4 ms·

Roughly coinciding with the complete dominance of high fructose corn syrup completely taking over from granulated sugar in food manufacturing. Correlation is no

Roughly coinciding with the complete dominance of high fructose corn syrup completely taking over from granulated sugar in food manufacturing. Correlation is not causation. In the U.S. the sugar industry my uncle used to work in is now non-existent. Sugar beet is possibly not even a crop in Californian any longer, and I believe the cane industry in Hawaii is either non-existent or at least much smaller.

adventured 8y ago
There's a bit of a perfect storm in that 1980-2000 frame. US soda consumption roughly doubled from 1975 to 2000. And of course as you mentioned, the US switched from sugar to high fructose. The US Government poured gasoline on the fire, with its industry collusion re sugar and its wildly screwed up food pyramids encouraging the over-consumption of carbs. US sugar consumption also oddly skyrocketed from roughly 1980 to 2000. It went from ~80 pounds to ~110 pounds annually per capita in just under 20 years (after being relatively stable in a 20lb range the prior 60 years minus WW2). The era of sugar cereal, sugar breakfast, large containers of soda everywhere, a large junk food boom, a big pizza & carb boom (rapid growth of pizza chains everywhere), continued explosion of low quality fast food chains. And last but not least, a huge increase in sedentary lifestyles.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  also coincides with advertising deregulation, the advent of ads directed at children during the first reagan administration
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Source? Also coincides with the advent of cable television.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I remember plenty of commercials for cereal during my childhood which significantly predated the 1980s. The idea that kids didn't widely eat Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Trix, etc. etc. is simply counterfactual. I I suspect there are many reasons for increased obesity including more fast food, more (large) soda consumption, less physical play activity, etc. Simply blaming advertising, farm subsidies, or whatever may make people feel that they've identified an external bogeyman but it's not as simple as that.
    - nyolfen 8y ago
      https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-when-reagan-met-optimus-prime https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-when-reagan-met-o...
      - chrisco255 8y ago
        This is an interesting take on an inevitable event in television history. Deregulation was bound to happen as the triopoly held by ABC, CBS, and NBC began to break up with the advent of cable TV. Furthermore I have very many fond memories of children's television in the 80s and 90s, and commercialized or not, like the Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Hot Wheels, Captain N, etc...it was very enjoyable to me and I would hate for some bureaucrat to dictate what was and wasn't acceptable. Markets do that just fine when choice is available. It would be even harder to enforce such a thing in the age of the internet.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  The sugar cereal breakfast was common in the 1960s. The same ones as today were there in the 1960s - Captain Crunch, Fruit Loops, etc.
bluedino 8y ago
>> Sugar beet is possibly not even a crop in Californian any longer Plenty of sugar beet here in Michigan. plugs nose
nradov 8y ago
So far there's no real proof that HFCS is any worse than other forms of sugar. The problem is more likely due to consuming more sugar in general. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679479/
- ams6110 8y ago
  No it's not the corn syrup that's the problem it's that it is a lot cheaper than cane sugar so it's used in higher quantities and in more types of food. Also the late 1980s and 1990s was when people started going nuts about "low-fat" diets. When food producers removed fats and oils from their products, consumers thought it tasted like cardboard. So manufacturers would add sugar or corn syrup to make the food taste better, while still being able to call it low fat.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > it's not the corn syrup that's the problem it's that it is a lot cheaper than cane sugar so it's used in higher quantities and in more types of food For reference, corn syrup is not in fact cheaper than cane sugar. But the US imposes a tariff on imported sugar that keeps the price at roughly 300% of what it would otherwise be.
HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
Then you would have to explain why the same thing happened in other western countries where the dominant sugar is not HFCS.

adventured 8y ago

There's a bit of a perfect storm in that 1980-2000 frame. US soda consumption roughly doubled from 1975 to 2000. And of course as you mentioned, the US switched from sugar to high fructose. The US Government poured gasoline on the fire, with its industry collusion re sugar and its wildly screwed up food pyramids encouraging the over-consumption of carbs. US sugar consumption also oddly skyrocketed from roughly 1980 to 2000. It went from ~80 pounds to ~110 pounds annually per capita in just under 20 years (after being relatively stable in a 20lb range the prior 60 years minus WW2). The era of sugar cereal, sugar breakfast, large containers of soda everywhere, a large junk food boom, a big pizza & carb boom (rapid growth of pizza chains everywhere), continued explosion of low quality fast food chains. And last but not least, a huge increase in sedentary lifestyles.

nyolfen 8y ago
also coincides with advertising deregulation, the advent of ads directed at children during the first reagan administration
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Source? Also coincides with the advent of cable television.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I remember plenty of commercials for cereal during my childhood which significantly predated the 1980s. The idea that kids didn't widely eat Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Trix, etc. etc. is simply counterfactual. I I suspect there are many reasons for increased obesity including more fast food, more (large) soda consumption, less physical play activity, etc. Simply blaming advertising, farm subsidies, or whatever may make people feel that they've identified an external bogeyman but it's not as simple as that.
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-when-reagan-met-optimus-prime https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-when-reagan-met-o...
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      This is an interesting take on an inevitable event in television history. Deregulation was bound to happen as the triopoly held by ABC, CBS, and NBC began to break up with the advent of cable TV. Furthermore I have very many fond memories of children's television in the 80s and 90s, and commercialized or not, like the Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Hot Wheels, Captain N, etc...it was very enjoyable to me and I would hate for some bureaucrat to dictate what was and wasn't acceptable. Markets do that just fine when choice is available. It would be even harder to enforce such a thing in the age of the internet.
WalterBright 8y ago
The sugar cereal breakfast was common in the 1960s. The same ones as today were there in the 1960s - Captain Crunch, Fruit Loops, etc.

bluedino 8y ago

>> Sugar beet is possibly not even a crop in Californian any longer Plenty of sugar beet here in Michigan. plugs nose

nradov 8y ago

So far there's no real proof that HFCS is any worse than other forms of sugar. The problem is more likely due to consuming more sugar in general. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679479/

ams6110 8y ago
No it's not the corn syrup that's the problem it's that it is a lot cheaper than cane sugar so it's used in higher quantities and in more types of food. Also the late 1980s and 1990s was when people started going nuts about "low-fat" diets. When food producers removed fats and oils from their products, consumers thought it tasted like cardboard. So manufacturers would add sugar or corn syrup to make the food taste better, while still being able to call it low fat.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > it's not the corn syrup that's the problem it's that it is a lot cheaper than cane sugar so it's used in higher quantities and in more types of food For reference, corn syrup is not in fact cheaper than cane sugar. But the US imposes a tariff on imported sugar that keeps the price at roughly 300% of what it would otherwise be.

HumanDrivenDev 8y ago

Then you would have to explain why the same thing happened in other western countries where the dominant sugar is not HFCS.