rt, will you ban it?
No, because just banning things rarely achieves the desired results.
And whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, too much sugar in general is the problem, much more so than the subtle differences between the two.
Instead, tax it enough. And maybe do that with sugar/fat/etc in general, so that inherently sweeter and fattier foods can’t be sold as cheap. It works in some countries already.
Maybe. A possibility for sure. I’m just not really into policies of trying to save people from themselves.
For me? I do what I can by just avoiding it as much as I can.
No man is an island and policies that aim to better the nation’s health are rarely for the benefit of the individual and rather are a way to benefit the masses by increasing productivity in the labor market, reducing healthcare costs, and generally making the nation more competitive on the international stage
Right and I get that, and I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, but again I just get a really bad taste in my mouth for policies that aim to save people from themselves. It just feels like the government being a parent instead of a service of the people. Secondly, it doesn’t really fix the root of the problem, which doesn’t always have to be the goal in policies obviously, but reluctantly making people make decisions with higher prices. Where should the government stop then in using higher taxes to get us to do what it wants?
Again, I’m torn on this because it may be the correct thing to do to cut down sugar consumption, but I hate the precedent it creates.
From a practical perspective, cane sugar just tastes better.
That is true
The downside of HFCS isn’t the syrup itself, but the fact that it is so cheap and is easily able to be added to make things taste “better” for basically no cost.
I would end the corn subsidies in America. They make bank anyway
The public perception got murdered with the name… Should have called it something like Sucrose type Corn Syrup.
When people hear High Fructose Corn Syrup, they usually stop listening at the word “High” if you’re luck, maybe Fructose, but never the full term. The term isn’t comparing it to other sources of Fructose, but just simply to regular Corn syrup, which is almost 100% glucose. HFCS just turns some of the glucose to fructose to make something equivalent to sucrose.
Sugar is unhealthy, but it doesn’t really matter where it comes from.
Not ban. No.
However, I would tax it at exactly the same rate as the corn and farm subsidies lower its cost, to make its actual price reflect reality.
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To be honest it and most unhealthy foods should be taxed to make healthy foods really cheap.
No. It’s not quite harmful enough. If I banned that, I’d have to ban a lot of things if I wanted to keep a fairly consistent position.
Cigarettes would be the first I would consider.
But I probably wouldn’t outright ban any of it.
Nope
Can I ban surculose instead? Both are bad, but the distinct lack of regulation on surculose baffles me.
I mean, not ban, but certainly restrict.
I’m amazed to see some people agree with banning it here… Like… Under what grounds? Because some people overeat? Jesus… What the hell?
Well, it’s not about overeating for one thing. The stuff is everywhere in American food. Assuming you’re in the States, you’ve probably consumed a lot more corn syrup than you think within the past year, and the stuff isn’t good for you. Here’s an article from the Cleveland Clinic about why it’s probably not the best thing to eat:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/avoid-the-hidden-dangers-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup-video/
Now, as I initially said, I don’t know about banning it, but I kinda feel like warning labels are justified, and maybe some other restrictions.
Also… I live in Iowa, and frankly the corn subsidies that have helped cause the corn sweetener explosion are destroying the environment here. It’s a lot to get into, but corn production at this scale causes changes to weather patterns. It’s a lot.
So, I’d like to see corn subsidies ended, or at least reduced a lot. This would make corn sweetener more expensive and therefore a less attractive ingredient.
Not sure about an all out ban but its usage should definitely be reduced. 39g of sugar in a 12oz Coke is ridiculous.
I mean, 100% agree, but not by force. If people want to drink sugar, that’s their business… It’s stupid, but sure, go for it.
So the problem with hfcs is that it’s everywhere. And not just like juice, I’m talking like canned goods, deli meat, peanut butter, crackers, bread. So it’s really hard to avoid unless you just make everything from scratch. And not I’m advocating for a total abolishment but it’s easy to go over your daily sugar with it being in everything. I would try to limit it or maybe have a warning on packages. For the other person that linked a study, I looked into one of the guys that did it, and he does just like a lot of hfcs studies, like a weirdly amount and I found that kinda sus lol This site lists papers for and against the safety
https://journalistsresource.org/environment/high-fructose-corn-syrup-your-health/
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/how-to-reduce-your-intake-of-highfructose-corn-syrup
It’s not as bad as all that, I’ve cut it out of my diet for about fifteen years. It involves A LOT of reading ingredient labels but for just about everything it’s in, there is an alternative without. Sometimes it does come at a premium, though. In the past ten years or so a lot of food manufacturers realized there was a market for foods without it and often advertise it on the label (breads especially). With some things like soda, you can get real sugar, glass bottled sodas which are expensive, but another alternative is drinking water which you should be doing anyway.
I agree that you can avoid hitting the daily sugar thing (and avoid hfcs) by reading ingredients but I don’t think many consumers do that. I certainly did not expect it find it in canned tomatoes and I use that in a lot of the recipes I found online. It makes sense why it’s in there though if it’s acting as a preservative. In fact, I’m going agree with a lot of folks here and just would like to send an end to corn subsidies.
Remove the subsidies on agricultural products that get sprayed with glyphosate to increase yield. Corn, wheat, and potatoes in this country are poison because of the chemicals they spray them with…then they go and put that tainted product into sugars like HCFS.
No because things shouldn’t be banned unless they cause unavoidable harm.
That’s a bit glib. A pest control company can sell a chlorine gas spray just because it says it on the label?
Yes. People have a right to take risks.
And that’s exactly why we should be talking about banning HFCS content.
You know chlorine gas is bad, and that’s just a risk you think people should be allowed to take. But you clearly don’t fully understand just what chlorine gas is or what it does to your body. And that notion that a the ‘risk’ part of ‘health risk’ diminishes its severity is like believing the ‘thoery’ part of gravitational theory means we shouldn’t take that seriously.
Let me be more clear. People have a right to 100% totally fuck themselves up, to the point of grievous injury or death.
Pretty sure it’s already banned here but if it isn’t then I absolutely would.
What dystopia do you live in where they’ve decided to ban corn sugar? What the heck? Are you guys okay?
Ah, sorry, not banned. It has a production quota so you can only make so much. That applies to the whole of Europe. I have never had HFCS so the quota is probably pretty low.
Yes, my brother’s allergic and I don’t want him to have to worry about it anymore.
Huh, I didn’t know one could be allergic to HFCS.
They would need to be very allergic to all corn products.
He can eat corn just fine, but HFCS gives him a migraine. I’m not sure why, but it happens consistently even when we don’t notice it on the ingredients list at first so it’s not psychosomatic or anything like that.
I have a cousin who’s allergic to peanuts, let’s ban those, too. Oh, and a family member who’s allergic to milk (lactose intolerance). So, let’s get rid of milk.
Oh, and actually another cousin is anorexic, so can we just get rid of all food? I have a great feeling about this!
Peanuts and dairy are usually possible to spot without checking the ingredients list, and they serve a distinct culinary purpose. They have valid reasons to exist, and are fairly simple, if a little annoying, to avoid.
HFCS does not serve a distinct culinary purpose (it’s pretty much just sugar but it benefits from corn subsidies), and is impossible to identify without careful scrutiny because it’s included in all sorts of foods that it has no business being in. The (purely financial) benefit it provides is far outweighed by its harm to public health.
Yea, but I’m fructose intolerant and in it’s in nearly everything so I’m biased
