American Food (again), HFCS, and more fun

Those who know me know that I’m usually careful about nutrition. I visited some friends in Indiana last week and my host (Nick) invited me to home-grown squashes, turnip greens and zucchinis. Man, I’m jealous … it inspired me to finally begin my herb garden project. And here it is, my first american herb garden:
basil

Ok, it’s a single Basil plant. But hey, I have harvested three times in the last week (two salads and spaghetti). I also seeded parsley and am planning to extend it next week if I have time (a second pot).

The one thing I like most about food here right now is that all watermelons are awesome and cheap! Not like in Germany where 4 out of 5 melons taste like cardboard and cost a fortune. I even tasted a yello watermelon last week – looks very weird (like yellow text marker):
melon

But tastes very very nice!

Hunts sells a new Ketchup brand since last month:
ketchyup

I’m sure that the HCFS mafia, aehem, the Corn Refiners Association does not like this very much. There are also two recent studies that seem interesting: High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Liver Scarring, Research Suggests and
High-Fructose Corn Syrup Prompts Considerably More Weight Gain, Researchers Find. And the corn mafia^W^WCorn Refiners Association is quick at pointing out flaws (1, 2) in the studies :-). This is close to ridiculous. Only one thing is better: http://www.sweetsurprise.com/. I mean if everything would be ok, why do I need to advertise that nothing is wrong ;-). This page is generally very entertaining with regards to its independence (check “Science and Research” for anything negative, i.e., the two studies cited above; so far about “full list of results”). The wikipedia page is also worth a read. I’m simply amazed!