Spring Break
Regarding your parasitic business practices
Ryan Nowell
Issue date: 2/11/09 Section: Opinion
Imagine my surprise, opening up the paper this Friday to find a letter to the editor on behalf of the Corn Refiners Association, airing their concerns about some "factually incorrect conclusions" in my column last week.
Now between you and me, kind reader, I was all set to let this thing go and move on to greener pastures. Alas. The CRA just had to go and fulfill their corporate mission statement, didn't they?
For the sake of space and Collegian policy, I'm not able to go point by point through the letter, but let's just say I was a little disappointed that my first corporate finger-wag turned out to be a cut and paste of previous press releases.
That's what corporate types call "staying on message," a rhetorical tactic we've all become very familiar with in the past eight years, where you cling to one or two talking points and use them to bludgeon to death any further lines of questioning.
I suppose where I'm really getting hung up is where they reiterated that corn syrup meets the FDA's requirements for being labeled "natural." Beyond any semantics and before any science, the core problem here is credibility.
This federal definition emerged in a letter sent to the CRA in April of last year, summarizing a meeting between the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and administrators from Archer Daniels Midland, one of the country's largest agricultural conglomerates and a top producer of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The fellows from ADM clarified a few of their manufacturing techniques and by meeting's end, the FDA had made the call on HFCS.
Why am I so hung up on this? Well, friends, to answer that, we must take the way-back machine to the year 1976. Disco was king, Burt Reynolds was America's leading heartthrob, our parents were snorting our college funds off of tiny mirrors and Business Week ran an article noting the certainty of ADM's then-CEO Dwayne Andreas at the eventual passage of a new sugar bill.
Back then sugar prices were hitting all-time global highs because there weren't many practical alternative sweeteners.
Now between you and me, kind reader, I was all set to let this thing go and move on to greener pastures. Alas. The CRA just had to go and fulfill their corporate mission statement, didn't they?
For the sake of space and Collegian policy, I'm not able to go point by point through the letter, but let's just say I was a little disappointed that my first corporate finger-wag turned out to be a cut and paste of previous press releases.
That's what corporate types call "staying on message," a rhetorical tactic we've all become very familiar with in the past eight years, where you cling to one or two talking points and use them to bludgeon to death any further lines of questioning.
I suppose where I'm really getting hung up is where they reiterated that corn syrup meets the FDA's requirements for being labeled "natural." Beyond any semantics and before any science, the core problem here is credibility.
This federal definition emerged in a letter sent to the CRA in April of last year, summarizing a meeting between the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and administrators from Archer Daniels Midland, one of the country's largest agricultural conglomerates and a top producer of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The fellows from ADM clarified a few of their manufacturing techniques and by meeting's end, the FDA had made the call on HFCS.
Why am I so hung up on this? Well, friends, to answer that, we must take the way-back machine to the year 1976. Disco was king, Burt Reynolds was America's leading heartthrob, our parents were snorting our college funds off of tiny mirrors and Business Week ran an article noting the certainty of ADM's then-CEO Dwayne Andreas at the eventual passage of a new sugar bill.
Back then sugar prices were hitting all-time global highs because there weren't many practical alternative sweeteners.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Bobby Nowell
posted 2/17/09 @ 6:32 PM MST
Very well put. Looking forward to any response from the 'industries'. Keep on...... b
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