Do as I say not as I do

Please excuse my grumpiness.

I just saw a headline that said Al Gore ignores earth hour. Hold on to your chairs the world is about to end! Al Gore is my hero, and this post has nothing to do with him except it is in the spirit of setting an example that has put me in this state this morning.

last week I wrote about how Mark Bittman had a video/article on ramen made with ketchup. Predictably I wrote about how if you want to use ketchup you should point out the genetically modified nature of high fructose corn syrup. I wrote a comment on his blog and when I checked last night I see that only positive comments are posted on his blog and there is an editors note say that the "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive." Apparently being annoyed is abusive over at the Times, you can only mention any criticism couched in a lovely pillow of Bittman adoration, so the only one comment that mentioned high fructose corn syrup was this one posted by Marya:

But this, this I wouldn’t eat with his mouth. Why in heaven’s name would I want to eat ketchup? Yuk, yuk, yuk. How about reconfiguring the recipe to include a quarter cup of Miso instead? What do you mean you don’t have miso? I’m supposed to have ketchup and you don’t have miso? Get some, it’s tasty good for you and you can use it 25 different ways.

Who was then gently scolded a few posts down by Susanne:

Now, now - no ketchup snobbery please! Miso is great, but it’s an entirely different beastie. Didn’t Reagan make ketchup an official vegetable? Hilarious. Mark did say you could use tomato paste and sugar if you wanted. I have a nice bottle of Muir Glen ketchup (I’m a total no-corn-syrup-please snob) I made this broth the other day and added the step of sauteing a bit of garlic and ginger at the beginning. I also threw in some bean sprouts at the end. Delish!

Maybe I'm just a crotchety, unemployed, middle aged man, maybe I shouldn't even bother with this, but if you are going to write a book telling us what to eat like Mr. Bittman has in his:
Food Matters: A guide to conscious eating then don't turn around and write a recipe extolling the virtues of ketchup and not mention that in Heinz ketchup, the brand leader, when you look at the ingredients it contains not only high fructose corn syrup, but also regular old corn syrup. That's not conscious eating that's eating with your head stuck so far up your ass it's too dark to read the ingredients label eating.

And while I'm on the topic, the New York Times has just had to lease out most of their building
and have laid off hundreds of employees, people are talking about the death of the newspaper, maybe if they encouraged actual debate and freedom of speech in their comments section more people would be inclined to go there and engage them, instead of stifling the first amendment rights of it's readers by preventing comments it doesn't like from being published. It's not like I insulted anyone I just simply asked why he would not make a point of being conscious about what choices you make when buying certain products? Is that unreasonable? Is that abusive? Apparently at the Times it is.