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> go back to tried and tested agricultural methods https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US_Corn_Yld_Trend.png https://www.agry.purdue.edu

> go back to tried and tested agricultural methods https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US_Corn_Yld_Trend.png https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US... "Tried and tested" agricultural methods produced about 20 bushels of corn per acre. Current "artificial modern chemicals" methods produce about 160. Eight times as much. > your harming your own wasteland that for some reason you grow copious amounts of corn on The reason is that it feeds a substantial portion of the planet.

haspok 4y ago
Long live High Fructose Corn Syrup!
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  It's no worse than sugar. Both are unnecessary for humans and can be extracted as needed from fats and proteins by the human body.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    Agreed, but we didn’t used to shove sugar in literally everything. Corn syrup mixes well into solution, it’s pretty damn stable, cheap, easy to store and measure, won’t clump… and yea people used to like x product fine, but really prefer it sweeter. It’s not that corn syrup is bad, it’s too good which is bad.
    - rob_c 4y ago
      Yet it is still to take off in Europe and people pay a lot of money to import European food worldwide... Strange...
      - stjohnswarts 4y ago
        Europe isn't the world and neither is the USA, there is very little difference to the human body between HFCS and cane sugar. They are chemically very similar. Just don't eat so much of them and you'll be fine. The people of the USA eat far too much of both, and neither is good for you in the quatanties we have them in. I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar.
        SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
        > I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar. They are too. It's a global obesity crisis. The stereotype of the fat American isn't as unique as it was 20 years ago. I was in Germany and France recently, and while not "as bad" as a county fair in Oklahoma, it was obvious.
  - ephbit 4y ago
    According to Dr. Robert Lustig of University of California fructose is indeed worse than sugar. [1] It's been a good while since I've watched this video. As far as I remember, he argues that fructose is to the human body strikingly similar to alcohol. Since (unlike glucose) fructose can neither be utilized by muscles nor by the brain, it gets treated more or less like a toxic substance in the liver. In the video Lustig claims that fructose might even be harder on the liver than alcohol. So I'd conclude: more fructose --> less healthy. Thus High Fructose Corn Sirup HFCS = far from healthy. [1] https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641 https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (table sugar, which is a combination of fructose and glucose) have roughly the same amount of fructose- 50%. Also, what Lustig says is nonsense and isn't backed by any plausible mechanism or observational evidence. Alcohol and fructose aren't metabolized very similarly at all. He points out that if liver glycogen is constantly full, the liver has to convert extra fructose to fat (de novo lipogenesis) [1], eventually leading to fatty liver disease, which also happens to alcohol, and short chain fats (e.g. from eating fiber that gets fermented in the gut). As he admits in his own paper this doesn't happen unless you are massively overeating. People that are eating in calorie balance will use the fructose immediately for cellular energy as designed, with no ill effects. Reglarly overeating without exercising much isn't great for your liver because it keeps glycogen overfilled... but it really doesn't matter much what you're overeating. [1] https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?login=true https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?lo...
      - ephbit 4y ago
        Agreed, fructose combined with overeating will lead likely to problems, fructose alone often not. But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper? > Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.” As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?
  - rob_c 4y ago
    Keep drinking the corn syrup and Doritos. The rest of us will enjoy our food.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  The same is true for wheat, rice, and virtually every other staple crop. Not to mention that going back to the "traditional" methods would require that 90% of the population be dedicated to performing manual agricultural labor, the bulk of which has historically been performed by unfree people (i.e., slaves and serfs).
  - rob_c 4y ago
    Why does everyone assume when you say "traditional" you mean go back to the horse and cart. Is this an American thing? I... Progress has been made on improving the efficiency of small farms of diversified crop types. It's what most of farming in Europe was until the 90s and we didn't have "slaves". I get it your past is coloured by greed and hubris but please don't let it be clouding common sense. Unfortunately the larger EU nations started to adopt more mega farming practices which just led to problems, food reserve mountains and now they're reaping the bad decisions. It's hilarious how actual research in the area keeps saying smaller fields, let ground go back to wild every few years as part of a rotation and growing rapeseed is probably better than directly dumping chemicals into the soil for altering the soil content.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      > Why does everyone assume when you say "traditional" you mean go back to the horse and cart. Because that's basically what "traditional" means? If "progress has been made on improving the efficiency", then it's not "traditional". By definition. Did you look at the chart I posted above?
      - rob_c 4y ago
        sorry, I seem to forget, when you have 200 years of history, of course you keep going back to the beginning. `existing in or as part of a tradition; long-established.` Long-estabished by 1980 is still long established, the rest of the world is traditionally not under the influence of the US economic super-power, I feel I needn't go on... Traditionally farmers have been breeding cattle, traditionally we like to eat. You're being deliberately argumentative in assuming that traditional means luddite vs something that has been tried and tested and known not to be destructive. Progress needn't mean obliteration of resources, but then given the "traditional" view from the US of demanding growth and domination to sustain high pricing against the all-mighty petro-dollar, you clearly don't have a better system. Did you read the rest of my comments. Producing copious amounts of excess corn is _not_ a good thing. Especially when it's produced in a long-term damaging way. Good progress is not the complete obliteration of tradition, those who say it is are fools.

haspok 4y ago

Long live High Fructose Corn Syrup!

stjohnswarts 4y ago
It's no worse than sugar. Both are unnecessary for humans and can be extracted as needed from fats and proteins by the human body.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  Agreed, but we didn’t used to shove sugar in literally everything. Corn syrup mixes well into solution, it’s pretty damn stable, cheap, easy to store and measure, won’t clump… and yea people used to like x product fine, but really prefer it sweeter. It’s not that corn syrup is bad, it’s too good which is bad.
  - rob_c 4y ago
    Yet it is still to take off in Europe and people pay a lot of money to import European food worldwide... Strange...
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      Europe isn't the world and neither is the USA, there is very little difference to the human body between HFCS and cane sugar. They are chemically very similar. Just don't eat so much of them and you'll be fine. The people of the USA eat far too much of both, and neither is good for you in the quatanties we have them in. I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar.
      - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
        > I'm not sure about Europe, but I know for a fact that Americans eat far too much sugar. They are too. It's a global obesity crisis. The stereotype of the fat American isn't as unique as it was 20 years ago. I was in Germany and France recently, and while not "as bad" as a county fair in Oklahoma, it was obvious.
- ephbit 4y ago
  According to Dr. Robert Lustig of University of California fructose is indeed worse than sugar. [1] It's been a good while since I've watched this video. As far as I remember, he argues that fructose is to the human body strikingly similar to alcohol. Since (unlike glucose) fructose can neither be utilized by muscles nor by the brain, it gets treated more or less like a toxic substance in the liver. In the video Lustig claims that fructose might even be harder on the liver than alcohol. So I'd conclude: more fructose --> less healthy. Thus High Fructose Corn Sirup HFCS = far from healthy. [1] https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641 https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Fat-Chance-Fructose-2-0-25641
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    High fructose corn syrup and sucrose (table sugar, which is a combination of fructose and glucose) have roughly the same amount of fructose- 50%. Also, what Lustig says is nonsense and isn't backed by any plausible mechanism or observational evidence. Alcohol and fructose aren't metabolized very similarly at all. He points out that if liver glycogen is constantly full, the liver has to convert extra fructose to fat (de novo lipogenesis) [1], eventually leading to fatty liver disease, which also happens to alcohol, and short chain fats (e.g. from eating fiber that gets fermented in the gut). As he admits in his own paper this doesn't happen unless you are massively overeating. People that are eating in calorie balance will use the fructose immediately for cellular energy as designed, with no ill effects. Reglarly overeating without exercising much isn't great for your liver because it keeps glycogen overfilled... but it really doesn't matter much what you're overeating. [1] https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?login=true https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/4/2/226/4591631?lo...
    - ephbit 4y ago
      Agreed, fructose combined with overeating will lead likely to problems, fructose alone often not. But what do you make of this passage in the abstract of the linked paper? > Thus, fructose can exert detrimental health effects beyond its calories and in ways that mimic those of ethanol, its metabolic cousin. Indeed, the only distinction is that because fructose is not metabolized in the central nervous system, it does not exert the acute neuronal depression experienced by those imbibing ethanol. These metabolic and hedonic analogies argue that fructose should be thought of as “alcohol without the buzz.” As to your knowledge these claims about fructose and ethanol being "metabolic cousins" are false? Do you have any references for this?
- rob_c 4y ago
  Keep drinking the corn syrup and Doritos. The rest of us will enjoy our food.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
The same is true for wheat, rice, and virtually every other staple crop. Not to mention that going back to the "traditional" methods would require that 90% of the population be dedicated to performing manual agricultural labor, the bulk of which has historically been performed by unfree people (i.e., slaves and serfs).
- rob_c 4y ago
  Why does everyone assume when you say "traditional" you mean go back to the horse and cart. Is this an American thing? I... Progress has been made on improving the efficiency of small farms of diversified crop types. It's what most of farming in Europe was until the 90s and we didn't have "slaves". I get it your past is coloured by greed and hubris but please don't let it be clouding common sense. Unfortunately the larger EU nations started to adopt more mega farming practices which just led to problems, food reserve mountains and now they're reaping the bad decisions. It's hilarious how actual research in the area keeps saying smaller fields, let ground go back to wild every few years as part of a rotation and growing rapeseed is probably better than directly dumping chemicals into the soil for altering the soil content.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    > Why does everyone assume when you say "traditional" you mean go back to the horse and cart. Because that's basically what "traditional" means? If "progress has been made on improving the efficiency", then it's not "traditional". By definition. Did you look at the chart I posted above?
    - rob_c 4y ago
      sorry, I seem to forget, when you have 200 years of history, of course you keep going back to the beginning. `existing in or as part of a tradition; long-established.` Long-estabished by 1980 is still long established, the rest of the world is traditionally not under the influence of the US economic super-power, I feel I needn't go on... Traditionally farmers have been breeding cattle, traditionally we like to eat. You're being deliberately argumentative in assuming that traditional means luddite vs something that has been tried and tested and known not to be destructive. Progress needn't mean obliteration of resources, but then given the "traditional" view from the US of demanding growth and domination to sustain high pricing against the all-mighty petro-dollar, you clearly don't have a better system. Did you read the rest of my comments. Producing copious amounts of excess corn is _not_ a good thing. Especially when it's produced in a long-term damaging way. Good progress is not the complete obliteration of tradition, those who say it is are fools.