Fallout

19 4 9

by joyceholt

by joyceholt

Friend: "Try some of my delicious [insert food name]! I can't wait to see how you like it!"

Me: "Yum! It smells delicious! But I must pass."

Friend: (looking hurt)...

People with celiac disease have significant immune reactions to gluten in their diet. Wheat, barley, and rye glutens play the most notorious villains here, but corn often slips in surreptitiously and wreaks havoc on unsuspecting sufferers.

Simple solution, right? Just read the labels on food, or ask for gluten-free options on the menu.

Yes, it's fairly easy in the United States to avoid wheat. Labels and menus flag any wheat content.

But corn derivatives number in the hundreds and go by incomprehensible multi-syllable Latin-origin scientific terminology like alpha tocopherol, calcium magnesium acetate, carbonmethylcellulose sodium, crosscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose pthalate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.*

Did that paragraph make you go cross-eyed? Okay, I'll make it simple.

In the US, corn is likely to be the origin of any food coloring, "natural" flavoring, preservative, and flow agent, found even in the fillers used in almost every tablet of medication.

How did corn derivatives come to be so pervasive?

Ninety years ago, the US government took steps to keep the nation's farms from widespread failure in the middle of the Great Depression, by offering subsidies, among other strategies. The Farm Bill gets renewed every five years or so.

The corn industry drinks deepest at this fount, so of course it would seek any opportunity to tap into the flow of federal dollars. In the last six years the corn industry has received more than $116 billion** in government subsidies!

The fallout: ever worsening health for a large sector of the unsuspecting public.

Even though in American culture it's considered mildly rude*** to turn down a friend's offer of lovingly made food, I never consume anything I haven't prepared myself. The price I would pay in pain and agony is just too high to keep dancing the dance of good manners.

~~~

Survival Tactics: In effort to have some small semblance of "normal" food options in my home cooking, my salvation lies in these gluten-free, corn-free substitutions:

Baking powder substitute:

2 teaspoons cream of tartar (an acid derived from grapes)
1 teaspoon baking soda (an alkaline)
Mix and use like baking powder. As soon as liquid is added to the mixture, this powder begins to activate.

Powdered sugar substitute:
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon potato starch
Blend in a blender for 1 or 2 minutes.

Chili powder substitute:
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons garlic powder

Flour mix:
1 part potato starch (NOT potato flour)
2 parts tapioca flour or tapioca starch
2 parts brown-rice flour
4 parts white-rice flour

* http://corn-freefoods.blogspot.com/2017/11/corn-allergen-list-corn-derivatives.html

** https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/primer-agriculture-subsidies-and-their-influence-on-the-composition-of-u-s-food-supply-and-consumption/

*** In Filipino culture it is considered the worst possible insult to refuse an offer of food, I learned after suffering for weeks the evil eye of one wonderful Filipino cook whom I had regretfully turned down.

(prompt: substitution)