A discussion of GMOs

Just the other day my friend Jane sent me a newsletter from Whole Foods that had a questionnaire in it about how people feel about GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

Now today I see Tom Philpott from Grist has done an article on GMOs that basically says Monsanto et al., control all the information, so anyone who wants to get their seeds to do independent work, can't, or if they can they are afraid to speak out because they are afraid of losing their funding.

Right there that says everything I need to know, when there is no freedom of information or when the information is so closely gaurded then you have to wonder what the GMO makers have to hide?

Again, go see Food, Inc. it talks about Monsanto's business practices and those alone should turn any decent person off of wanting to support a corporation who has so willfully destroyed the lives of so many farmers.

How Sweet It Is

Over at grist.org I saw this interesting article about sugar beets, interesting because once again it shows what power and influence Monsanto has over agriculture in this country and also because I had no idea that that over half of conventional sugar was made from beets. Now in addition to soy, corn, canola and cotton we can add sugar beets to the list of GMO crops.

Sugar beets? I really thought that all sugar was cane sugar. Learn something new every day. My conclusion and the conclusion of the article is: buy organic. Unlike in Europe where they have labeling requirements that tell you if something is GMO here the only way you can be sure is to buy organic.

Will that be one spoon or two?

When are corn and soy no longer corn and soy?

Corn in particular is in everything and a lot of things we'd never expect in forms that, well don't seem to be even remotely related to what we think of as corn or soy for that matter. What got me on this was a letter from my nephew Natan, who after Passover decided to check out the ingredients in one of his favorite passover junk foods. I asked him if I could share his letter with you and I got the OK so here it is, be sure to check out the partial list of all things corn at the end of his letter:

I've been meaning to e-mail you this because it really disturbed me (it's nothing that serious). During passover which I know has been over for a while and doesn't really affect your food choices corn and soy are forbidden (which is why I love passover the big GMO's are nowhere near my diet) and there is a snack that we always have in the house. They are chocolate covered frozen marshmallow puffs (I know they are bad but it's passover) and we get them every year. They are made by Joya and I didn't bother to check the ingredients but after passover I did. I found out that they contain corn syrup and soy lecithin. >:(

There is a note near the ingredients saying that "Liquified legumous extracts, E.G. corn syrup, in kosher for passover foods, are fully sanctioned for ashkenazim (me) and sephardim alike by preeminent orthodox....."bla bla bla

I interpreted it as this, corn syrup isn't a corn product and soy lecithin isn't a soy product because we're not allowed to eat corn and soy and somehow those two wonderful ingredients were allowed by the frummest of the frum rabbis in our food. As far as I know corn syrup is corn and soy lecithin is soy and both are strictly forbidden so this just amazes me and pisses me off. If they can sneak this crap past the Rabbis imagine what they can (and are/will) sneak past our government.

My thought on it is that after genetic modification and all the processing that goes on the Rabbi's don't consider it corn or soy any more.

My over all feeling is, as you already well know, manufactured foods are a bad idea, and maybe it's a wonderful feat of science to be able to do all this cool and nifty stuff with corn and soy, but I think we'd all be better off if it was left at the very least in it's original non-genetically modified form before we went ahead and changed it.

My favorite thing in the list below is that in some form or another corn is used in explosives. Nice.

This list was provided by Casco a commerical corn processor in Canada. I cut and pasted from a chart so I haven't a clue what all the dots are next to the products, if you really want to know more you can download the chart from this site.

ALCOHOL BEVERAGES
Beer, ale • ••••
Brandy • •
Liqueurs •• ••
Wine ••• •
ANIMAL FEED
Cat ••••••• ••• •
Cattle •• •••• ••••• •
Dog ••••••• ••• •
Fish •••• ••• •
Poultry • •••• ••
Sheep and goats • ••••• •
Swine • • ••••• ••
BAKING/SNACK FOODS
Baking powder •• • •
Biscuits ••••••••• •
Breads and rolls ••••••• •
Cakes ••••••••• • •
Cookies ••••••••• •
Crackers •••••••• •
Donuts ••••••••• • •
Extracts and flavours •••••• •• •
Food colouring •• • •
Frosting, icing, glazes ••••••••• •
Pies ••••••••• •
Potato chips ••• •• •
Powdered sugar •• •••
Pretzels •••••••••
Spices •• • •• •
Yeast • •••
BEVERAGES
Carbonated • ••••• • •
Fruit drinks and juices ••••••• • •
Powdered mixes •••••••• • •
BUILDING MATERIALS
Cardboard ••
Ceramics •••
Cork products ••
Fibreboard, plywood •••
Fibreglass ••
Glass or rock wool ••
Paints and varnishes •• • •
Tile, ceiling ••• •
Wallboard ••• •• •
Wall treatment compound • •
UNMODIFIED STARCH
MODIFIED STARCH
DEXTRIN
CONFECTIONERY
Candy ••••••••• • •
Chewing gum •••••••• • •
Chocolates • ••••• •
Licorice •••••••• • •
Marshmallows •••••••• •
Nougats •••••••• • •
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Cheese spreads and foods ••••• ••• •
Coffee whitener ••••••• • • •
Condensed milk •••• •
Frozen cream ••••• •
FATS/OILS
Cooking oil • • •
Margarine •••• • • •
Pan coatings • •• •
Shortening • •
FROZEN DESSERTS
Frozen puddings or custards ••••••••• • •
Ice cream or milk ••••••••• •
Powdered mixes ••••••••• • •
Sherbets, water ices •••••••• •
FUEL ALCOHOL
Fuel alcohol •
HOUSEHOLD NEEDS
Batteries •
Briquettes •••
Candles • •
Cleaners • • • •
Crayons and chalk •• •
Diapers ••
Matches ••
Typewriter ribbons •
Trash bags ••
Twine, cord, string ••
JAMS/JELLIES
Fruit butters ••••••••• • •
Jams ••••••• • •
Jellies ••••••• • •
Marmalades ••••••• • •
Preserves •••••• • •
MEAT PRODUCTS
Bacon •••
Bologna •••••••
Breakfast meats • ••••
Chicken products • •••• •
Dried meats • •••
Fish, seafood •• ••• •
Hams ••• •
Hotdogs • ••• •
Mincemeat •••••••
Sausage •• •••
Surimi •• • • •
MINING/METALLURGY
Electroplating • •
Galvanizing •
Metal plating • •
Ore refining, separation •••
MISC. FOODS
Baby food ••••••••• •
Desserts (puddings, custards) ••••••••• •
Dietetic preparations ••••••••• • •
Invalid feedings •••••••••
Peanut butter ••••••
Precooked frozen meals •• •••••
Rice and coffee polish • ••••
MISC. INDUSTRIAL
Boiler compounds • •
Explosives •••
Filters •• •
Fireworks •••
Leather, tanning • • •
Lubricating agents •
Oil-well drilling •• ••• •
Plastics, incl. degradable •• •
Plasticizers ••••• • •
Polyurethane foams •
Protective colloids •• •
Refractories • •
Rubber (cold process) •
Rubber substitutes •
Shoes •
Tires (rubber) •
Water recovery (industrial) •
MIXES, PREPARED
Cake, dessert mixes ••••••••• • •
Dried foods ••••••••• •
Eggs, frozen or dried ••••••• • •
Frosting, icing mixes ••••••••• • •
Gelatin mixes ••••••• • •
Gravy mixes ••••••••• • •
Instant breakfast foods ••••••••• • •
Instant tea •••••••• • •
Pancake, waffle mixes ••••••••• • •
Quickbread mixes ••••••••• •
Seasoning mixes •••••••• • •
Soups, dried ••••••••• • •
PAPER PRODUCTS
Abrasive paper and cloth •••
Bookbinding ••• •
Glassine ••• •
Paper ••• •
Parchment •••
Printing inks ••• ••
Straws •••
Wallpaper ••• •
PASTES/ADHESIVES
Adhesives ••• • • •
Binders, binding agents ••• •
Glues, mucilages ••• •
Gums ••• •
Pastes ••• •
SYRUPS/SWEETENERS
Chocolate, cocoa •••••••••
Dessert toppings ••••••••• • •
Fruit and table ••••••••• • •
Low calorie sweeteners ••••••• • •
Soda fountain •••••••• •
TEXTILE
Cord polishing •• •
Dyes and dyeing ••• •
Oilcloth ••
Printing ••• •
Sizing materials •••
Windowshades, shade cloth •••
TOBACCO
Tobacco •••••• •
CANNED GOODS
Berries •• ••••• •
Fruits •• •••• •
Fruit fillings •• •••• • •
Fruits, candied •••• •
Fruit pectin ••• •
Soups •••••••• •
Tomato sauces ••••••••• •
Vegetables •• • • •
CEREALS
Cereals ••••••••• • •
CHEMICALS
Acetic acids • ••• ••
Antibiotics • • ••• •
Aspirin ••
Coatings (food and drugs) •••••••• • •
Cosmetics •• •• •
Dispersing agents •• •
Distillation processes ••
Drugs ••••••• •• • •
Enzymes •• ••• • •
Fermentation processes ••••••• ••••
Food acids •• ••• •• •
Industrial alcohol •• •• ••
Insecticides •• ••
Intravenous solutions • • •
L-ascorbic acid •
Lecithin • •••
Medicinal syrups ••••••• ••
Organic solvents ••••••• •
Pharmaceuticals •• ••• • ••• •
Shampoo ••• •
Surgical dressings ••
Toothpaste •
Zein ••
CONDIMENTS
Ketchup •• •••• •
Gravies •••••••• •
Mayonnaise •• ••••••
Mustard •• •••
Oriental sauces •••••••• •
Pickles, pickle products • •••• •
Relishes • •••••• •
Salad dressings ••••••••• •
Sauce mixes ••••••••• •
Vinegar • •••
Worcestershire sauce • ••• •

Know Your Scum Bags

As a gay man who came of age during the AIDS crisis when a week didn't go by that someone I knew didn't die a horrible death I understand what urgency feels like. It was with this urgency to save the lives of our loved ones during this dire time that Larry Kramer started ACT UP (AIDS coalition to unleash power). A grass roots community organization to bring awareness to the plight of PWA (people with AIDS) and to focus on government inaction and pharmaceutical companies maleficence. A group called Gran Fury was at the time making posters and doing gorilla postings of them all over the city. These guys were really smart, talented artists who understood the power of a good graphic. They're the ones who created the Silence=Death logo. They did a lot of great work, but one of my favorites was a split screen image with one side being the Pope at the time and the other side being a used, filled condom. The whole poster was done in this shocking yellow, with the head line: Know Your ScumBags. After much searching on line I was unable to find it, but I did find the silence = death poster and thought it was also appropriate for this posting. If there is a talented artist out there I'd love to come up with a version for AG Sec Tom Vilsack although to be honest I am at a loss for what would replace the condom. A jar of Karo High Fructose GM modified Corn Syrup maybe?

Monsanto toady and Secretary of Agriculture Scumbad Tom Vilsack

In an article over at Grist.org journalist Tom Philpott discusses Mr. Vilsack's showing at the recent G8 meeting, it wasn't good, unless of course your an executive for an agribusiness.

Vilsack said the U.S. experience with such schemes had shown it was better to focus on technical advances in irrigation, seed varieties, machinery and farming methods.

The article in Grist ends with:

Is that really the lesson we want our ag secretary to be drawing from the last 50 years of U.S. food history?

Grist and I agree, bio tech is not the solution for the future, bio tech is a way to make sure there isn't a future. Some real solutions as I see it are to re-introducing traditional farming methods, get rid of commodity based mono-cultures, eat less meat and get rid of corn subsidies, as a start. Oh and I would add for the record that I think GMO products are dangerous and the making of them should be stopped immediately for at least another 20 years until we see what effects they have in the long term. I would also over turn the law that allows companies to patent nature. You can patent a discovery but you can't have the right to own nature. Only bad things will come from a furthering of the GMO agenda, the proof is everywhere that this technology doesn't work, look at the article quote and the subsequent article it quotes in Reuters or google GM foods and ignore all the sites run my the companies who make them. It is very scary and I don't think this is something we can shrug, feel dis empowered by and go out an by a diet Coke to mull it over. At the beginning of this posting I evoked ACT-UP, probably the most successful grass roots movement in the last 50 years. Why? Because you had a group of people who were dying and had nothing to lose taking to the streets and getting their message out there. I believe it's the only way to change the entrenched, super wealthy, corporate structure that is killing our planet and making a future for your children look less and less likely. As long as you read these words and think I'm crazy the clock will only tick closer to what I see as an inevitable reality. We can no long be silent about this, because our silence will indeed result in our illness and our death at the hands of the bio tech chemical boys who really only care about their bottom line. If this isn't something to be really upset about then what is?

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.

Mark Bittman calls Ketchup a real Ingredient

In today's New York Times Mark Bittman makes a version of Ramen with Ketchup.

The following are my thoughts on this.

OK sure you want to make a cheap, quick, easy recipe with things you have around the house. Maybe it's semantics, but I don't think condiments are "real ingredients", I think they are, um, well, condiments. Real ingredients to me are scallions, which he does use as a last minute garnish, and the noodles. He points out that often there is no egg in the egg noodles it's usually just coloring, wouldn't it maybe be a good idea for him to say: "try and find noodles with real ingredients in them, not just food coloring?"

Or offer an option?

One person in the comments section says she replaces them with soba, which I think is a great idea and they are easy to find in healthy version i.e. organic.

Don't get me wrong I like Mark Bittman I just think he wasn't thinking on this one. Or I am crazy and obsessed, but I see no reason to promote food products that are knowingly bad for you. If, indeed we are having a food revolution as the Times just last week talked about how is it that they are still telling people with authority to use ketchup without saying: "buy the organic one made with cane sugar." I mean how hard can that be? Yet again and again it happens. We get all up everyone's butt about buying local and doing all these other potentially esoteric things yet some thing really simple and basic like encouraging the general public to use a good ingredient like tomato past, which to his credit he mentions in the text of the article, but not in the video. Why he even include the ketchup? Why not just use a real ingredient like tomato paste or a small can of crushed tomatoes? I don't get it, we need to change the way we eat and think about food, not coddle people into think that it's still OK to use the same old bad condiments and expect a different result.

Here's what I wrote the Times:

In Mark Bittman's video, "Egg Noodles in Soy Broth", he claims to make ramen with "real" ingredients. In reality he uses conventional ketchup and fails to mention that this condiment in it's non-organic version contains high fructose corn syrup which is genetically modified. It's easy to chart the sharp upward trend in obesity and diabetes in this country to Nixon's corn subsidies and the coinciding laboratory discovery of how to make high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup has devastating affects on our health. The impact of genetically modified crops of all kinds have proven to have disastrous effects on our planet. To have the New York Times food guy centering a dish around such a non-food, one that has created an epidemic of obesity, is irresponsible and dangerously misleading.

Caramel Chocolate Tart

Here is my video detailing changes I made in the tart recipe in my post "Monsanto for Dessert" (see two postings down).

The recipe calls for all purpose flour and confectioners sugar in the dough. I replaced the confectioners sugar with organic cane sugar that I made super fine by putting it in a food processor. Instead of the all purpose flour I used pastry flour to make up for the softness of the missing corn starch.

For the caramel I omitted the corn syrup altogether and replaced the white sugar with brown, adding an extra three tablespoons to make up for the missing corn syrup. The results were spectacular. The crust was soft, redolent of dark chocolate, and tasted like a chocolate cookie. The caramel had great texture, was easy to cut, and had a rich, thick caramel, candy flavor.

In the end it makes you wonder why these GM ingredients where in the recipe at all when it was easy to make it without them, with no detectable effect whatsoever on the end result.

Monsanto for dessert

Yesterday I got my last copy of Saveur magazine. My financial situation is so grim that I have started getting rid of anything that isn't essential so all the magazine subscriptions have been 86'd (maybe I'll read them occasionally as a treat at an airport). Magazines are in general a huge waste of natural resources (old growth forests! who needs them?) that it made sense, to me, to just stop the madness.

So when I got my last copy, which had a big sign on it saying LAST COPY! I was sad and opened it up promptly to see what I was going to be missing henceforth. On the cover is a wonderful picture of a luscious chocolate caramel tart, chocolate crust with a gooey caramel filling topped with a layer of chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt. I showed the picture to Neil, he looked at and said "we've had that!" Indeed we have, this recipe is from a restaurant I have written about many times, one that I respect greatly for their dedication to sustainable agriculture and local ingredients Marlowe & Sons.

By this point my heart is pounding and I'm all ready to get out my pen and write a grocery list and plan on making this piece of heaven immediately. There on page 102 is my soon to be, most favorite tart to make. Then I look at the ingredients. It starts off good with butter, flour, cocoa...then I see confectioners' sugar. Why don't they say organic or offer a substitution? Commercial confectioners' sugar is made with genetically modified corn starch, unless of course you specify organic or add a little asterisk to it and say at the bottom: "oh hey you might not want to help Monsanto ruin the planet by buying products that contain genetically modified organisms", but then I breath and think "it's just icing sugar, get over yourself."

[A side note on icing sugar is that instead of spending more money on another food "product" you can just put regular organic sugar into a food processor and whizz it about until it's ultra fine, a perfectly fine substitute or you can go out and by one of the many brands of organic confectioners' sugar. Or in the case of this pastry you could indeed just use sugar. The French have used it to great effect for a long time now. Although a very fine baker and friend of mine who owns a very successful business here in NYC, Maury Rubin, uses it in his pastry and he is French trained, but I also know he uses all organic ingredients at City Bakery. Who knows? I'm self taught, I never went to any fancy school to learn how to make fancy pies, maybe the French have discovered icing sugar as the new ne plus ultra of pate sucre.]

The next section "for the caramel": ...1 1/2 cups sugar, 3 tbsp light corn syrup..." What?! Did I read that right? Saveur magazine writes a cover article on the RESTAURANTS THAT MATTER, including this beacon of local sustainability, and they publish a recipe with two ingredients brought to you by Monsanto? What is wrong with this picture? If it were in Quick n' Cheap Eats magazine and the recipe was by Paula Dean or Rachael Rae I'd not even mention it, but that's not where it's coming from. It's coming from my favorite food magazine and one of the restaurants I admire most in NYC.

Let me be perfectly clear. Under no circumstances do you ever need to use corn syrup.

In the chocolate pecan pie I make, I substitute dark grade B maple syrup instead of high fructose corn syrup. In this instance you could use any number of things. Off the top of my head, I'd say the fancy grade A light maple syrup or maybe agave syrup or maybe use brown sugar instead of white and just not add anything else? It's just 3 tablespoons. And please don't go on about how the viscosity and sweetness of corn syrup is so unique. Bullshit. It's so sweet because it was made in a fucking lab, OK? It was "developed" in a lab as a cheap substitute for sugar so big corporations like Coca Cola could make more profit. It is sweeter than sugar, it was engineered that way. It's the worst of science and the worst of "products" (I always put "products" in quotes because it is not food). Period, end of discussion. Those are the facts, so why do we ignore them?

The really insidious thing about this is when you buy high fructose corn syrup in a store, as I have had to do for food styling work, it says on the label in big letters "Corn Syrup", but when you look at the ingredients you see the truth: high fructose corn syrup. Of course big food corporations with the help of the previous republican government made it possible for you to not have to state if any of the contents are genetically modified. 65% of American food "products" contain genetically modified substances.

The farming of GM crops wreaks unfathomable havoc on our soil, ecosystems and health. I could list a page of links to medical, scientific, farming and health sites detailing long list of the hazards, both environmental and health, that this kind of agriculture engenders.

When are we going to wake up? What hope is there if smart, talented people cook and publish recipes calling for the use of ingredients that we know are destroying our planet and making us sick?

So tomorrow I am going to make this tart with real food and will report back.

Oh and in case anybody is still reading and wondering why exactly this makes me upset, recently Neil and I watched Werner Herzog's new documentary Encounters at the End of the World. A must see exploration of life in Antarctica. At one point more then half way through the film Herzog, who narrates, says quite casually that the scientific community seems to agree that there will be another massive extinction event like the one that killed the dinosaurs only next time the species that becomes extinct will be humans. Most agree it will happen sooner then we think.

Go ahead have extra GM high fructose corn syrup in your pie, while you can.

For more information check out:

www.deliciousorganics.com/controversies/corn.htm

or watch the video:

Neil sneaks in with a posting! Let's see how long Mark takes to notice I did this.
Its the citation for a research paper by a friend of mine, liver pathologist colleague Beth Brunt, and her collaborative team. It is a nice big, digestible bit of organic scientific research that backs up Mark's concerns about high fructose corn syrup in the diet, i.e. Why Americans (and Everyone Who Eats Like an American, Including Rats) are Fat and Diabetic... Severe Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Dosease with hepatic necroinflammatory changes in mice fed trans fats and a high-fructose corn syrup equivalent.Tetri LH, Basaranoglu M, Brunt EM, Yerian LM, Neuschwander-Tetri BA.in: Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2008; 295: G987-95.
Abstract: "The aims of this study were to determine whether combining features of a western lifestyle in mice with trans fats in a high-fat diet, high-fructose corn syrup in the water, and interventions designed to promote sedentary behavior would cause the hepatic histopathological and metabolic abnormalities that characterize nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Male C57BL/6 mice fed ad libitum high-fat chow containing trans fats (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) and relevant amounts of a high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) equivalent for 1-16 wk were compared with mice fed standard chow or mice with trans fats or HFCS omitted. Cage racks were removed from western diet mice to promote sedentary behavior. By 16 wk, trans fat-fed mice became obese and developed severe hepatic steatosis with associated necroinflammatory changes. Plasma alanine aminotransferase levels increased, as did liver TNF-alpha and procollagen mRNA, indicating an inflammatory and profibrogenic response to injury. Glucose intolerance and impaired fasting glucose developed within 2 and 4 wk, respectively. Plasma insulin, resistin, and leptin levels increased in a profile similar to that seen in patients with NASH. The individual components of this diet contributed to the phenotype independently; isocaloric replacement of trans fats with lard established that trans fats played a major role in promoting hepatic steatosis and injury, whereas inclusion of HFCS promoted food consumption, obesity, and impaired insulin sensitivity. Combining risk factors for the metabolic syndrome by feeding mice trans fats and HFCS induced histological features of NASH in the context of a metabolic profile similar to patients with this disease. Because dietary trans fats promoted liver steatosis and injury, their role in the epidemic of NASH needs further evaluation."

(This is Mark, the reason Neil talks so funny is because he's a doctor.)