6 ms·

I agree completely that corn subsidies are out of control, but it's not clear that getting rid of corn would solve the health problem. It would likely be repla

by buddylw 13y ago

I agree completely that corn subsidies are out of control, but it's not clear that getting rid of corn would solve the health problem. It would likely be replaced with 'high fructose' <some other starch>. Fructose has properties (very sweet, doesn't crystallize like sucrose, etc.) that junk food purveyors love and corn doesn't even contain any fructose naturally. Any starch + amylase makes a syrup (my personal favorite is rice syrup). An extra process turns part of the glucose to fructose making it very sweet. Sorry to crap on a point I mostly agree with in the name of technical correctness :)

kyllo 13y ago
Right, if corn were not subsidized, corn syrup would probably not be wholly replaced with cane sugar, as cane sugar is much more expensive, a lot of it is imported, and it can't really be grown productively in most of the US--inside the US it's really only grown in Florida, Texas, and Hawaii. The 89 million acres[1] of corn harvested in the US would be partly replaced by some other starchy crop x, and high fructose corn syrup would be partly replaced by high fructose x syrup. The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food, and too much cheap, high-carbohydrate, calorie-dense, processed food. I agree with cutting corn subsidies, but the real solution is on the demand side. 1: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornac.asp http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornac....
- zanny 13y ago
  > we as a nation eat too much food I really don't know how to fix it, because it is more the subconscious drive to overeat when you can than any cultural issue. Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly. One thing I think could fix it is decoupling the social aspects of eating - most families only see each other for food, which prompts them to eat more if subconsciously they want more human interaction. It is also known you eat more when you aren't happy, so obviously make people happier, which isn't something as a society we are doing much of.
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - deleted 13y ago
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  - maratd 13y ago
    > Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly. This isn't really the case. The problem is that the processed food we are creating is so abnormal, our bodies simply don't know how to respond to it. The overwhelming amount of health issues that we are experiencing as a nation is a direct result of this. Your body has pre-configured "stop" signals based on volume and how full your stomach is. The processed foods are so dense in sugars and calories, your body responds improperly, and as a result, people "over eat". If we revert to eating things that we can actually identify the contents of, you'll find that we will very quickly stop over eating.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
    > Food is plentiful and cheap > most families only see each other for food This happens in most European countries as well, it's by no means an American thing.
  - ramchip 13y ago
    All these arguments could apply just as well to Japan, which has an obesity rate far, far lower than the US.
- deleted 13y ago
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- kansface 13y ago
  Sugar is only expensive because of the extreme tariffs the government places on it.
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - javert 13y ago
    Exactly. Which reinforces the opposite of the grandparent of this comment. As usually happens, the problem is that somebody is using guns to force other people to do things in a non-rational way.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    From 2008-2011: - Average price of raw sugar, world market: $492.8 per tonne - Average price of HFCS-55, US market: $528.1 per tonne (HFCS-55 has equivalent sweetness to sucrose.) Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Why would you pay more money for an inferior product? And remember -- the price of high-fructose corn syrup includes subsidies. In a free market, with no corn subsidies and no sugar tariffs, HFCS would be at an even greater price disadvantage. Source: OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook, 2011-2020, p. 132. http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/48184295.pdf http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/4818429...
    - _delirium 13y ago
      Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Is there anything useful that can be derived from that experiment, though? The control group varies in significant ways, both amongst itself and w.r.t. Americans, and includes countries with both high and low levels of obesity. Has anyone attempted to back out any kind of useful estimate by treating this as a natural experiment and adjusting for confounds? Examples: most sugar in both Germany and Mexico is from sugar rather than HFCS, but Germany is less obese than the US, while Mexico is more obese than the US. Mexico is poorer than either the US or Germany, so that could be the confound; but Germans walk and bike more than either the US or Mexico, so that could be a different confound. It's kind of a messy experiment.
- Azulsky 13y ago
  Also grown in Louisiana. Corn is the US climate friendly equivalent of sugarcane. Sugar cane is the most harvested crop worldwide. Sugarcane has heavy import tariffs in the US as welfare for the domestic corn industry. Brazil has a 22% Ethanol requirement on its gasoline and all that comes from sugar cane.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    The previous three comments, from three different people, all seem to think that we're stuck with corn syrup because we can't grow enough sugarcane in the US. But sugarcane is not the only way to produce sucrose! Sugar beets currently account for 55% of sugar production in the United States. [1] What's more, sugar beets will grow in relatively poor soil. Top four sugarbeet-producing states: Minnesota, Idaho, North Dakota, and Michigan [2]. Notice how these are not states renowned for the quality of their soil. Idaho grows a lot of potatoes not because they want to, but because the soil won't support a more valuable crop. So, we're chewing up our best agricultural land and paying billions of dollars in subsidies to grow an inferior substitute to sucrose. Instead of growing the real thing on our marginal agricultural lands. It's not even close. Sources: [1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/background.aspx http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/backgr... [2] http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarproduction.pdf http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarprod...
    - rdouble 13y ago
      Where beets are grown in MN and ND is actually some of the best land in the country. Sugar beet subsidies are an even bigger boondoggle than corn. As the beet welfare queens retire or die off their land is generally bought out by a larger concern and switched over to another cash crop like GMO free soybeans for the Japanese market.
      - tanzam75 13y ago
        If you were being paid more money to grow beets on land that could support soybeans, why wouldn't you grow beets? It's economically rational to the farmer who's getting subsidies -- even though it's economically irrational for the world as a whole. Subsidies distort the market, and produce completely illogical results. You can't get rid of just one subsidy, because that just gives an advantage to the next-most-subsidized item. But remove all the subsidies, and things will return to an economically-rational state of affairs.
- gohrt 13y ago
  Be careful! Raising the price of a cheap good can drive consumers to buy less of a more expensive competing good, and therefore buy yet MORE of the now-less-expensive cheap good. If corn gets more expensive, and that may mean that people need to squeexe their food budgets and buy fewers expensive foods like vegetables, and instead by more corn sugar, which is still cheapest per-calorie.
- nawitus 13y ago
  >The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food, It appears that people used to eat more food in the past. At least for Finland, modern Finns eat 40% less calories than they used to 100 years ago. The reason is that agriculture work demands a lot of calories.
  - kyllo 13y ago
    But were Finns eating too much food 100 years ago? Probably not, considering their daily caloric expenditure at the time. "Too much food" is of course relative to how much food your body needs, given how physically active you are. But, I suspect that Americans on average both get less exercise and consume more calories than they did 100 years ago.
colinprince 13y ago
I think the point is that getting rid of the subsidies would let the price of HFCS increase and would be less attractive to food producers. Regarding the idea that sucrose is healthier than HFCS, I remain unconvinced. See Robert H. Lustig's awesome expostion, Sugar: The Bitter Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM He explains the endocrinology behind why our bodies cannot stay ahead of our sugar intake.
- __--__ 13y ago
  Saying sugar is healthier than HFCS is sort of like saying morphine is healthier than heroin. It may technically be true, but both will kill you eventually. That said, I agree that if the cost of sugar and HFCS were higher, it would no longer be cost effective to put it in bread. I think everyone can agree that HFCS and sugar probably shouldn't be in bread.
  - rwmj 13y ago
    When I make bread at home, I put sugar in it to help the yeast grow.
  - sjwright 13y ago
    Point taken, but the wheat in bread is not much better for you than the pure sugar...
  - specialist 13y ago
    I'm not a biologist, related from Lustig's video, probably incorrectly: fructose + glucose = sucrose. Body needs glucose. Fructose goes straight to liver, metabolized like alcohol, a bunch of bad stuff happens. Reason fruits are better than fruit juice is the fiber blocks the fructose from being metabolized, letting the needed glucose through. Eating straight refined sugar is probably almost as bad as HFCS. But other sources of sugar (in moderation) are proably fine. FWIW, I add fruit into my morning kale smoothie, and it tastes delicious.
    - acchow 13y ago
ryguytilidie 13y ago
I wouldn't call saying "sure, we would save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but not much beyond that would change" to be shitting on the persons point that we should stop corn subsidies.

by buddylw 13y ago

kyllo 13y ago

Right, if corn were not subsidized, corn syrup would probably not be wholly replaced with cane sugar, as cane sugar is much more expensive, a lot of it is imported, and it can't really be grown productively in most of the US--inside the US it's really only grown in Florida, Texas, and Hawaii. The 89 million acres[1] of corn harvested in the US would be partly replaced by some other starchy crop x, and high fructose corn syrup would be partly replaced by high fructose x syrup. The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food, and too much cheap, high-carbohydrate, calorie-dense, processed food. I agree with cutting corn subsidies, but the real solution is on the demand side. 1: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornac.asp http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornac....

zanny 13y ago
> we as a nation eat too much food I really don't know how to fix it, because it is more the subconscious drive to overeat when you can than any cultural issue. Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly. One thing I think could fix it is decoupling the social aspects of eating - most families only see each other for food, which prompts them to eat more if subconsciously they want more human interaction. It is also known you eat more when you aren't happy, so obviously make people happier, which isn't something as a society we are doing much of.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- maratd 13y ago
  > Food is plentiful and cheap, so Americans devour it incessantly. This isn't really the case. The problem is that the processed food we are creating is so abnormal, our bodies simply don't know how to respond to it. The overwhelming amount of health issues that we are experiencing as a nation is a direct result of this. Your body has pre-configured "stop" signals based on volume and how full your stomach is. The processed foods are so dense in sugars and calories, your body responds improperly, and as a result, people "over eat". If we revert to eating things that we can actually identify the contents of, you'll find that we will very quickly stop over eating.
- Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
  > Food is plentiful and cheap > most families only see each other for food This happens in most European countries as well, it's by no means an American thing.
- ramchip 13y ago
  All these arguments could apply just as well to Japan, which has an obesity rate far, far lower than the US.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kansface 13y ago
Sugar is only expensive because of the extreme tariffs the government places on it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- javert 13y ago
  Exactly. Which reinforces the opposite of the grandparent of this comment. As usually happens, the problem is that somebody is using guns to force other people to do things in a non-rational way.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  From 2008-2011: - Average price of raw sugar, world market: $492.8 per tonne - Average price of HFCS-55, US market: $528.1 per tonne (HFCS-55 has equivalent sweetness to sucrose.) Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Why would you pay more money for an inferior product? And remember -- the price of high-fructose corn syrup includes subsidies. In a free market, with no corn subsidies and no sugar tariffs, HFCS would be at an even greater price disadvantage. Source: OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook, 2011-2020, p. 132. http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/48184295.pdf http://www.oecd.org/site/oecd-faoagriculturaloutlook/4818429...
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Sugar vs. HFCS is a natural experiment. Americans are the experimental group, and the rest of the world is the control group. In non-OECD countries, HFCS has less than 1% market share. Is there anything useful that can be derived from that experiment, though? The control group varies in significant ways, both amongst itself and w.r.t. Americans, and includes countries with both high and low levels of obesity. Has anyone attempted to back out any kind of useful estimate by treating this as a natural experiment and adjusting for confounds? Examples: most sugar in both Germany and Mexico is from sugar rather than HFCS, but Germany is less obese than the US, while Mexico is more obese than the US. Mexico is poorer than either the US or Germany, so that could be the confound; but Germans walk and bike more than either the US or Mexico, so that could be a different confound. It's kind of a messy experiment.
Azulsky 13y ago
Also grown in Louisiana. Corn is the US climate friendly equivalent of sugarcane. Sugar cane is the most harvested crop worldwide. Sugarcane has heavy import tariffs in the US as welfare for the domestic corn industry. Brazil has a 22% Ethanol requirement on its gasoline and all that comes from sugar cane.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  The previous three comments, from three different people, all seem to think that we're stuck with corn syrup because we can't grow enough sugarcane in the US. But sugarcane is not the only way to produce sucrose! Sugar beets currently account for 55% of sugar production in the United States. [1] What's more, sugar beets will grow in relatively poor soil. Top four sugarbeet-producing states: Minnesota, Idaho, North Dakota, and Michigan [2]. Notice how these are not states renowned for the quality of their soil. Idaho grows a lot of potatoes not because they want to, but because the soil won't support a more valuable crop. So, we're chewing up our best agricultural land and paying billions of dollars in subsidies to grow an inferior substitute to sucrose. Instead of growing the real thing on our marginal agricultural lands. It's not even close. Sources: [1] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/background.aspx http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/backgr... [2] http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarproduction.pdf http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarprod...
  - rdouble 13y ago
    Where beets are grown in MN and ND is actually some of the best land in the country. Sugar beet subsidies are an even bigger boondoggle than corn. As the beet welfare queens retire or die off their land is generally bought out by a larger concern and switched over to another cash crop like GMO free soybeans for the Japanese market.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      If you were being paid more money to grow beets on land that could support soybeans, why wouldn't you grow beets? It's economically rational to the farmer who's getting subsidies -- even though it's economically irrational for the world as a whole. Subsidies distort the market, and produce completely illogical results. You can't get rid of just one subsidy, because that just gives an advantage to the next-most-subsidized item. But remove all the subsidies, and things will return to an economically-rational state of affairs.
gohrt 13y ago
Be careful! Raising the price of a cheap good can drive consumers to buy less of a more expensive competing good, and therefore buy yet MORE of the now-less-expensive cheap good. If corn gets more expensive, and that may mean that people need to squeexe their food budgets and buy fewers expensive foods like vegetables, and instead by more corn sugar, which is still cheapest per-calorie.
nawitus 13y ago
>The root problem is really the fact that we as a nation eat too much food, It appears that people used to eat more food in the past. At least for Finland, modern Finns eat 40% less calories than they used to 100 years ago. The reason is that agriculture work demands a lot of calories.
- kyllo 13y ago
  But were Finns eating too much food 100 years ago? Probably not, considering their daily caloric expenditure at the time. "Too much food" is of course relative to how much food your body needs, given how physically active you are. But, I suspect that Americans on average both get less exercise and consume more calories than they did 100 years ago.

colinprince 13y ago

I think the point is that getting rid of the subsidies would let the price of HFCS increase and would be less attractive to food producers. Regarding the idea that sucrose is healthier than HFCS, I remain unconvinced. See Robert H. Lustig's awesome expostion, Sugar: The Bitter Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM He explains the endocrinology behind why our bodies cannot stay ahead of our sugar intake.

__--__ 13y ago
Saying sugar is healthier than HFCS is sort of like saying morphine is healthier than heroin. It may technically be true, but both will kill you eventually. That said, I agree that if the cost of sugar and HFCS were higher, it would no longer be cost effective to put it in bread. I think everyone can agree that HFCS and sugar probably shouldn't be in bread.
- rwmj 13y ago
  When I make bread at home, I put sugar in it to help the yeast grow.
- sjwright 13y ago
  Point taken, but the wheat in bread is not much better for you than the pure sugar...
- specialist 13y ago
  I'm not a biologist, related from Lustig's video, probably incorrectly: fructose + glucose = sucrose. Body needs glucose. Fructose goes straight to liver, metabolized like alcohol, a bunch of bad stuff happens. Reason fruits are better than fruit juice is the fiber blocks the fructose from being metabolized, letting the needed glucose through. Eating straight refined sugar is probably almost as bad as HFCS. But other sources of sugar (in moderation) are proably fine. FWIW, I add fruit into my morning kale smoothie, and it tastes delicious.
  - acchow 13y ago

ryguytilidie 13y ago

I wouldn't call saying "sure, we would save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but not much beyond that would change" to be shitting on the persons point that we should stop corn subsidies.