Go Fructose Yourself

“Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but things have been pretty fucked up.” -Jim Anchower

“I like Tabasco™ flavored Slim Jims ™” - Mezzo

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). You know that “Fructose” has a short “u”, right? You’ve probably been mispronouncing this word your entire life. It’s not pronounced “frook-tose”. Don’t feel sheepish, just add an “r” to the word that describes what the Executive branch is doing to the American people. Frucking. Fructose. Good job! Words matter, just ask the TERFs.

   

So anyway, back to HFCS. We have the Nips to thank for this invisible enemy, although there is evidence that the United States funded the lab that first produced the key gain-of-function enzyme in the 1960s at a time when Japan couldn’t build a reliable car let alone bioweapon. This was their long play after Nagasaki. They cozied up to us, told us we have huge penises, and then asked us to help them take good ol’ harmless glucose, a simple sugar made by plants, and weaponize it by converting it into fructose (You’re pronouncing the word correctly in your head, yes? FRUCK-TOAST). This demonic alchemy resulted in isoglucose, a chemical that does not exist in caves, or in wet markets, or even in that little bottle of granulated sugar on your grandmother’s kitchen table. Then, in the 1970’s, it “escaped” the lab (i.e. intentionally released), and has now infected food products everywhere, including Tabasco™ flavored Slim Jims™.

I know you’re thinking in your high-pitched Michael Jackson voice, “But Mezzo, fructose occurs naturally in nature; in fruits and vegetables, picked lovingly by Guatemalans, and packaged into Blue Apron meals and enjoyed by food-hypochondriacs as part of their gluten-free diet.” 

What you’re missing, jackass, is that naturally occurring fructose is mostly harmless as the fiber in fructose-containing foods mitigate spikes in blood sugar. As long as you aren’t eliminating the fiber and mainlining fructose (e.g. drinking Orange Juice), it can contribute to a healthy diet*. Unlike fructose, HFCS is a disease agent that destroys nations from within. Death by a thousand doughnuts. Look at us! Fatty liver disease, obesity, diabetes. And these are just a few of the illnesses that Primera now struggles with after the Bukkakese decided to play God in the laboratory over collateral war damage two decades prior. The goal of war is to “kill people and break things” and we just happened to be more efficient than anyone else in history, but that doesn’t justify the use of biological warfare in retaliation, particularly after we rebuilt the country and taught them how to play baseball**. Today, the cost of obesity in the United States is $150 billion/year, and people don’t care! They’re like “Well, Count Chocula doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup, so what’s the big deal?” which isn’t even a logical argument in the dialectical sense. They are resigned to be poisoned by a large proportion of their processed food. The rotund roll over easily, I guess. 

And to think we helped them! How stupid would the United States have to be to provide this type of funding to an enemy! Thank God we learned our lesson! U.S.A! U.S.A! 

*I think I was in my 30s prior to learning that fruit juice, from a chemical perspective, is basically the same as soda. At the time, I thought mixing my drinks with grapefruit juice was a prophylactic to the ill-effects of the tremendous amounts of gin & vodka I was drinking, but this is sadly not the case.

**Do you know what our military called the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki? Fat Man. Revenge is a dish best served with sugar on top.

ADDENDUM I read a bit of nutrition journalism about HFCS what feels like ten years ago, and bought into the hysteria, believing it to be a uniquely unhealthy form of sugar. Then, I explored further for this post, and to my surprise, it is NOT uniquely unhealthy. It’s cheaper than other types of sugar which is why it is so prevalent, but the real demon is using sugar as an additive, regardless of whether it is glucose, sucrose, fructose, HFCS, or even honey. Added sugar is terribly unhealthy, all types are processed by your body in a similar manner, and it is everywhere. I have consumed very little sugar since moving to Tampa Bay to the point where even small amounts of sugar tastes overwhelmingly sweet. Mom made meatloaf a few weeks ago, and the sauce, which contained ketchup, tasted like candy. I recently made tuna salad that tasted so sweet I had to double check the ingredients. Can you guess what the pickled relish had in it? HFCS. It wasn’t even sweet relish, which just occurred to me, is sweet because of added sugar and not because of some unique pickle varietal that is naturally sweet. There are 56 types of sugar additives found in 75% of grocery store products! My best gal recently ruined Tabasco™ flavored Slim Jims™ for me, which I should have known were too delicious to be natural.