Corn and Sugar

While I don't have all the facts, I have often heard American obesity and heart ailments blamed partially on the fact that so many foods consumed by Americans contain high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenized oils (for more information, go here and here).

If you accept the idea that high fructose corn syrup is worse for the body than regular sugar, you will be very interested to learn that one of the main reasons so many US food products contain it is because of a government-erected trade barrier designed to protect domestic sugar producers that causes the cost of sugar in the US to be almost twice the global average.

Real irony enters the picture when you consider that the price of corn syrup is rising because the government is subsidizing ethanol-from-corn production as many politicians' way of gaining votes off of the global warming issue - and that ethanol can be produced much more efficiently from sugar than corn.

See this Club for Growth post for more information.