Rodney

Have to agree. The most evil foods are those little lunch-sized packs of chips -- cheetos, fritos, whatever variety. They weigh a couple of ounces or less and pack hundreds of fried calories. And they are, of course, made of corn. Parents pack them off to school with their kids, who eat the junk and throw away the good stuff.

I think I was most appalled, though, by the "Lunchables" for kids; I forget who makes them (Kraft?) but they're full, pre-packed lunches of processed foods that appeal to kids' tastes. And they're _laden_ with fat, sugar, and so on, mostly from corn-based products (and corn-fed animals). There are a couple of less-bad varieties that you can buy, but the kids don't like them as much.

When I was a kid I was packed off to school with a baloney sandwich on white bread and a banana. And I know baloney-on-white isn't health food. But the food kids are given today is much more highly processed and much more full of fat, and more of it. At least I had to eat the banana.

Charlatan mentioned soft drinks. One of the most insidious things about soft drinks -- HFCS or otherwise -- is that the calories are "invisible to your guts." Say you sit down to a meal of pizza, and you usually eat three slices. If you drink two or three soft drinks it won't affect your ability or willingness to eat your three slices -- even though the soft drinks have added 400+ calories to the meal.

This has always been an issue, but HFCS has made soft drinks so cheap that people drink more and more of them. The "bottomless" glass of soft drinks in many restaurants didn't come along until ten or 15 years ago. A 20-ounce bottle of coke or pepsi costs what, $1-$1.10 these days? Back in the '70s, a 28-ounce "large" bottle of coke (the largest available) cost about 75 cents. Which translates to close to three bucks with inflation. And you _weren't_ supposed to drink it all by yourself; it was something that two or three people would share at a meal.