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High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

princeton.edu

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Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#61

Post by justin66 »

btilly wrote: post #38
justin66 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not exactly solved, because it is not clear what the farmers should grow in the place of corn. It's quite possible they should stop being farmers and that the nation should farm out (get it?) much of its agriculture to the developing world. This is certainly what "the market" dictates and something which government spends a lot of money working to prevent.

The problem with the free market and agriculture is that demand is highly inelastic. Therefore the natural price difference between a good year for a crop and a bad year isn't 10%, it is more like 10x, and lots of people get to be hungry from time to time. However if you can convince farmers to always grow extra, then the difference between a good year and a bad one is closer to 10%, and you never have famines. After…

This is mostly false. I'll try to explain.

If subsidization of farmers to produce more than the market is predicted to demand in order to smooth out volatility and prevent famine is necessary (and it seems to me like a laudable goal), government can simply fund overseas farmers to overproduce, rather than its own. It would be less expensive than the current process in those cases where overseas farmers produce more cheaply. In many cases they'd still be subsidizing their own farmers.

Pretty much the only thing that would be untenable would be the current practice of paying "farmers" who own land to not produce. As far as I can tell everyone who doesn't receive that money hates the practice, so maybe we should just stop doing it. Which brings me to...

> After repeated bad experiences, every country with the capability has decided that they want farmers to grow extra in normal years.

They haven't really. It's not like we ever had a vote on it. The current process is just a powerful lobby exercising their considerable power.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#62

Post by justin66 »

randomdata wrote: post #37
justin66 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not exactly solved, because it is not clear what the farmers should grow in the place of corn. It's quite possible they should stop being farmers and that the nation should farm out (get it?) much of its agriculture to the developing world. This is certainly what "the market" dictates and something which government spends a lot of money working to prevent.

While it might seem logical in the peaceful times we've grown accustomed to, it is going to still be a tough sell for nations like the USA that have a war-centric mindset. A starving population is how you lose wars, and the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists for that reason. Also, there is growing concern for our ability to replenish food-stocks as-is. If farming ceases in these nations…

> A starving population is how you lose wars, and the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists for that reason.

While it's true that having crops in the fields would help keep people fed during a world war that disrupted world agriculture, that's not the reason "the work the government does to maintain the local food supply exists." It exists because agriculture has a powerful lobby and they make a lot of money this way. Poor, developing world farmers don't get a vote.

It's sometimes used as a post-hoc justification for what is done.

> Also, there is growing concern for our ability to replenish food-stocks as-is. If farming ceases in these nations, you lose a lot of food people directly eat too.

Killing developed world agricultural subsidies and allowing market competition to stimulate agricultural production in the developing world is one of those things that seems to unite almost all economists. This seems to be because they think it will make food less expensive and more accessible. I'm not familiar with anyone making the opposite case?

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#63

Post by Groxx »

stephengillie wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #3

Stop giving out corn welfare to corporations and problem solved. It's the ONLY reason why it's so heavily used. Corn syrup and ethanol - two massively damaging products of a completely corrupt system that everyone refuses to change because of massive profits off taxpayers.

Another control on this is the Overall Allotment Quantity of sugar, which is the USDA-regulated quantity of sugar which can be sold in any year. If you have too much sugar to sell, you'll have to store it or dump it. This is to keep sugar's price high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overall_Allotment_Quantity

That's an... interesting mechanism. I can't figure out what the goal is, aside from, as you said, keeping prices high (specifically for those two kinds of sugar, which seems extra weird) - is there another reasonable explanation?

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#64

Post by phy6 »

We did a little human testing on our fraternal twin infants. The slightly smaller of the two was fed formula which had HFCS as an ingredient, the other was fed formula not containing HFCS as the sweetener. Our smaller son quickly gained more weight and started to outweigh his brother by a pound. The (initially) smaller twin still outweighs his brother. They are now ~21 lbs and 19 lbs respectively @11mo

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#65

Post by driverdan »

phy6 wrote: post #64

We did a little human testing on our fraternal twin infants. The slightly smaller of the two was fed formula which had HFCS as an ingredient, the other was fed formula not containing HFCS as the sweetener. Our smaller son quickly gained more weight and started to outweigh his brother by a pound. The (initially) smaller twin still outweighs his brother. They are now ~21 lbs and 19 lbs respectively @11mo

Anecdote. There could have been other differences between the formulas, the children could have varied in weight naturally, or there could be other factors you didn't control for.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#67

Post by tanzam75 »

Azulsky wrote: post #58
kyllo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

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.

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/backgr...

[2] http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/CAFTA/statesugarprod...

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#68

Post by rdouble »

tanzam75 wrote: post #67
Azulsky wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 Da…

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.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#69

Post by javert »

kansface wrote: post #51
kyllo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Sugar is only expensive because of the extreme tariffs the government places on it.

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.

Re: High-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar (2010)

#70

Post by maratd »

zanny wrote: post #47
kyllo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> 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 inte…

> 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.

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