MattMaroon.com

One strange thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I seem to have an overly-sensitive palate when it comes to sweetness. It has a lot of advantages and a lot of disadvantages, so on the whole I find it quite bittersweet, pun intended.

For one, I can’t tolerate high fructose corn syrup. It’s so sweet that it literally makes me nauseous. That means that most bottled beverages these days are out. Oddly enough the rise in gas prices might fix that for me. Corn syrup is the sweetener of choice for most beverage makers due to the high price of sugar, which is caused by ridiculous tariffs, which in turn were inspired by agribusiness lobbying money. But as gas prices rise and corn farmers are able to fetch higher and higher prices from ethanol manufacturers the price of high fructose corn syrup goes up, and presumably the lobbying money from corporations like Archer Daniels Midland that realize that farmers can now make more from fuel anyway, evaporates like spilled Coca-Cola on hot pavement. I read somewhere that the magic gas price is $2.75. At that point corn prices are high enough that it is more economical for beverage makers to use sugar, even with the tariffs in place.

So, while it sucks to spend $60 to fill up my tank, it does mean I’ll be able to drink Doctor Pepper. In fact, I was looking at a can of pop the other day and where I had never seen anything but corn syrup listed before it now said “high fructose corn syrup and/or cane sugar”. Soft drink manufacturers respond quickly.

I also can’t eat chocolate. I like it in small doses, but I could never just eat a fudge brownie without feeling sick. And I pretty much can’t stand cake of any sort, as the icing is a killer, but a chocolate cake would probably send me into a coma. This perhaps doesn’t sound like much of a disability, but I’ve learned that the easiest way to make people think you’re a weirdo is to tell them that you don’t like chocolate. Try it some time, I promise you’ll get the same look you’d receive if you said “I just moved to a new house. Tomorrow I have to go door to door and tell all the neighbors about my past.”

Luckily all of those things that I can’t eat are pretty bad for me. If I had to pick something to have an aversion to, it would be sweets. I’m sure Pepsi is wonderful and all, but a 150 calorie beverage is the last thing I need to acquire a taste for. If I were overly sensitive to leafy greens, then I’d really be screwed.

This entry was posted on March 13, 2007 at 6:35 am and is filed under Me Thinking So You Don't Have To . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.