Corn Syrup: How Much is Too Much?

I was stopped at a train crossing with my husband recently and after 10 minutes of watching tanker after tanker of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) roll by, it got me thinking. What an awful lot of sweetener on the rails in Iowa. I am not one of those who thinks that HFGS is in and of itself the devil incarnate. I think it is a highly processed food by the time it is created--anyone who has gnawed on a corn stalk can tell that this is not edible as it grows out of the ground--and it then goes on to be added to highly processed food. It is the antithesis to some of the principles that Michael Pollan espouses in his book 'In Defense of Food'. Your grandmother would not recognize it. It is not found on the periphery of the grocery store. The fact that it is plant based is about it;s only saving grace. The real problem is not so much what it is, but that we ingest so much of it. On average, we each ingest 60 pounds per year--and since there are some of us who are not routinely eating mas produced highly processed foods, some people are getting more. Each of these tankers hold 67,000 gallons of HFCS, which is only enough for about 1,000 people each year. Wow, that is A LOT of sugar. Who is eating this? According to the CDC, quite a few of us. They state that 50% of the US population consumes a sugar drink on any given day, and 25% of us consume more than one. The problem is not related to eating out--half of these drinks are consumed at home, and only 1/6 are consumed in a restaurant. This cannot be good for us. As far as I am concerned, the debate is not so much is it worse than cane sugar, but rather that too much is just not good. How to combat this? Well, the first place to start is with the cost. The price is artificially low for HFCS, because of subsidies, and that needs to go away--poor people use HFCS products at a higher rate than middle income consumers. Time to look at food subsidies for healthier foods. As the cost of medical care continues to sky rocket with no end in sight, we need all sorts of health reform--not just making sure that people have health insurance, but also that they have access to food that is healthy. Prevent the disease so you don't need to treat it. Meanwhile we consume 280,200 of these tankers full of HFCS each and every year.