have pushed for years saying that their product is healthier and doesn’t have the toxins that commercial agriculture leaves on the food. However, this statement is absurd as Lady Gaga’s fashion statements. In the words of Roberta Flack, chemicals in food are not “Killing me Softly.”

Organic food promoters such as the popular restaurant Chipotle promote “food with integrity.” They prefer using “meat from animals raised without the use of antibiotics or added hormones…organic and local produce…and dairy from cows raised without the use of synthetic hormones (Chipotle, 2010).” This sounds so healthy, but I dare you to eat an organic apple without washing it first, who knows maybe the apple Snow White ate was organic. The Food Standards Agency in Britain released a review earlier this year concerning the nutritional differences between organic and conventionally produced food which found “that there are no important differences in the nutrition content of, or any additional health benefits deriving from, organic food when compared with conventionally produced food (FSA, 2010).”

The difference between conventionally produced food and organic food is that organic food is supposedly pesticide free. However, if organic producers can’t use pesticides then what do they do to keep pests out of their crops? Well here’s a real fright, Guatemalan coffee farmers sometimes use fermented urine to deter pests (Avery, 2001). I hope you enjoy that hot cup of coffee because I think it’s a bit too “natural” for my taste.

As we learned in “War of the Worlds” one of the most unique things about this planet is its bacteria. As humans we have had to adapt to the climate and as such our bodies have become pros at removing toxins. Our livers and kidneys were specifically engineered to filter toxins out of our body. The world is full of toxins that we come into contact with every day. We shouldn’t be worried about eating high fructose corn syrup and drinking soda, we should be exercising and making sure we get plenty of sleep, ironic coming from a college student I know. Vegetables are not to be feared and “The Day of the Triffids” is not coming.

This Halloween we should have a clear conscience about eating that ever so delicious Snickers bar and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Who wants to be known as the neighbor giving out the raisins? Although, that neighbor handing out rice cakes and tofu may get a few extra eggs with their breakfast the next morning, unfortunately they will probably be on his house.  Either way eating healthy is a great goal to have, but just because there is a stereotype surrounding a type of food does not mean it is true.  Research food correctly and read labels for more than the calories alone. And for all those who still love organic food I suggest you watch the movie “Motel Hell,” that is some truly “all-natural” sausage they make!

ADA. 2008. “High Fructose Corn Syrup and Weight Status.” American Dietetic

Association. http://sweetsurprise.com/sites/default/files/

ADAHotTopicHFCS.pdf

AMA. 2008. “AMA finds high fructose syrup unlikely to be more harmful to health

than other caloric sweetners.” American Medical Association.

http://sweetsurprise.com/sites/default/files/AMARelease6-17-08.pdf

Avery, Alex. 2001.  “The Deadly Chemicals inorganic Food.” New York Post.

            http://www.cgfi.org/2001/06/the-deadly-chemicals-in-organic-food/

CDC. 2010. “Childhood Overweight and Obesity”. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/index.html

Chipotle. 2010. “Food with Integrity?” Chipotle. http://www.chipotle.com/

en-US/fwi/fwi.aspx

Christakis, Nicholas A. and James H. Fowler. 2007. “The Spread of Obesity in a Large

Social Network over 32 Years.” N Engl J Med 2007; 357:370-379

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082

FSA. 2010. “Systematic review of differences in nutrient content of organically and

conventionally produced food.” Food Standards Agency.

http://www.food.gov.uk/science/research/choiceandstandardsresearch/

consumerchoicestandards/l01list/organicreview/

NYC Health. 2010. “Pouring on the Pounds.” New York City Department of Health

              and Mental Hygiene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F4t8zL6F0c