Industry sugar coating truth about corn syrup

The debate about whether sugar or high fructose corn syrup makes a better sweetener is growing bitter.

But the argument focuses on how HFCS affects America’s waist lines, rather than the impact these huge fields of empty calories have on the planet.

Let’s quickly put the first debate to rest: Both sugar and HFCS can make you fat. Because so many foods – from spaghetti sauce to cereal to shredded cheese – contain corn syrup, obesity is a huge problem in the U.S. OK, time to move on.

Despite what the Corn Refiners Association says at www.sweetsurprise.com or in its recent television advertising campaign, HFCS is not good.

Iowa and the rest of America’s breadbasket produces more corn than ever, but now a huge amount of that corn is used to sweeten soda and other products instead of contributing to the world’s nutritional needs.

It takes enormous resources of pesticides and fuel to grow, make and transport corn syrup. All so Americans can gorge on Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

"The environmental footprint of HFCS is deep and wide," writes environmental author Michael Pollan to the Washington Post. "Look no farther than the dead zone in the Gulf [of Mexico], an area the size of New Jersey where virtually nothing will live because it has been starved of oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt.”

The saddest part may be that farmers need government subsidies to keep producing corn that’s turned into HFCS. Without those subsidies, Americans might have to settle for sugar in their coffee and less of those foods that rely on HFCS to taste decent.

Take fast food, for example. The beef is corn-fed; The soda is corn-sweetened; and the fries are corn-fried. Just think, without government subsidies a $4 meal with 500 fat calories wouldn’t be possible.

The Corn Refiners Association has put tremendous effort into proving that corn syrup doesn’t make you any fatter than sugar, but they have yet to rebuke the realities of their industry’s impact on the environment.