Revelation about HFCS

Revelation about HFCS

This is for the increase of my beloved's blood pressure - sorry dear.

So, as a part of my John Sossel obsession I am reading his book Give me a Break which I do highly recommend. It has gone further to convincing me that no hardworking American taxpayer "wins" an election...it's more like degrees of losing. Anyway in this book I found this little tidbit of irritating information. If you've ever listened to National Public Radio then the odds are you have heard of Archer Daniels Midland...you know: "the supermarket to the world"?

Now, I've always simply assumed that the reason we see so little regular old sugar in American "food" products is because High Fructose Corn Syrup was simply cheaper to manufacture. But, I had never stopped to really consider the reason why (if this were true) that in 3rd world countries (like Uganda) when you buy Coca-Cola it is actually made with sugar and NOT HFCS? Why would a poor country not opt for a cheaper sweetener? Well, they DID! Stossel explains it when he talks about the first of two "deals" ADM makes with our bloated and convoluted government and its often insane policies:

ADM collects welfare because of two cleverly designed special deals. The first is the government's mandated minimum price for sugar. Because of the price supports, if the Coca-Cola Company or Pepsi wants to buy sugar for its soda, it has to pay 22 cents a pound - more than twice the world price. So Coke (and most everyone else) buys corn sweetener instead. Guess who makes corn sweetener? ADM, of course. Now guess who finances the groups that lobby to keep sugar prices high?

Now, in my reading of the scientific literature, the jury is still out on whether or not HFCS has had a negative effect on our health, but so what? Such manipulation of the free market (indeed corruption of it) forces you and I to have less (often NO) choice as consumers. And WE ought to be the ones deciding what sweeteners fail or succeed.