High Fructose Corn Syrup: The Devil's Baby? Find out now, on the Miss Mabel Show!

I'm reading Michael Pollan's previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. I borrowed it from work, but I'm going to have to buy it because it is blowing my little pea sized brain.

I have so many thoughts about this... I don't know where to start. Aiiiieeee. I'll try to post short thought-updates on my Practically Moral page, where I like to blab about politics and food. If you don't read them... well... you'll just have to suffer through me speechifying you every time we meet. ...I'll have to carry a script around with me, so I don't forget all my speechify points.

But here's one.

1. The US government (under the influence of food production industries) encourages farmers to grow as MUCH corn as physically possible.

2. Farmers grow corn like mozefozes.

3. There is so much corn on the market, that its value is low.

4. It costs farmers more to produce corn than the price it sells at, which is why the government has to subsidize them; this is also why farmers need to produce tons and tons of corn, to make back enough money to stay afloat.

5. The beneficiaries of cheap corn are the food producers--those who take corn and turn it into corny weirdo products; and then those food companies that buy the corny weirdo products to make new breakfast cereals.

7. SO: If you're an American, your taxes (about a quarter, I think he said) to subsidize farmers aren't really subsidizing farmers (at least re. corn and soy beans, the biggest sector of the industry) -- you are really subsidizing corporations.

8: And added to this, the glut of cheap corn means that every industry possible tries to use corn every which way they can, which is why beef cows are fed corn even though it makes them so sick, they also have to be fed antibiotics with their feed.

And presumably this is the same in Canada. And this type of economy is affecting the countries the US sells corny weirdo products to. They sell corn to MEXICO for God's sake, the home of corn! Because no small farmer can compete with this, growing corn the old way, or the old old way. (Old way=growing less corn, using chemical fertilizer. Old old way=using farm animals and bean crops to enrich the soil, on self-sufficient farms with multiple animals and crops.)

Dr Oz has been on Oprah a lot in the past couple years denouncing high fructose corn syrup, which is found in almost every processed food. I wasn't too freaked out because when you eat vegan you naturally gravitate away from processed food, so what little I consume probably isn't that bad for my health. The only change I made was to increase the amount of food I cook at home.

But now I see high fructose corn syrup as demon spawn! I'm not anti-corporation by default, but what the industrialization of food has done to animals, peoples, economies, and the environment is just immoral. I'm sure there are many, many lovely people who work in the food industry... but ah! ah! ah! Ahhhh!