All Things Transcription

Here in the United States, we consume about 10 million tons of sugar per year. These are 2000 figures. Imagine what it is now. I try to do my fair share of the consuming. Let it never be said that I do not try to do my part for the country. I bake a lot and I absolutely adore sugar. I love sugar in all its forms; white, brown, organic, honey. You name it and I will try to bake with it (or sneak a spoonful while I am baking). Visions of sugarplums dance in my head.

Follow up:

So imagine my chagrin when I came across this story from CBS News. Oh the horrors! This cannot be. Not enough sugar? Hershey's, that wonderful fairytale town, park, and chocolate maker, may not have enough to keep the kisses and hugs coming? (Yes, I know there is better, and therefore, more expensive chocolate than Hershey’s but I love it.)

Seriously, this seems to be just another warm up to some serious inflation worries. If you consider the number of products that contain sugar, we may see an extremely sharp increase in the amount we pay for food. This comes on top of a period that saw food prices rise about 14%. It may be that to live within our means, we may have to consider some alternatives to what we usually eat.

The best example I can think of is cold cereal. I like cereal. My family likes cereal. I don’t buy cereal very much anymore. I make homemade oatmeal. I usually put some type of dried fruit on it. It’s pretty good. It isn’t Cocoa Pebbles, but especially during the winter it is pretty good. I also make homemade granola type stuff. The recipe varies, but the point is that for the price of a box of cereal I can make a ton of this stuff.

There are usually substitutions for just about anything that turn out to be tasty, less expensive, and (gasp) a lot more nutritious. However, if you are talking about eliminating an entire food group it can get a lot more difficult. Yes, I am talking about sugar as a food group. Buying sugar free products is not what I am suggesting here. They are usually more expensive and I don’t think much about artificial sweeteners.

However, if this article proves to be true we could be in for some pretty rough times. The number of jobs that are provided by food manufacturers is staggering. Imagine just how bad it would get if those people are out of work too. Not only are some of the food products that we depend on daily no going to be available, but they will be prohibitively expensive for many of us. Maybe even out of reach for the very people who used to make those wonderful products for us.

This isn’t about what is good or bad for us to eat. This is about what would happen if we were suddenly unable to obtain the sugar to keep these food manufacturers in business. You think it’s bad now? In the words of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” It’s a double whammy of more massive layoffs and massively inflated food costs.