High Fructose Corn

A reader asks:

How is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) different from the regular kind, and why do we now see (and taste) the stuff in just about everything?

According to Wikipedia, high-fructose corn syrup is produced by incubating ordinary corn syrup with an enzyme called glucose isomerase, converting some of the glucose in ordinary corn syrup to fructose, which is much sweeter. The level of fructose in the final product may vary. At a fructose level of 55%, HFCS matches the sweetness of table sugar (sucrose), and higher concentrations are also available. In short, more sweetness per buck/bushel.

Why do we see HFCS in everything? Because America loves corn. It's one of our bumper crops. So the U.S. Government subsidizes its production, even to the point of overproduction, while taxing sugar imports, making corn syrup the cheapest sweetener around.

And making lots of people fat, according to writer Michael Pollan. In The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity (New York Times, Oct 12, 2003), he argues that agricultural overproduction is the ultimate source of our national weight problem. All that cheap corn has to go somewhere, and the result is a glut of corn syrup, corn-fed beef and chicken, which is sold in ever-larger supersized packages at lower and lower prices, and ultimately ends up around our waistline. (A good deal of corn is also exported, or converted to ethanol for gasoline.)

Not everybody agrees with Pollack's central argument—that cheap food is a bad thing—but his discussion of why it's so cheap makes interesting reading. Overproduction isn't a new problem for farmers, since supply and demand are hard to manage when you're dealing with Mother Nature (remember the 7 fat years in the Bible?). Farmers can be expected to grow as much as they can to maximize their profits. But the more food grown, the lower the price drops, negating any gain. This is where farm policy comes in. I don't claim to be an expert, but as near as I can understand, the goal of farm policy is to provide farmers with a stable income, and provide consumers with stable food prices. Beyond that, nothing is simple, but according to Pollack, the U.S. government has moved from a system that controls supply (by paying farmers to keep their grain off the market) to one that encourages production (by cutting them a check no matter how much they grow). Which brings us back to all that corn. (Pollack's article is still available from the New York Times (though it's no longer free), and there are plenty of references to it elsewhere on the Web.

This reminds me of a posting I wrote a while back (Do No Farm). While Michael Pollack takes on agricultural subsidies, Richard takes on agriculture as a whole. But perched here at my keyboard from my post-industrial vantage point, I'm not sure where that leads.

But I digress. All this talk of corn syrup has me thirsty for a cola...

Comments

[fructose]

Check out this introduction article on Fructose:
http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Fructose