#1
High Fructose Corn Syrup… never mind the fact that soda manufacturers are heartless corporations only concerned with ROI’s, dividends yielded and gross profit margins, they have also written one of the many death sentences for Americans. HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) has risen in its use in America since the mid-70’s, replacing actual sugar in many of our common food and beverage products… most notably, soft drinks. The interesting part about this shift in ingredients is that it didn't happen on any significant level in any other country besides the US. Why, you ask? Well… there are plenty of reasons, but the most commonly cited are 1. It is easier to transport due to its liquid state, where sugar is (obviously) a solid, 2. HFCS is cheaper to manufacture despite its intricate production process, and 3. Tariffs and quotas imposed on sugar imports restrict the amount of sugar that we can bring into the country from outside sources. But let’s talk about the commercially lesser-discussed reason… numero tres.
Lets jump back to the good old American south around the War of 1812. Of course, in spite of the better economic alternative, the government chooses to impose high tariffs on sugar imported in to the US, why? Well, because some sugar farmers at home were disgruntled about the unfavorable sugar growing conditions, and how the importing of sugar was hurting their business due to the lower price it had. In order to keep the farmers happy, the government imposed these high tariffs (kinda bad), and eventually import quotas (very bad). This controlled the amount of sugar coming into the country from outside sources, and allowed domestic farmers to significantly jack the price of sugar being manufactured and imported because it became somewhat of a scarce commodity. Hence, after a Japanese scientist perfected HFCS in the 1970’s, there was a drastic increase in its use.
So back to the subject at hand… the rest of the world uses actual sugar in their products with minimal economic pressure, while we are scarfing synthetic shit. For one, because HFCS is cheaper (mostly due to ease in transport), and in turn, products that are supposed to be consumed in moderation (junk foods, candies, the top of the food pyramid items) are being consumed at a higher rate because they are more affordable that shit that’s good for you!
Yea, of course it’s really easy for us to say “buy organic” when we have a certain degree of disposable income, but how do you tell that to the 2 adult, 3 child, 15K a year family living in the trailer park? How can you honestly tell the 13% of America living below the poverty line to go all natural when they can barely afford Wonder bread and JIF?
The fact of the matter is, we are organic beings, we are meant to eat organic things. Synthesized forms of sustenance are just bad news no matter how you slice it, if only the government could take some kind of meaningful interest in the nutritional education of our generation. But that’s wishful thinking I suppose. After all, what is easier to control than a bunch of overweight, lazy, exhausted consumers?
resources:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0498d.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35175-2004Aug26.html
http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/tariffs_quotas.htm
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty06/pov06hi.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
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