"This Song is Organic, It Contains No High Fructose Corn Syrup"**

This semester I have been taking a course entitled Edible Ideologies. We have focused largely on the way food is produced and consumed in our culture and both the positive and negative aspects. After viewing the documentary "King Corn" for class I have been greatly concerned with my intake of High Fructose Corn Syrup mainly due to the large health risks that occur with its consumption. I have notorious in my life for my soda intake and other beverages of the like. Among Coca-Cola, Snapple was a big part of my liquid consumption. However this semester I have undergone a huge effort to greatly reduce my HFCS intake as much as possible. This is not as easy as I thought since the stuff is in almost everything. However, while I was out this past weekend I looked at a beverage selection and noticed a new look to the traditional Snapple. While Snapple has always claimed to be all natural, the new label that also advertised the fact that it was made from green and black tea leaves, caught my attention. I looked closer at the bottle and the ingredients, as I have found myself doing more often, and noticed that HFCS had been replaced in fact by actual sugar. Much to my amazement I purchased a bottle and went home to do some research. While the snapple website still lists HFCS as an ingredient, I did stumble upon a New York Times article that highlighted the new direction in which Snapple was heading. Indeed, not only has Snapple revamped their outdated look, but they are now producing drinks made with actual sugar and not this chemical substitue. How refreshing! Snapple can once again be not only the official beverage of New York City, but mine as well.

*photo courtesy of The New York Times
** Conor Oberst at Radio City Music Hall November 19th, 2007