I think the issue is less about corn syrup sugar vs cane sugar, gram for gram, and more about the subsidization of corn and low cost of corn syrup creating an incentive to use more sugar in processed food products.
For over 80 years, U.S. government policies have protected domestic sugar production, resulting in elevated sugar prices and an annual cost of $1.4 billion to consumers (as of 2013). These higher prices, combined with federal support for corn production, have fueled the widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as a cheaper alternative. HFCS production is driven by advanced technology and heavy corn subsidies, allowing it to dominate processed foods and beverages. The rise in HFCS use and overall sweetener consumption has contributed to increased intake of "empty calories," linked to obesity.
Efforts to address the issue include taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) aimed at reducing consumption and funding nutrition education. However, these taxes face challenges, such as consumer compensation by shifting to other high-calorie foods and lack of evidence on long-term impacts on obesity. Nutrient-specific excise taxes at the point of purchase are hypothesized to be more effective.
Additionally, U.S. sugar prices surged during 2009-2012 due to global weather-related production declines, but HFCS remained a slightly cheaper option. HFCS's affordability is rooted in subsidized corn production, which also benefits livestock industries by reducing feed costs.
Jeez, at least summarize it or state your personal take-away first.
If you're going to dump text, I think it's good etiquette to frame it with what you think that text is doing for the discussion so it's not just an exercise for the reader.
I'm not sure what your point is. The argument isn't that corn syrup isn't being subsidized, it's that on a absolute basis the subsidy doesn't matter. If there's only 10 cents worth of sugar in a 2L bottle of coke, switching to sugar is unlikely to change the consumers buying habits.
Counterargument: the UK's Soft Drinks Industry Levy.
In 2018, the British government introduced a tax on soft drinks with a sugar content of more than 50g per litre. The tax isn't particularly onerous, at 18p or 24p (22¢ or 29¢) per litre depending on the sugar content. The industry response was immediate - the majority of drinks were reformulated to reduce their sugar content to below the threshold, which is precisely what the government intended. Although initially controversial, the levy is now regarded as a clear victory for public health, with no significant economic impact on industry.
Even if the purchasing habits of consumers are price-inelastic, the decisions of manufacturers most certainly aren't.
It completely killed my soft drink buying habits. So it was either a success or failure depending on how you look at it.
I can’t stand the reformulated sweetened drinks. The flavour profile and aftertaste is completely different. I wasn’t a huge consumer of soft drinks to start with, but now I consume absolutely zero.
I don't think this had the desired effect for me (or maybe it did). When I have a coke, or other soft drink it's generally because I want the sugar and caffeine, for instance part way through a long drive or during a night out. Generally I drink water, tea and a little coffee. I don't really want to be eating/drinking any artificial sweeteners. I have a hunch that this is not good for you and adjusts your taste to wanting more sweet things, so I tend to avoid. Regular Coca Cola still tastes ok, but now all promotions tend to be on sweetened drinks. Drinks such as Irn Bru have been ruined, as there is now no full sugar version available.
It's certainly made me buy less UK Dr Pepper in Australia (I find artificial sweeteners generally unpleasant). Many places down under that sell it are now stocking US Dr Pepper instead, which suggests it sells rather better.
The industry is already a step ahead on this stuff. I'm sure they have reams of market research that say "If a tax appears that causes Coke to be $1.49 per litre and Diet Coke is $1.29, there's a nontrivial amount of customers who will skip the soda rather than switching to the existing diet brand." So they need a product they CAN slide in if the shoe drops.
They brought out "half-sugar" sodas about 20 years ago (Coke C2), but they hit the market with a thud. I suspect that the recent "Zero Sugar" brands are intended to fill the same spot. Notice how the branding is much closer to the sugared brand than the diet brands, and TBF, they're a lot more comparable taste-wise to the sugared versions than Tab or Diet Coke ever were.
There's little case for introducing these products if it's primarily going to cannibalize their existing brands and consume already limited shelf space, unless there's some long-term appeal in it. But if there's a sugar tax, or some dramatic economic fallout that makes sugar ahistorically expensive, watch as the default position on the vending machine suddenly switches to suddenly Coke Zero.
Unfortunately they didn't take the opportunity to reduce the sweetness. Here in Norway I can buy flavoured water without any sweeteners at all, neither sugar nor artificial. But when I visit the UK all I can find is either plain water or something sickly sweet.
I avoid the reduced-sugar ones. Actually these days I tend to buy the little miniature 150ml Coca-Cola cans. Original recipe but only 15g sugar as there's just less of it. Portion size is just as important as concentration!
> If there's only 10 cents worth of sugar in a 2L bottle of coke, switching to sugar is unlikely to change the consumers buying habits.
It matters enough that it determines where things get manufactured though.
> There are two prices for sugar: the price you pay in the U.S., and the price you pay almost everywhere else in the world.
> The price in the U.S. is about 15 cents a pound higher than the price in the rest of the world. That costs Spangler Candy an additional $3 million a year.
> The higher U.S. sugar price is spelled out in U.S. law. You can find it right here, in the latest version of the farm bill, which says the U.S. government shall guarantee a minimum price for sugar that is not to drop below 22.9 cents per pound.
> Because of the higher price here, lots of candies that used to be made in the U.S. — Life Savers, candy canes — are now made overseas.
The point is it makes sense, at scale, with the existing systems in place around subsidies (corn) and price protections (sugar).
> switching to sugar is unlikely to change the consumers buying habits.
If this is the case, why has it not happened yet? The argument "the cost delta is not material enough to matter" comparing corn syrup to sugar, but the evidence based on participant actions leads us to conclude that is not the case.
Edit: @gruez: I agree with regards to consumer demand for the foods in question, I was refuting the point "It's not like sugar is expensive. No more than a few cents worth in a 2L bottle of soda."
>The point is it makes sense, at scale, with the existing systems in place around subsidies and price protections.
I'm not refuting that, I'm only saying that in the context of public health, cheaper corn syrup being subsidized doesn't make a difference when it comes to consumer behavior. That doesn't mean that producers are going to be dumb and buy sugar when corn syrup is so much cheaper. Consumers aren't going to stop drinking coke because it costs 1% more, but the beancounters at coca cola are certainly going to care if they're spending 50% (made up number) more on sweeteners if they don't have to.
The delta does not matter to the consumer. They might pay <5% more, hardly a dent in demand would follow. The producer has a small profit margin so it does matter for them, since production and logistics cost a lot.
On the other hand, it's demonstrably proven that food producers will switch from sugar to corn syrup rather than pay extra for cane sugar, so consumers are deprived of a choice.
What good would that choice do them? You can choose to buy products made with sucrose, but ceteris paribus, the sucrose product won't be healthier. This is a little like asking whether consumers can choose to buy less-sweetened food, and, of course they can.
Here (EU country) the same sweeteners that are used in diet soda is found to replace up to half the sugar in some common non-diet sodas, to reduce costs. Because while its not much, it's a lot more than the cost of water+sweetener. This has been an unpleasant surprise to people whose stomachs don't like the sweetener and who didn't notice the changed recipe on the label...
The people arguing against high fructose corn syrup specifically are doing so under the misguided notion that sugar is somehow healthier. You see something similar in the seed oil discussions.
There are good reasons to promote excessive sugars in general, but specifically targetting high fructose corn syrup is like that old joke where someone asks if we should ban adding dihydrogen monoxide to foods.
Any chance your coming through Las Vegas any time soon, and you’d like to bet large sums of money that I can demonstrate a high fructose corn syrup allergy?
Because there’s very few things as annoying as someone making broad generalizations and calling others “misguided”.
High-fructose corn syrup is literally a 45-55 mixture of fructose and glucose.
Table sugar, sucrose, is a disaccharide composed of 1 unit of, you guessed it, glucose and one unit of fructose. Sucrose is broken down in the gut by sucrase into a 50-50 mixture of fructose and glucose. The only difference is that sucrase takes a bit of time to break sucrose down. Not a lot, but enough to smooth out the absorption curve a little.
If you are allergic to one, you are allergic to the other.
Since glucose is key to human life, it's probably not that part.
If you have fructose intolerance, you'd probably know. It causes liver and kidney damage, and you wouldn't be able to eat much food people consider ordinary. If you have fructose intolerance you cannot eat sucrose either. You'd be pretty much relegated to sugar alcohols for sweeteners like sorbitol.
> that I can demonstrate a high fructose corn syrup allergy
If you can, honestly, contact a medical researcher. (You'd want to be blindly provided tasteless pills encapsulating both HFCS, sugar, fructose and an intert substance, of course.)
What wouldn't be unprecedented is a fructose sensitivity.
> The people arguing against high fructose corn syrup specifically are doing so under the misguided notion that sugar is somehow healthier.
I am not sure how true that is. I do argue against corn syrup under the notion that sugar is bad, and more sugar is worse, and I am far from alone.
> You see something similar in the seed oil discussions.
That’s quite a leap. Are you saying that people arguing against corn syrup (which was demonstrated to be terrible from a public health perspective many times) and those arguing against seed oil (who do not have a leg to stand on and are making counter-factual points) are in any way similar?
Excessive fructose consumption is more harmful than excessive glucose consumption.
It is more prone to lead to fatty liver or obesity, because fructose is not consumed directly in the body, but the liver uses it to synthesize reserve fat.
So excessive consumption of high fructose corn syrup is more harmful than excessive consumption of plain corn syrup or of sugar.
Nevertheless, the source of fructose does not matter much, but only the total amount that is consumed.
It is recommended to avoid a daily intake above around 25 g of fructose per day for someone of average size and having a sedentary life style. This corresponds to 50 g of sugar, but with a lesser amount of high fructose corn syrup.
Very high amounts of carbohydrates including fructose can be consumed without any risk only when a proportionally high physical activity is performed, using the high energy intake provided thus (for example by athletes during competitions or intensive training).
The harmful effect of excessive fructose consumption has been used for several millennia, for making "foie gras", by force feeding geese with fruits.
No it isn't. Sucrose and HFCS have ~the same amount of fructose (the HFCS in soda is HFCS-55, 5% higher than sucrose; the HFCS in food is HFCS-42, 8% lower). The notion that HFCS is distinctively bad for you is folklore.
What you say does not contradict in any way what I have said.
I have said that what matters is the total amount of ingested fructose, not its source. Eating large quantities of dried fruits can have the same effect as eating too much sugar or HFCS.
Besides HFCS-42 and HFCS-55, there is also HFCS-70, with an even higher amount of fructose.
I agree that saying that HFCS is bad without giving more details about what kind of HFCS is meant is ambiguous.
That does not change that at equal amounts HFCS-70 or HFCS-55 are more likely to provide excessive fructose than sugar, even if HFCS-42 is less likely to provide excessive fructose than sugar.
HFCS is also absorbed faster than sugar, which must first be split into glucose and fructose. This may be desirable during intense effort, but undesirable otherwise.
No, sucrose is split practically instantaneously into fructose and sucrose in the gut; you have an enzyme, sucrase, specifically to do it. The process is complete seconds after sucrose enters your small intestine. The process of getting the glucose into your bloodstream takes far longer. Where did you get this idea? I've heard other people say it too; there must be a source for it.
You said, "So excessive consumption of high fructose corn syrup is more harmful than excessive consumption of plain corn syrup or of sugar." This appears to be plainly false.
We make corn that isn't even considered a food, legally. We subsidize that using a lot of tax dollars, to the absurd point that we pay farmers to NOT grow corn and leave fields empty. Everyone is paying for way more corn than is needed through taxes, while people claim this keeps costs low (it's more, you are just paying it in taxes). And then we come up with excuses to use more of it, like corn syrup and ethanol. This is absolutely absurd.
I think it is considered a strategic defense resource. Imagine we end up with a WWIII consisting of dozens of proxy wars where the nuclear powers carefully avaoid direct action on eachothers soils to avoid the war going nuclear.
International food, oil, materials and goods shipments would be severely curtailed. Corn can be used to produce, sugars, oil, and alcohol and biomass for fuel, food, and chemical feedstock for plastic manufacturing. While there are better sources for any of those not many can do all of them and be easily grown in mass in our own backyard
I don't understand your point about "legally considered food". If the corn is used to produce corn syrup, it's legally food; if it's not, it has some other purpose, and I don't know why I should care.
The incentive is to produce tasty food that makes as much money as possible. Food is so cheap in the US that I doubt that was the limiting factor. Like, we make cheap candy that is 99% sugar.
It's reasonable I think to assume that the economics would shift if HFCS weren't so cheap.
If say soda were 10% more expensive, how many sales would be lost? Would the risk of losing sales justify reducing the amount of sweetener to retain those customers? Would Americans then recalibrate their taste buds to less sweet beverages?
FWIW, American packaged junk food like potato chips often has lower sodium today than it used to, so there's evidence that you can slowly adjust this stuff without losing sales.
It's not all that tasty. After visiting Europe I always find American foods to be grossly sweet. It's a race to the bottom that you only notice if you get out of the cycle for a bit.
Because it's actually better or because of confirmation bias or because as a "visitor" your diet is not representative of what people who live their eat on a normal day/week?
I believe like for like on products, some food's in the US are of a lower quality due to food standard laws being poorer. Chocolate for example must include 10% cacao in the US and 20% in Europe, hence Europe's will taste different and more chocolatey as it simply has more of the ingredient that gives chocolate it's flavour. Chocolate of course isn't the only product that has different regulations.
Un-processed poultry (like breasts or something, not nuggets) was the big one I was thinking of. European stuff is higher quality in that there's less chemicals involved and it's cleaner but those are mostly public health issues (no salmonella outbreaks), not nutritional issues. If Europeans aren't actually eating in serious volume the classes of products where the differences are then it doesn't matter much if at all. And then there's all the products where it's a distinction without a difference, like eggs.
As a single point of anecdote - as a European visiting America, I also found American candy just insanely sweet. Like, way more than what I'm used to, and it definitely didn't make me go "wow this is tasty". I guess you're used to what you know, but there is something to it.
I do agree that our sweet here in NA is sweeter. From a taste perspective however, it's a lot about whatever you are used to, like you say.
After more than a year of Keto and not having had any bread, I ate some wheat bread again for the first time. Nothing sweet on top. Just bread (with butter on top). It tasted sweet! And it wasn't even your typical North American floppy toast white bread but just regular, proper wheat bread like you might eat in France in your neighborhood corner bakery (here they usually call it "artisan bread" now).
That sweetness went away really quickly after eating bread more regularly again but it surprised me nonetheless and makes your point on getting used to things.
Another NA example is cup cakes. There are cup cakes and then there are US cup cakes. I really don't like cup cakes at all. I avoid them. It's a tiny bit of cream with a ton of sugar. Just disgusting. They do the same with actual cakes. You can't buy a proper cake with cream based frosting and some tactful addition of sugar. It's a tiny amount of cream with a load of sugar on a tasteless body of (in many cases overly dry) sponge cake.
No. They're doing it because it's marginally cheaper and more convenient in the aggregate, but if they didn't and stuck to cane sugar, the practical difference on the consumer side in terms of consumption and price per product would be essentially nil or close enough not to matter.
It's not about displacing other sugars. It's a cheap substitute for things not sugar. The argument about corn syrup is misplaced, it should be about sugars in general in US processed food. But corn syrup just happened to be that sugar.
No, ostensibly it's cheaper at scale. But from a consumer's perspective, it doesn't matter that they're using that instead of sugar. There's a much larger conversation to be had about the misinformation surrounding sugar and carbohydrates, but anyways..
If the actual total sugar (or sugarlike) content decreased along with the corn syrup, there definitely would be differences.
Ask anyone who's visited the US about how the food tastes. It's not just that serving portions are much bigger, but everything just tastes sweeter too. I've had people tell me they visited the states and even the plain white bread was sweet in comparison to everywhere else.
This. Mainstream food in the US is unbearably sweet and sugary if you come from anywhere else in the world. Drinks are sweet. Chips are sweet. The deep fried onions at Olive Garden are sweet. The gravy for the prime rib is sweet. The goddamn bagels are sweet. They put marshmallows on top of baked sweet potatoes for thanksgiving.
Hmm. Coca-Cola may be a standout here, where sweetness is required for the phosphoric acid balance, because of the tingle that sells their "original" flavor
If you're putting more of one ingredient in, you're either giving a larger product or putting in less of another ingredient. If that other ingredient was more expensive, you have decreased costs.
I agree this is the actual issue; I don't agree with allowing the argument to manifest itself by bozos who use misinformation and pseudoscience to reframe it as a chemical/biological danger or even a taste/quality issue as it is neither of those.
