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Monday, September 27, 2010
OPINION
Editor-in-Chief: Lauren Winchester Phone: (512) 232-2212 E-mail: editor@dailytexanonline.com Associate Editors: Viviana Aldous Susannah Jacob Doug Luippold Dave Player
T HE DAILY T EXAN
GALLERY OVERVIEW
The next step The Red River Rivalry game and Yom Kippur fall on the same day in 2011. Yom Kippur is one of the most sacred and solemn days of the Hebrew year, and many Jewish and non-Jewish Longhorns are outraged by the conflict. In protest, students launched a campaign including a Facebook group that already has several hundred members, an online petition and campus rallies all in an effort to change the date of the game, but Big 12 and UT officials indicated that a change was unlikely. The Red River Rivalry should not be on Yom Kippur; hopefully everybody can agree a major campus festivity should not fall on one of the most revered days in the Jewish faith. The dates should not conflict, but they do, and we would completely support a change — once somebody offers a solution to bring one. To this end, while advocates have vehemently demanded a change, no one has put forth a way to enact one. The discussion should not be whether the game should be on Yom Kippur but how to change it at minimal cost and with the least inconvenience possible. The dates conflict largely because they are designated by two different calendars. The Red River Rivalry game annually occurs the second weekend of the State Fair of Texas, which begins the last Friday of September and continues for 24 days. Advancing the game one week would be difficult because the State Fair Classic between Grambling State University and Prairie View A&M is the first weekend of the State Fair. Pushing the game back a week would require Texas and Oklahoma to reschedule their games for that week, forcing their opponents to reschedule theirs, setting off a chain reaction that could potentially impact several teams. Any scheduling changes could cost the University significant amounts of money, not to mention the impact it would have on businesses that operate and plan around a game being played on the second weekend of the fair. This is not to say the date shouldn’t change; just that so far, we just haven’t heard any plausible suggestions for how to accommodate such a change. While extremely organized and savvy, the campaign to move the game has been more of an outlet for frustration than a forum for solutions. The Facebook group “Texas OU Game 2011 on Yom Kippur...LET’S CHANGE IT,” the centerpiece of the effort, claims its purpose is to “work together ... to come up with suggestions on how we can spread the word and make this happen.” However, the group’s discussion section is empty, and its wall isn’t a platform for solutions as much as a forum for boasting about its media attention and ostracizing those who disagree with its movement. To be sure, some critiques of the efforts are fallacious and mean-spirited. Some claim moving the game would be some overreaction by the “P.C. Police,” and that the conflict is acceptable because UT has held games on Christian and secular holidays, such as the A&M game on Thanksgiving and last Easter’s spring game. Comparisons between an Easter spring game and Yom Kippur OU game are ignorant at best and offensive at worst. Easter and Christmas are of a joyous nature, and a vibrant football game would not conflict with the festive nature of the holiday. Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is a reflective and solemn high holy day where Jews focus on sacrifice and subservience to God through strictly prescribed and centuries-old practices. Opposing a change because of the logistical and financial implications involved is perfectly reasonable, but denying the validity of the campaign’s grievances is disrespectful. The campaign has done an impressive job of bringing attention to the issue, but so far that is all it has accomplished. If its members really want to work with the University to move the game and convince the Longhorn population it is worth the cost and effort, then they must acknowledge the complexities involved and start presenting alternatives. — Douglas Luippold for the editorial board
GALLERY
The politics of sugar By Kate Clabby Daily Texan Columnist The food processing industry doesn’t want you to be confused. That is why representatives of the Corn Refiners Association say they recently applied to the FDA to rename their most vilified product, highfructose corn syrup (HFCS), the more innocuous-sounding “corn sugar.” Within the past few months, consumer concern that HFCS is more harmful than sugar has led companies to remove the HFCS from products such as Hunt’s Ketchup, Wheat Thins and Sara Lee bread, and USDA statistics show that HFCS consumption is at a 20-year low. Although it could take up to two years for the FDA to allow the name “corn sugar” onto ingredient labels, the Corn Refiners Association is already using it in a TV ad and on its new website, cornsugar.com. The TV ad claims, “Whether it’s corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can’t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar!” I like seeing the makers of Coca-Cola and Hostess Cupcakes on the defensive, but the media storm surrounding this name change might distract consumers from both the real science and the real politics behind the sweetener. The website quotes doctors who claim that cane sugar contains the same simple sugars, fructose and glucose in roughly the same proportions as HFCS. Most HFCS contains 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Cane sugar is actually sucrose, which is one molecule of fructose bonded
to one molecule of glucose. So while it does contain 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, your body uses enzymes to break apart the molecules in order to digest it. The sugars do act the same by the time they get to your bloodstream, but it’s feasible that the difference in the digestive process could change your body’s reaction. Some studies have shown that HFCS causes more weight gain in lab animals than cane sugar, but the data is not conclusive. The real reason behind HFCS’s widespread use is that it’s cheap. In 1973, The USDA started subsidizing corn by paying farmers to grow as much as possible and sell it below the cost of production. Corn production skyrocketed, and its price continued to fall. So the food processing industry looked for new ways to use this cheap commodity and invented HFCS. It was a few cents cheaper than sugar, so companies started to add it to food in the late 1970s. Simultaneously, American obesity rates exploded. We can, in part, blame the sweetener for the obesity crisis, but any qualitative difference between HFCS and sugar is dwarfed by the quantitative difference. Food companies didn’t just swap out the old sugar for the new HFCS — because it was cheaper, they induced consumers to eat (and drink) more of it. Soft drink makers “supersized” their portions, offering larger bottles for only a few cents more, and HFCS started to show up in foods we don’t even think of as sweetened, such as bread, lunch meat and hot dogs. Almost anything tastes better
with a little bit more sugar, so adding HFCS is a cheap way for food processors to “add value” to a product and entice customers to keep buying it. All of this extra HFCS has meant that, according to Michael Pollan, America’s percapita consumption of all sugars has increased from 128 pounds per year in 1985 to 158 in 2006. Chemical nuances aside, sugar is sugar, and 158 pounds a year is far too much. Pressuring companies to switch from HFCS to cane sugar won’t solve our obesity problem, and cane sugar is often grown by exploited, impoverished farmers in developing countries, so the politics are just as bad. The Corn Refiners Association claims that HFCS is “fine in moderation.” But what is moderation? The World Health Organization recommends that no more than 10 percent of your daily calories come from added sugar. For someone who eats 2,000 calories a day, that’s only 200 calories — and 200 calories of sugar a day adds up to less than 40 pounds a year. If we all started consuming HFCS in true moderation, the industry would never survive. It absolutely makes sense to avoid HFCS — it is a sign of a processed, nutritionally deficient food that probably contains far too much sugar as well as other less-thanhealthy additives. But if cane sugar starts to replace it in more of these products, don’t let the food industry off so easily. Junk will still be junk. Clabby is an English senior.
LEGALESE
RECYCLE
Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.
Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan. Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange news stand where you found it.
THE FIRING LINE Not America’s problem On Wednesday, Sept. 22, The Daily Texan published an opinion column, “Take responsibility for Mexico’s tragedy,” concerning the drug cartel war, and in particular, the resignation of El Diario de Juárez from the coverage of that war. This resignation was communicated through a letter. The letter spoke of the ineffective actions of the government and the effective actions of the drug cartels, and finally pleaded the cartel leaders to tell the newspaper what to publish so there would be no repercussions. It was poignant and sad. Even worse, as I was reading it, I knew I could only stand and observe in silence. So when I read an opinion article that attempts to illustrate that the United States of America is at the root of this drug war, I get angry only because there isn’t anything that I know of to help the situation. When I change my vacation spot from Mexico to Costa Rica, it’s because I don’t want to die, not because I do not care. In all of the world’s history, when has the United States of America forced the United Mexican States to be its crack transport? I know we have subdued much, if not all, of Latin America at some point in the 20th century and then strutted back across the Rio Grande; the United States should take responsibility for that. But we do not have to take responsibility for the drug wars. This is not a problem caused by America. It’s just a problem that needs to be solved. — Abhijit Sreerama Mathematics freshman