Why so much corn?

[Space05us]

I would like to know why American companies use corn byproducts so much in lieu of a variety of other, more often than not higher quality, ingredients. They put high fructose corn syrup into sodas and juices instead of sugar. They use corn starch to water down beer. When the government is looking at biofuel they look to corn instead of sugar beets or sugar cane. It's available, we grow it, but it's no ****ing good.

Our bodies metabolize corn syrup differently than sugar, and it leads to detrimental health effects.

Ethanol derived from corn is, from the various internet articles I've read (so I do take it with a grain of salt, yet they all seem to agree), the biofuel equivalent of "clean coal".

Last, but certainly most importantly, our major beers are ****ing dreck.

I can understand protecting our interests, but the landscape of North America is so diverse I simply can't accept that corn is all we can grow in mass quantities. I also understand the whole business end of things. Corn is cheap, but so ****ing what. It's better to blow a paycheck on good, healthy food than to blow it on renting movies or buying a new game. I can pick up books for 25c, I can't fill my stomach on the same amount. The day they come out with soylent anything I am going rambo.

[KrazyHorse]

Our bodies metabolize corn syrup differently than sugar

No.

Ethanol derived from corn is, from the various internet articles I've read (so I do take it with a grain of salt, yet they all seem to agree), the biofuel equivalent of "clean coal".

Ethanol is ethanol.

[KrazyHorse]

By the way, the most commonly used forms of high-fructose corn syrup are HFCS 55 (55% fructose, 45% glucose) and HFCS 42 (42% fructose, 58% glucose)

Regular table sugar/cane sugar is 50-50 fructose+glucose

There's no ****ing difference.

[Space05us]

So far, research has yielded conflicting results about the effects of high-fructose corn syrup. ...

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-fructose-corn-syrup/an01588

Jury is still out on that.

... Brazil's sugar cane-based industry is more efficient than the U.S. corn-based industry. Sugar cane ethanol has an energy balance seven times greater than ethanol produced from corn.[4] Brazilian distillers are able to produce ethanol for 22 cents per liter, compared with the 30 cents per liter for corn-based ethanol.[89] U.S. corn-derived ethanol costs 30% more because the corn starch must first be converted to sugar before being distilled into alcohol.[66] Despite this cost differential in production, the U.S. does not import more Brazilian ethanol because of U.S. trade barriers corresponding to a tariff of 54-cent per gallon – a levy designed to offset the 51-cent per gallon blender's federal tax credit that is applied to ethanol no matter its country of origin.[90] ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil#Comparison_with_the_United_States

Anywho, you missed my point.

Reinheitsgebot

[Aeson]

Such a corny thread

[KrazyHorse]

Anywho, you missed my point.

That you're somebody who spouts pseudoscientific babble?

[SlowwHand]

If you people can resolve this one, I know I'll sleep better at night.

[Felch]

Space is right about the economics of corn ethanol versus sugar cane ethanol. Brazil is able to produce the fuel more economically than the United States. The problem is that America's sugar lobby (a ridiculously small group of people for all the political weight they have) does a good job of keep the trade barriers up. Sugar is more expensive than it ought to be in this country, and we can thank a handful of politically connected pseudo-Commie bastards for that.

[Dinner]

Ethanol is ethanol.

Ethanol is ethanol but corn has a relatively low sugar quantity compared to sugar cane and requires a lot of petroleum based fertilizer to grow. The result is when you count the petroleum used to grow the corn, to process it and ferment it, and transport everything... It actually costs more oil then the amount of oil equivalents produced. Sugar cane however has loads of sugar in it plus it grows like a weed so it doesn't need lots of fertilizers there for sugar cane actually produces more oil equivalents then it consumes.

There for making ethanol from corn is a waste of money and we should just import cheap sugar from over seas rather then subsidizing a bunch of fat rednecks in the midwest.

[OzzyKP]

Fat rednecks vote. Furniers don't.

[SlowwHand]

Fat renecks also pay taxes and generally support the economy. Why not? Let's end another American industry. You're amazing.

[KrazyHorse]

Ethanol is ethanol but corn has a relatively low sugar quantity compared to sugar cane and requires a lot of petroleum based fertilizer to grow. The result is when you count the petroleum used to grow the corn, to process it and ferment it, and transport everything... It actually costs more oil then the amount of oil equivalents produced.

The point is that the analogy to "clean coal" wasn't apt because there the problem lies simply in the fact of burning coal. If there is a "problem" with ethanol derived from corn it lies in production, not use.

[Docfeelgood]

Energy crises?
bring back slavery.

[DaShi]

It's been awhile since I've read the Omnivore's Dilemma, but I believe that it was Nixon's fault.

[Felch]

Fat renecks also pay taxes and generally support the economy. Why not? Let's end another American industry. You're amazing.

If that American industry costs more in subsidies than it gives back in taxes, then it's a leech on the economy. It's a misallocation of scarce resources, and an insult to trading partners, partners that retaliate by raising tariffs on goods that America produces more competitively.

Zombie industries are part of why Communism has never worked.