First time I had a drink of Coca Cola, I was at an Air Force beach in Cam Ranh Bay. My father, the mayor of the town then, was the only Vietnamese allowed to bringing his family to the beach to mingle with American officers and their family. A small shack at one end of the sandy beach sold hamburgers and soft drinks. That was where we, my siblings and I got a taste of the wonderful American food.
Settled in the States after the fall of South Vietnam, we were busy rebuilding our life. Food was something to keep us from getting hungry, not to dwell on too much about. Even then, I never liked to drink Coke, Pepsi or other sodas. Explaining my reluctance to have any types of soft drink, I reasoned that maybe the carbonate gas upsets my stomach, there may be too much caffeine, or may be nothing would ever taste as good as the Coca Cola I drank when I was so young.
Moving to a small Caribbean island to retire, I found myself enjoying Coca Cola again. The drink gave orange juice or freshly squeezed limeade a good run for my consumption. Surprised about the change, my husband inquired and got my answer that "it's tasted good here." His husbandly reply to my comment was "it's just your imagination."
Felling curious, I looked up information about Coca Cola beverage on the Web. The answer I found surprised me. Since early 1980's, due to a surplus of corn, corn producer in the US turned cornstarch into high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and almost gave it away to food producing company. From then on, because of HFCS is cheaper and more convenient to use than sugar, most US soft drinks are made with corn syrup. Connoisseurs of soft drinks though, complained that the taste is not the same as if made with sugar. Nowadays, only soft drinks produced outside the US, are made with sugar. Picking up a bottle of Cola at home, I read its label. Sure enough, it was made in Venezuela. It has no HFCS, just good old azucar (sugar). No wonder it tasted so good.
HFCS contains two basic sugar building blocks, fructose and glucose, in roughly equal amounts. A Louisiana State University researcher mentioned that fructose appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation.
A professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis said that consuming too much fructose may contribute to weight gain. And a University of Minnesota study found that the action of fructose in the liver, where it is converted into the chemical backbone of triglycerides, elevated levels of triglycerides thus may increase risk of heart disease. The professor and researchers, though, did caution readers that there was no in-depth study done on this matter.
Obesity is an obvious problem for most folks in the US. Diabetes, both types are on the rise. I wonder if the consumption of HFCS could be a factor. I do not think food-producing companies would stop using HFCS in ready-made food and drinks sold in the US anytime soon. A few cents cheaper in the production cost would translate to a lot of profit. Plus there may be another study comes out soon saying that there is nothing wrong with corn syrup. Even if it may cause no harm to the human body, I still trust my taste buds more, and will stick with the old fashion Coca Cola. Problem is I cannot find it easily in the States. That is one of the reasons we left the US. Stay tuned for other reasons.
July 2, 2005
