Posts
Just thought will share an inpspirational story found on one of my client's intranet site.
Terry Fox, a Canadian who was diagnosed with bone cancer, had his leg amputated above the knee and decided, in 1980, to pursue a singular, motivating vision: to run across Canada to raise funds for Cancer Research. Incredible act and an inspirational story worth sharing with kids. This week a documentary "Into the Wind" will premier as part of ESPN's 30for30 series, to highlight annual Terry Fox Run, the single largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research, which celebrated its 30th run recently on Sept. 19, 2010.
Sep 27, 2010
Jun 15, 2010
Helvetia Half Marathon
Completed my second half-marathon on June 12, Saturday. 13.1 miles of scenic oregon countryside in 2 hrs 15 min 35 sec ( a pace of 10 min 21 sec per mile).
The race course was beautiful country roads of Portland's Hillsboro suburb. Some what challenging course with multiple steep hills for first seven miles, and even a small stretch of half mile on un-paved roads. Race day morning weather was perfect with 70-80 degrees and clear blue skys. My target was to finish in 2 hrs and was going really strong untill 11th mile (1hr 48 min), but that's when I started cramping on my leg's calf muscles and was forced to a very slow jogging pace for the last 2 miles.
PS : Later through online research I learnt there's no clear single cause for cramps but can happen because of sodium deficiency or rapid dehydration especially if you are running faster pace than your practice runs, and is the probably case for me as I didn't probably take enough sports drinks w/electrolytes to compensate fluid loss during my run.
The race course was beautiful country roads of Portland's Hillsboro suburb. Some what challenging course with multiple steep hills for first seven miles, and even a small stretch of half mile on un-paved roads. Race day morning weather was perfect with 70-80 degrees and clear blue skys. My target was to finish in 2 hrs and was going really strong untill 11th mile (1hr 48 min), but that's when I started cramping on my leg's calf muscles and was forced to a very slow jogging pace for the last 2 miles. But the best part of race was ofcourse seeing my personal cheer leading team (wife and kids), plus the cheering crowds inside the Hillsboro stadium as you run the last few yards to cross the finish line, which helped me forget my pains. I am still not sure what caused the cramps, but within couple of hours after race my legs were pretty normal. May be the yummy post-race meal "Helvetia burger" or the icy bath did the trick.
All in all a Superb race ! thanks to my AID portland team who helped me with practice runs over last 4 months. Ofcourse would have been even great to finish up faster and beat my PR (9 min/mile from 2009 Hood to coast), but hey.. finishing is important, and ofcourse there's always the next race to set a new record.
Here are some photos from race, enjoy !
PS : Later through online research I learnt there's no clear single cause for cramps but can happen because of sodium deficiency or rapid dehydration especially if you are running faster pace than your practice runs, and is the probably case for me as I didn't probably take enough sports drinks w/electrolytes to compensate fluid loss during my run.
Jun 7, 2010
Multi-tasking and Toll of Technolgy
My family loves the recent TV comedy series "Modern Family". There is an episode recently aired in which the family tries to get an 'iPad' for the birthday of Phil, the Dad character who's also an obsessive early adopter geek. Check it out here if you have time.. quite hilarious (PG-13 ofcourse!)
So while thinking about that, I do wonder it's amazing how the new tech gadgets are changing our day to day lives, and can not but wonder about where is all this headed to and it's impact on our lifestyles. Does your loved ones think important stuff is not getting done by you while you spend more and more time on these smart gadgets i-whatevers besides your laptop, desktops at work? are you frequently checking one of those .. texting, twittering, e-mailing, and are proud to be multitasking ? log in late at night filing in or reading these blogs ?.
Some experts (including my wife !) believe "excessive use of the Internet, cellphones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic " .. well, who am I to disagree ! there are too many tamper-proof evidences !!
"When you have 500 pictures from your vacation in your Flickr account (and Picasso or Shutterfly or Facebook or god knows how many online accounts)., as opposed to five pictures that are really meaningful, does that change your ability to recall the moments that you really want to recall?” .. hmmm, may be !
There are some interesting articles on NYtimes recently published about this use vs mis-use. There is a vibrant debate among scientists over whether technology’s influence on behavior and the brain is good or bad, and how significant it is.
“More and more, life is resembling the chat room,” says Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford. “We’re paying a price in terms of our cognitive life because of this virtual lifestyle.” Tests at Stanford.. showed multitaskers tended to search for new information rather than accept a reward for putting older, more valuable information to work.
Also the research results seem to illustrate an age-old conflict in the brain, one that technology may be intensifying. A portion of the brain acts as a control tower, helping a person focus and set priorities. Where as more primitive parts of the brain, like those that process sight and sound, demand that it pay attention to new information, bombarding the control tower when they are stimulated. So the lower-brain functions alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion, thus overriding goals like building a hut. But in the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.
On the otherhand, other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Dr. Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry. At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games can track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.
“The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt,” said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time,” he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.
Now here's the fun portion of this. Take these quick online tests based on this Stanford study to see how your brain is getting adapted.
Test Your Focus Measure your ability to filter out distractions- wasn't that bad .. aced it !
Multitasking : Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks Measure your cost of switching between different tasks .. ouch, that hurt, no need to say my score here !! (can't afford another tamper-proof evidence for my loved ones)
Now's time to put that laptop down.. time to go play ! On that note, my Second half-marathon is coming up this weekend... i-run !!
Some experts (including my wife !) believe "excessive use of the Internet, cellphones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic " .. well, who am I to disagree ! there are too many tamper-proof evidences !!
"When you have 500 pictures from your vacation in your Flickr account (and Picasso or Shutterfly or Facebook or god knows how many online accounts)., as opposed to five pictures that are really meaningful, does that change your ability to recall the moments that you really want to recall?” .. hmmm, may be !
There are some interesting articles on NYtimes recently published about this use vs mis-use. There is a vibrant debate among scientists over whether technology’s influence on behavior and the brain is good or bad, and how significant it is.
“More and more, life is resembling the chat room,” says Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford. “We’re paying a price in terms of our cognitive life because of this virtual lifestyle.” Tests at Stanford.. showed multitaskers tended to search for new information rather than accept a reward for putting older, more valuable information to work.
Also the research results seem to illustrate an age-old conflict in the brain, one that technology may be intensifying. A portion of the brain acts as a control tower, helping a person focus and set priorities. Where as more primitive parts of the brain, like those that process sight and sound, demand that it pay attention to new information, bombarding the control tower when they are stimulated. So the lower-brain functions alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion, thus overriding goals like building a hut. But in the modern world, the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.
On the otherhand, other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Dr. Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry. At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games can track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.
“The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt,” said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time,” he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.
Now here's the fun portion of this. Take these quick online tests based on this Stanford study to see how your brain is getting adapted.
Test Your Focus Measure your ability to filter out distractions- wasn't that bad .. aced it !
Multitasking : Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks Measure your cost of switching between different tasks .. ouch, that hurt, no need to say my score here !! (can't afford another tamper-proof evidence for my loved ones)
Now's time to put that laptop down.. time to go play ! On that note, my Second half-marathon is coming up this weekend... i-run !!
May 27, 2010
China's Bullet trains
Second part of my series on the rapid growth in China's transportation and it's facts and impacts.
Sources :
NY Times, China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains
Reuters, ANALYSIS - China banks on rail boom to fire inland growth
China Daily, China building world's largest high-speed rail network
TRAINS :
This Chinese bullet train, which has the world’s fastest average speed, connects Guangzhou, the southern coastal manufacturing center, to Wuhan, deep in the interior. In a little more than three hours, it travels 664 miles, comparable to the distance from Boston to southern Virginia. That is less time than Amtrak’s fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston just to New York.
China’s lavish new rail system is a response to a failure of central planning six years ago.
After China joined the World Trade Organization in November 2001, exports and manufacturing soared. Electricity generation failed to keep up because the railway ministry had not built enough rail lines or purchased enough locomotives to haul the coal needed to run new power plants.
By 2004, the government was turning off the power to some factories up to three days a week to prevent blackouts in residential areas.
Officials drafted a plan to move much of the nation’s passenger traffic onto high-speed routes by 2020, freeing existing tracks for more freight. Then the global financial crisis hit in late 2008. Faced with mass layoffs at export factories, China ordered that the new rail system be completed by 2012 instead of 2020, throwing more than $100 billion in stimulus at the projects.
The economic case for expanding the rail network is clear-cut. During a country's development phase, total demand for transport tends to grow faster than per capita income.
But some critics say China is putting too much emphasis on high-speed rail lines capable of accommodating speeds of up to 350 km an hour... Zhao Jian, a professor at Jiaotong University in Beijing who specialised in rail economics, is scathing of the "blind pursuit of speed". He says China could have built an extra 30,000 km of conventional track with the money saved from "extravagant" high-speed lines.
China, he argues, does not have the technological experience to be sure of operating such lines safely. Moreover, high-speed trains gobble energy and subsidies.
China ofcourse, is rightly proud of the giant strides it is making. It is offering to build a high-speed rail line in California and is bidding for a contract to link Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
Sources :
NY Times, China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains
Reuters, ANALYSIS - China banks on rail boom to fire inland growth
China Daily, China building world's largest high-speed rail network
China's Car rush ..
On the opening day of the Detroit Motor Show 2010 — a century after the Model T Ford made America forever inseparable from its cars — China has roared past the United States to become the world’s biggest car market.
In 2009, Chinese sales of cars, trucks and other vehicles soared to 13.6 million, a 46 per cent rise from the previous year’s levels and comfortably higher than the 10.4 million equivalent vehicles sold in the United States last year. Only 33 years ago, there were only one million privately owned cars in the whole of China. There are now over 40 million vehicles in China. According to the China Economic Review, over 2,000 cars roll onto the road every day in Beijing alone.
China, with 1.3 billion people and a growing urban elite, was long expected to become the top auto market but not until as late as 2020. That date moved up as the U.S. crisis dragged down sales.
The Chinese government ofcourse understands, in the words of the Economist, that "the car industry more or less invented modern industrial capitalism." Which is why, according to the Financial Times; "China's car-centred model of development has been a mainstay of economic growth in recent years...the spin-off benefits from burgeoning car sales have been enormous. Each car requires several thousand parts, hundreds - if not thousands - of suppliers, roads, car parks, driving schools, petrol stations and other service industries."
The Communist Party has worked vigorously for China to join this capitalist heaven. In 1994, the auto industry was named one of five "pillar industries" by the government. “The Chinese government wants to emulate America’s rise to industrial glory by making the car industry a pillar of economic growth,” noted the Economist.
On the other hand there is of course significant concern about the longterm implications of this rapid growth of cars in urban areas like Beijing.
In a country that has two hundred million bicycles, cities such as Shanghai have banned them from many streets. The Washington Post explained in December: “Major streets boasted wide bike lanes, sidewalks carried ample parking space for bikes and bikes usually had the right of way at intersections [in China]. But lately, public space for bicycles has been shrinking under the tyranny of the car.”
Here's an excerpt from an article published online from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau , a govt.agency (bit surprised to see some self-critique here !)..
(begin quote).. "the euphoria for the wheels runs so feverish that the country's newspaper advertisings, television commercials and online homepage pop-ups are all sedans, vans and SUVs, of both domestic brands and overseas logos. At the just-opened Beijing Auto Show, all the global car-manufacturing giants have brought with them stylishly new line-ups, and, are elbowing each other for a bigger slice of the country's new-found wealth. It is crucial to consider the direction of the recent surge in automobility. Currently, China has some 40 vehicles per thousand residents, while Western Europe has about 590, and the US 950. With a population of roughly a billion more people than that of the U.S., China clearly has the potential to absorb many more cars.
Shrouded by the car-owning frenzy, few could see the perils. Seldom anyone counts the longer hours we are stuck in the traffic, and who cares the filthier air, fouled by the tailpipe gas emissions, which is consumed by our elderly retired parents and our toddlers and school children?
Take Beijing for an example. Before hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, the city had gone all out to increase the number of blue sky days. The torch put out, the financial crisis erupted. To rack up consumption and responding to the Central Government's appeal to go to car dealerships, Beijingers bought more than 2,000 new cars each day. Official statistics showed that it took six years for the city's car ownership to rise from 1 million to 2 million by 2003, another four years to reach 3 million by 2007, and just two years to hit 4 million by the end of 2009.
Although the city administration has resorted to temporary traffic restriction that bans one-fifth of the car population from driving every work-day, the traffic often snarls and congestion remains unbearable. Worse, the 4 million cars are emitting 1 million tons of pollutants each year, accounting for half of the city's total emissions.
The city used to advocate green modes of transportation, and tried to educate residents about environmental concerns. But, quite ironically, many low-rate bike parking sites are being closed, and lanes once exclusive for cycling are cut out and fenced for motors. In a bid to boost local GDP, officials now say there is actually room for more cars in the city.
Some experts have asked for a timely readjustment of Central Government policy to discourage oil consumption by reinstituting a higher duty on car ownership, encourage electric and new-energy vehicle manufacturing, and vigorously grow public transit system, typically the underground metro network and inter-city transit. Because, a country run on steel wheels is much firmer and healthier than on rubber wheels.
By cooling off the public craze for private wheels, China could lead the world in conserving fossil fuel, deliver smoother street movement, and protect the precious air which all of us breathe." (end quote)
Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie does the math and describes the threat to human survival that the car now poses; "If each Chinese family has two cars like U.S. families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind." Simply put, the day their future looks like our present, we're done for.
On that note, here's a portion quoted from poem I came across online,
Once
Another cycle of life was ending..
Sources :
In 2009, Chinese sales of cars, trucks and other vehicles soared to 13.6 million, a 46 per cent rise from the previous year’s levels and comfortably higher than the 10.4 million equivalent vehicles sold in the United States last year. Only 33 years ago, there were only one million privately owned cars in the whole of China. There are now over 40 million vehicles in China. According to the China Economic Review, over 2,000 cars roll onto the road every day in Beijing alone.
The Chinese government ofcourse understands, in the words of the Economist, that "the car industry more or less invented modern industrial capitalism." Which is why, according to the Financial Times; "China's car-centred model of development has been a mainstay of economic growth in recent years...the spin-off benefits from burgeoning car sales have been enormous. Each car requires several thousand parts, hundreds - if not thousands - of suppliers, roads, car parks, driving schools, petrol stations and other service industries."
The Communist Party has worked vigorously for China to join this capitalist heaven. In 1994, the auto industry was named one of five "pillar industries" by the government. “The Chinese government wants to emulate America’s rise to industrial glory by making the car industry a pillar of economic growth,” noted the Economist.
On the other hand there is of course significant concern about the longterm implications of this rapid growth of cars in urban areas like Beijing.
In a country that has two hundred million bicycles, cities such as Shanghai have banned them from many streets. The Washington Post explained in December: “Major streets boasted wide bike lanes, sidewalks carried ample parking space for bikes and bikes usually had the right of way at intersections [in China]. But lately, public space for bicycles has been shrinking under the tyranny of the car.”
Here's an excerpt from an article published online from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau , a govt.agency (bit surprised to see some self-critique here !)..
(begin quote).. "the euphoria for the wheels runs so feverish that the country's newspaper advertisings, television commercials and online homepage pop-ups are all sedans, vans and SUVs, of both domestic brands and overseas logos. At the just-opened Beijing Auto Show, all the global car-manufacturing giants have brought with them stylishly new line-ups, and, are elbowing each other for a bigger slice of the country's new-found wealth. It is crucial to consider the direction of the recent surge in automobility. Currently, China has some 40 vehicles per thousand residents, while Western Europe has about 590, and the US 950. With a population of roughly a billion more people than that of the U.S., China clearly has the potential to absorb many more cars.
Shrouded by the car-owning frenzy, few could see the perils. Seldom anyone counts the longer hours we are stuck in the traffic, and who cares the filthier air, fouled by the tailpipe gas emissions, which is consumed by our elderly retired parents and our toddlers and school children?
Take Beijing for an example. Before hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, the city had gone all out to increase the number of blue sky days. The torch put out, the financial crisis erupted. To rack up consumption and responding to the Central Government's appeal to go to car dealerships, Beijingers bought more than 2,000 new cars each day. Official statistics showed that it took six years for the city's car ownership to rise from 1 million to 2 million by 2003, another four years to reach 3 million by 2007, and just two years to hit 4 million by the end of 2009.
Although the city administration has resorted to temporary traffic restriction that bans one-fifth of the car population from driving every work-day, the traffic often snarls and congestion remains unbearable. Worse, the 4 million cars are emitting 1 million tons of pollutants each year, accounting for half of the city's total emissions.
The city used to advocate green modes of transportation, and tried to educate residents about environmental concerns. But, quite ironically, many low-rate bike parking sites are being closed, and lanes once exclusive for cycling are cut out and fenced for motors. In a bid to boost local GDP, officials now say there is actually room for more cars in the city.
Some experts have asked for a timely readjustment of Central Government policy to discourage oil consumption by reinstituting a higher duty on car ownership, encourage electric and new-energy vehicle manufacturing, and vigorously grow public transit system, typically the underground metro network and inter-city transit. Because, a country run on steel wheels is much firmer and healthier than on rubber wheels.
By cooling off the public craze for private wheels, China could lead the world in conserving fossil fuel, deliver smoother street movement, and protect the precious air which all of us breathe." (end quote)
Chinese environmentalist Liang Congjie does the math and describes the threat to human survival that the car now poses; "If each Chinese family has two cars like U.S. families, then the cars needed by China, something like 600 million vehicles, will exceed all the cars in the world combined. That would be the greatest disaster for mankind." Simply put, the day their future looks like our present, we're done for.
On that note, here's a portion quoted from poem I came across online,
Once effortless movement rippled
through the flow of people...
a wave powered by human spirit
and mixed emotion,
turning these wheels of numbered souls
Another cycle of life was ending..
Sources :
- Picture courtesy chinadaily.com.cn, dimsum.co.uk
- Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, Car rush is driven by GDP obsession,
- Financial Times, China's car sale growth slows - from frenzied to frantic
- People's Daily, China Rich Chinese fueling luxury car market growth
- MSNBC, China tops U.S. as largest auto market in ’09
- China and Cars : http://www.counterpunch.org/engler04232010.html
- Timesonline : China passes US as world's biggest car market
Apr 26, 2010
An American sweet problem: High Fructose Corn Syrup ?
If you watched the 2009 Soderbergh film "The Informant", and expected a "Ocean's eleven" kind of subtle comedy.. probably you were disappointed. But you may remember the film brings a subtle introduction to how Corn and its by-products have become an integral part of everything that people eat and drink on daily basis in America.
It also brings a whole new awareness to something called "high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)" an omnipresent (like god ?) food ingredient used as a direct cheap substitute for natural sugar in almost every processed food & drink item sold in America (e.g., soda, juices, yogurt, mayonaisse, pasta sauce, even bread and ketchup). Never heard of it? check the label on the soda can next time. HFCS is some 20 percent cheaper than sugar, thanks to US government policies on heavy corn subsidies and trade barriers to import natural sugar from other countries.
That does make one wonder why would it take long to prove one way or the other...all it needs an experiment (in a grossly simplified scheme) to feed the exactly same kind of diet for two groups of people, one diet prepared with sugar, versus another prepared with this corn syrup stuff and observe if there was any difference in obesity levels over a period? right ??
Finally, that's what exactly was done by a Priceton University research team, and they published in Mar 2010 that they have found conclusive evidence on their tests in lab rats that the high fructose corn syrup based diet did lead to obesity than the regular sugar based diet.
Ofcourse, still the jury is out trying to determine the impact on humans whether HFCS is bad or not.. (check links in bottom, you will see it's a battlefield out there).
But there's no smoke without fire !.. big manufacturers are now starting to sell no corn syrup based foods (see photo), which tells a message that there's finally a switch being considered to avoid this stuff.
Ofcourse it might start initially as part of a phony green marketing strategy, where a company provides healthier option at a premium as alternative while still continuing to sell the unhealthy alternative at low-price, but atleast should open doors for others in the right direction..
Bottomline : next time you are stuffing your grocery cart in processed foods section, think twice and pay attention to that ingredients list .. it's worth the time, and remember you always have a choice !
There do exist food products that do not come with ingredients list, but still arguably the best for you and the planet...yup, i am referrring to those green and colorful things in "natural produce" section of your super market.. called vegetables and fruits.
Side note : Ofcourse, this corn syrup usage is a primarily american phenomena and if you are living outside US there's a chance you might be lucky in not getting exposed to this.. but with globalization, the processed foods intake portion as percent of daily diet is significantly increasing in the developing countries as well, so it's only a matter of time when it becomes relevant..
Links and sources :
Is This Disguised Sugar Affecting Your Diabetes? The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup, DiabetesHealth.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup: How Sweet It Is? HuggingtonPost.com, Apr 2,2010
4 Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup, Discovery.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring, Duke University Medical Center research, Mar 18, 2010
Americans Must Find Better Options for Sweet Cravings, Healthnews.com, Aug 2009
High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Not So Sweet for the Planet, Washington Post, March 2008
Sweet Surprise, Corn-Refiner's Association
Misconceptions about High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Is It Uniquely Responsible for Obesity, Journal of Nutrition, 2009
High-fructose corn syrup: everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dec 2008
The Type of Caloric Sweetener Added to Water Influences Weight Gain, Fat Mass, and Reproduction..., Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Vol.234, No.6, 2009
Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity, American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 2004
It also brings a whole new awareness to something called "high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)" an omnipresent (like god ?) food ingredient used as a direct cheap substitute for natural sugar in almost every processed food & drink item sold in America (e.g., soda, juices, yogurt, mayonaisse, pasta sauce, even bread and ketchup). Never heard of it? check the label on the soda can next time. HFCS is some 20 percent cheaper than sugar, thanks to US government policies on heavy corn subsidies and trade barriers to import natural sugar from other countries. Now wonder what's the implication of this thing to our daily lives? there's an significant on-going debate and extensive research going on trying to determine if there is any correlation of the introduction of this new substance since 70's in to american diet and to the obesity crisis in America.
Over the past thirty years US consumption of HFCS has increased by over 1000 percent. In fact, the average American eats an astounding 58 lbs of high fructose corn syrup per year per 2009 study of US Dept of Agriculture.
There are arguments on both sides... on one end corn producers, and food products industry arguing that there's no conclusive evidence that corn syrup does any more damage than natural sugar, where as the opponents and activists claiming the corn syrup as one of the primary causes for obesity, diabetes, and increased tri-glyceriods because it does not exactly behave as equivalent to natural sugar in our body.
Ofcourse, still the jury is out trying to determine the impact on humans whether HFCS is bad or not.. (check links in bottom, you will see it's a battlefield out there).
But there's no smoke without fire !.. big manufacturers are now starting to sell no corn syrup based foods (see photo), which tells a message that there's finally a switch being considered to avoid this stuff.Ofcourse it might start initially as part of a phony green marketing strategy, where a company provides healthier option at a premium as alternative while still continuing to sell the unhealthy alternative at low-price, but atleast should open doors for others in the right direction..
There do exist food products that do not come with ingredients list, but still arguably the best for you and the planet...yup, i am referrring to those green and colorful things in "natural produce" section of your super market.. called vegetables and fruits.
Side note : Ofcourse, this corn syrup usage is a primarily american phenomena and if you are living outside US there's a chance you might be lucky in not getting exposed to this.. but with globalization, the processed foods intake portion as percent of daily diet is significantly increasing in the developing countries as well, so it's only a matter of time when it becomes relevant..
Links and sources :
Is This Disguised Sugar Affecting Your Diabetes? The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup, DiabetesHealth.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup: How Sweet It Is? HuggingtonPost.com, Apr 2,2010
4 Reasons to Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup, Discovery.com
High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring, Duke University Medical Center research, Mar 18, 2010
Americans Must Find Better Options for Sweet Cravings, Healthnews.com, Aug 2009
High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Not So Sweet for the Planet, Washington Post, March 2008
Sweet Surprise, Corn-Refiner's Association
Misconceptions about High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Is It Uniquely Responsible for Obesity, Journal of Nutrition, 2009
High-fructose corn syrup: everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dec 2008
The Type of Caloric Sweetener Added to Water Influences Weight Gain, Fat Mass, and Reproduction..., Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Vol.234, No.6, 2009
Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity, American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 2004
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