I Go By 61 Different Names
People love me. I mean they REALLY love me. I am, after all, easy to get hooked on.
You’d think my popularity would make me feel good, right? No doubt, I am sweet. Sweet for real… and sweet in a diabolical way. Trouble is, I’m being used, and I’m powerless to stop it. I honestly never wanted to hurt anyone.
It wasn’t always like this. It used to be fun being popular. Every day now I’m being forced into things I never wanted to be part of, and I don’t like what I’ve become.
I get called honey a lot. And sugar, too. I don’t mind that. It’s who I am. But dextrose, lactose, sucrose, molasses, high-fructose corn syrup, cane juice, barley malt, glucose, mannose, succharose, sorghum syrup, maltose, and all the other names? It’s too much. I’m just being hidden in things, so people don’t know what they’re eating.
It feels like there’s no end to the deception. Or the exploitation. Or the damage they’re making me do. I’m sick of making people sick. It’s all so dark and twisted, especially with the billions in deceptive advertising so carefully crafted to get more people to buy more of whatever they’re selling with no thought whatsoever for what they’re really doing to other human beings.
I used to be an occasional treat. I loved that. Now researchers tell me I’m being loaded into a whopping 74 percent of all packaged foods. Food companies have been consistently adding more of me year after year, decade after decade, and the rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, dementia and metabolic syndrome have gone up right along with it. They have me busy making people sick and die for corporate profits. We should all be horrified. Seventeen teaspoons a day… 57 pounds a year for every American. I was never meant to be used like that!
I don’t know what it takes to stop this. Good people do research and write about it, but their voices are tiny compared to corporations and our culture at large. You can’t look hardly anywhere, go anywhere, eat anywhere that I’m not in your face, tempting you. They weaving me into the narrative of “the good life” so that appears as though indulgence is what makes people happy. “Dessert first,” they say because “Life is short.” That statement would not be such nonsense if harmful over-indulgence weren’t being so voraciously promoted. Life is not only short but also getting shorter all the time as a direct result of indulgence.
People do need me. The human body needs me on some level. But experts say people are getting far more of me than anyone ever needs. They put me in everything. Soup and bread and ketchup and almost everything it seems. Even salads! More and more, however, people need me because they’re genuinely addicted. This is real, not another false narrative. According to the National Institutes of Health, I am truly physically addictive, and when I’m suddenly not there for any reason, withdrawal from me not only produces depression symptoms but also opens a gateway to other insidious behaviors, including drugs and alcohol consumption.
All this pain for profit’s sake. Long gone are the days when a treat was just a treat. It’s all about money now, and all that greed and deception are causing a tsunami of pain and disease and death across the land. That’s not to mention the billions and billions in extra healthcare costs. According to the National Association of Healthcare Executives and quite a number of other sources, as much as 80 percent of healthcare costs in the U.S. are directly attributable to a handful of conditions, preventable with basic lifestyle changes. All folks would have to do is adopt healthier behaviors, including at the very top of that basic list, consuming less of me!
There are some good souls out there sounding the alarm. Scientists are trying to make more people aware of the evidence of my impact on health. Even government agencies are joining in. Still little is changing so far because huge sums of lobbying money flow from the food industry in an effort to shield them from any reasonable regulation or any new consumer and health protection laws. I’m convinced only some form of radical change will ever turn this ugly situation around.
Ironic it is that I’m actually grateful for the few people who are standing up against me. There are good folks standing up and speaking up for science, for reason, for health, and for the future. They understand something must change. Lives are at stake. Many millions of lives. Yet I also know all the facts in the world won’t change anything until more people start saying enough is enough. People have a lot more power than they believe. If some of the millions out there just stopped buying the poison they’re being sold, things would definitely change.
I hope that happens soon. Making people sick is breaking my heart. I just want to go back to being candy.