HFC - High Fructose Corn Syrup

So, there are several articles on the NY Times over the weekend the refer to the local food movement, eating better, and our good friend HFCS.

This alongside the commercials that the Corn Refiners Association (who knew such a thing even existed?) is running on TV and it might be worth going back to the main question about HFCS. The question should not be about whether the stuff is good for you, get a high enough dose of anything and it could kill you. No, the real question should be about what it takes to get all the cheap corn syrup in the first place. Michael Pollan lays out in glorious detail what it takes to grow that corn in his opus, The Omnivore's Dilemma. The impact on our environment to grow that corn, refine that corn and then shove it into a plastic container filled with, as Pollan puts it "edible non-food" is enormous. Now, it might not be a better deal in oil consumption to suck down Coke made with cane sugar, but it will be a better deal for the farm land of Iowa, the Mississippi river basin and therefore for everyone living there.

Want to do something? Urge Congress and the Ag Dept. to undo the Nixon era changes to corn subsidies and restore some sanity to the marketplace. Right now farmers are rewarded for planting more and more corn. Lets try this on, less corn more pasture and other crops. If this means that the cost of corn goes up- then they might have to stop feeding it to cows, who cannot digest it without being loaded up on drugs and mashed into tight pens. The cost of a steak might go up, but at least it would taste like a steak again.