Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days?

   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #191  
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Holy carp... what do you eat?!? It's damn near impossible to avoid the stuff in the US, anymore.

I'm not a fan of most of Europe's liberal lawmaking, but I do appreciate their stronger stance against preservatives, sweetners, and other chemicals that we allow our food manufacturers to use. Damn near half the stuff we eat every day is outlawed in many other developed countries.
We have noticed that when we have traveled to other countries, we loose weight, or worse case, don't gain weight even though we eat more food when traveling. We certainly go to more restaurants when traveling than when at home. On the second trip to Ireland we would eat chips, aka potato chips, every night which we do not do at home. Lost weight that trip.

The last trip to the NL there was a WONDERFUL pastry, bakery restaurant that I ate something from almost every day. The city had two market days each week and I HAD TO HAVE the fried fish from the fish seller. 😁 Just fabulous. Each market day I would get a platter of the fried fish. Then there was the "pancake" restaurant I went to at least six times. I think it was eight visits. 😱 The menu was huge and I swear you could eat a meal a day, well maybe two meals, and not eat the same meal twice in a month. Then there are the fries....

Lost weight on that trip.

When I first heard of HFCS, I thought it was overblown, then I started noticing that it shows up in soooo much food in the US. Years ago, I got a hankering for the little red hot sausages. I had not had them in years, and for some reason, thought about the little hot sausages so I went to a grocery store that would have them in stock. The store had at least six different brands of these little red hot sausages but every one of them had HFCS. Did not buy the red hot sausages. Very disappointed.

Our US food is just too processed and with too many chemicals. I read food labels, and if the label is a paragraph long, I don't buy it. I REALLY want a danish or donut, but when I see a paragraph long label of ingredients, not having it.

People are much thinner in the countries we have visited. There are over weight people but not in the same numbers as in the US. We watch a YouTube channel from the NL and the guy eats a danish each day best I can tell but he is thin. There is just too much $%^&*() in our food. Watching TV shows from 50's, 60's and early 70's people where thin. I really think it is because the food was less processed and people where not eating as much carbs not to mention how much we eat. The Supersizing of meals has an impact.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #192  
^^^^
You can't say anything about weight because it's "fatshaming"... we've gone a long ways backward since JFK's All American Fitness Team.
Meanwhile heart disease in younger people is increasing annually. Some blame it on something which happened about 5 years ago and that likely is part of it; yet deaths by heart attacks in people under 50 have been going up since before that.

 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #193  
I think you'll find it is more driven by the price supports given to American sugar interests. They make it so sugar is more expensive.

HFCS is only about 3% of the corn usage in the US. Ethanol is a much bigger driver used by the Iowan lobbyists. It's 33-36% of domestic corn usage. (And really accounts for the increase in corn production since it was introduced on a national scale).
Yes ^^^
Plus, there has been a huge tariff on foreign sugar cane for over 30 years. Some is aloud in country with a small tariff, but not enough to influence our sugar market.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #194  
I think you'll find it is more driven by the price supports given to American sugar interests. They make it so sugar is more expensive.
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Yes, the sugar cane industry has been protected from overseas competition which has kept sugar prices high. Now, some would argue high sugar prices are a good thing to lower sugar consumption. Some European countries are limiting sugar in products and taxing it is my understanding. I don't think reasonable sugar intake is bad, we used to drink lots of soda as a kid, or worse, sweet tea, and few kids were fat. Something else is going on and I think it is the process carbs and HFCS.

The sugar cane industry in South Florida is horrible. They literally are using up the soil on their farms. It won't be many more years before they are down to bedrock. The pollution they cause is pretty bad too. The way they used to treat the migrant worked was criminal.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #195  
True, but the only HFCS plant is in Iowa, and they are protective of that.
I don't know about that. Primient makes it and they don't have any production facilities in Iowa.

So does Indiana Sugars in Gary, IN.

ADM is huge and has plants everywhere. Couldn't find anything specific as to which of their plants make hfcs.

Cargill is based in Iowa and makes it. No info on which plants for them either.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #196  
I don't think reasonable sugar intake is bad, we used to drink lots of soda as a kid, or worse, sweet tea, and few kids were fat. Something else is going on and I think it is the process carbs and HFCS.
I'm no doctor, but I do recall hearing more than one doctor claim that sugar intake in kids is a whole different ball of wax, than sugar intake in adults. For whatever reason, higher metabolism or other factors, they consider high sugur intake in kids normal and non-detrimental. But the same apparently can't be said for adults.

Believing that our bodies tell us what they need, at least to some degree, I suspect this is the reason that most of us find ourselves switching from a craving for "sweet" as a kid to a craving for "savory" as adults. I can drink black coffee today, and find the hint of sweetness that naturally occurs within it, but could not do that as a teen.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #197  
At work I swear the place functions on coffee and Diet Coke for over 30 years. House coffee is Folgers.

Over the last year the volume of Diet Coke is being replaced by Diet Dr. Pepper

I don’t drink coffee or Diet Coke. I find Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi intolerable.

If I have soda it has to be Cherry Pepsi.

At my little hospital the shift to Diet Dr. Pepper continues.

I was 17 traveling when I had my very first soda… told not to drink the water and too young for beer and wine.

Growing up it was water or milk… once the Orange tree started producing mom would fresh squeeze a little cup for everyone…

I think that full of pulp fresh from tree Orange Juice was like a tonic…
The "New Coke" debacle back in 1985 is viewed as a colossal failure. Yet I've always argued otherwise. They were trying to make Coke more Pepsi-like... not understanding there was a reason why we drank their product.
When "Coke Classic" came out, it was purported to be the old format. Yet one taste had me checking the ingredients, which were indeed changed.
So was "New Coke" really a mistake, or just a well played sleight of hand?


That initial taste of "Coke Classic" in July 1985 was the last time that I ever drank a "Cola."
 
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   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #198  
I'm no doctor, but I do recall hearing more than one doctor claim that sugar intake in kids is a whole different ball of wax, than sugar intake in adults. For whatever reason, higher metabolism or other factors, they consider high sugur intake in kids normal and non-detrimental. But the same apparently can't be said for adults.

Believing that our bodies tell us what they need, at least to some degree, I suspect this is the reason that most of us find ourselves switching from a craving for "sweet" as a kid to a craving for "savory" as adults. I can drink black coffee today, and find the hint of sweetness that naturally occurs within it, but could not do that as a teen.
Yep, I agree. They say that HFCS is process differently by our bodies. One of the things I have heard/read is that HFCS does not satisfy your hunger so you keep eating. Europe uses HFCS but their fructose content is something like 9-35% vs the US 55ish%.
When I was in school there might be 2-3 kids who were overweight out of a class of 33-35. When my kids were in school, at least 30-50% of the class mates were overweight, and far more overweight then the kids I went to school with. The kids now a days have far more sports options than we did and there were far more of our children's friends playing sports than my class mates. I really think it is what is in the food and that we have been told to eat more carbs. And the carbs are more processed than what we had as children.

I am sure I said it before in this discussion but look at the actors in Andy Griffith and Star Trek who are so thin. I have watched videos on YouTube that were shot in the 1930's and maybe 1940's in small town in NC. The majority of people were slim. There were some overweight people but not many and they were much smaller than the overweight of the today.
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #199  
I am sure I said it before in this discussion but look at the actors in Andy Griffith and Star Trek who are so thin. I have watched videos on YouTube that were shot in the 1930's and maybe 1940's in small town in NC. The majority of people were slim. There were some overweight people but not many and they were much smaller than the overweight of the today.
Not only that, but we thought Otis and Curly were both obese in their day. Today, they look normal and average! :ROFLMAO:
 
   / Gin and Tonic fans? What's up with tonic water these days? #200  

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