I've read quite a lot about corn syrup too ... I guess for me I just try to be cautious in many foods about ingredients but not stress it too much simply because most foods (other than whole foods) end up having research done that shows how toxic it is to our bodies. I want to be healthy, as healthy as possible. Yet I can't get myself worked up about too many reports anymore simply because we don't have the options our ancestors did. I wish we had access to untainted produce and dairy and meat and grains ... sadly most food we eat is contaminated in some fashion or another or literally poison to our bodies. Margarine is only ingredient (a small one!!) away from being actual plastic. Plastic!!! Crazy stuff
You're absolutely right about that. I don't get too worked up about it, because you're right, if you don't grow it yourself, you have NO idea where it came from or what's in it.
I know a woman who is uber religious (in a cult-ish fashion) and its against her religion to eat mass produced foods. So she buys everything from a farmer's market in a major metropolitin area. Now, I don't know how things are where she is, but I know people who sell things at farmer's markets, here, and I know a HUGE chunk of them go to auctions and buy bulk produce, bring it home, throw it in the bed of the truck, and sell it as home grown. (Cgfg's mom is one of them). Uh, yeah...homegrown.
Anyway, I digress. I don't try to stress about it, either, but I try to make changes where I can. I don't know why, tho, but the corn syrup study just hit me. The rats that ate the corn syrup water gained twice as much weight on the same amount of calories, and then to learn it was banned in other countries... I dunno. Just hit home for me. If there's an option of something with sugar, instead, that's the one I choose.
And I'd venture a guess that somewhere down the road, we'll discover that all this genetically altered food DOES have an impact. Like you said, I bet everything does.