Just removing subsidies on corn would solve the core problem. There are lots of things corn is used for that shouldn't be corn that also get fixed by that.
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This is the answer. High fructose corn syrup is over-used because it's dirt cheap to produce, and it's only dirt cheap to produce because corn is subsidized.
As much as I love my bourbon whiskey, I'll accept the fact that prices will go up if corn stops being subsidized, but that's what's desperately needed in this country.
Came here to say this. HFCS is used so much because it's so cheap for companies to use it. Get rid of the corn subsides, which have long outlived their purpose, and there's not much incentive for using HFCS anymore and you solve the problem without a ban.
Pet food
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.
No, because just banning things rarely achieves the desired results.
And whether itβs 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. Iβm 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
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.
No, why would I? I'd end the US corn subsidies for basic economics reasons, and it would become less of a thing as a result, but it's not a bad technology itself.
Let's just tax it. Last time I've looked (a while ago) HFCS was at about $400/t. Just add a tax of $800/t that solely goes to programs fighting obesity.
No, because, it does not fix the root problem.
Also, banning things isn't the way to fix things.
I would also be a hypocrite for changing to legalize pot, while also chanting to ban corn-based sugars.
They enacted a ban on plastic grocery bags here two years ago to eliminate all the extras being blown across fields. Didn't help, I still see them blowing down the streets, and lots of people re-using their bags because they're so much more convenient (plus a lot of people would rather just pay the small tax to use the plastic bags). Who knows, maybe in twenty years all of the bags will be gone, but it's been a huge hassle for everyone both as consumers and for the stores to re-work their checkout lines because it takes so much more time to use these bags.
We also have a nearby town where they started taxing people for sugary drinks like sodas. Last I heard, it hasn't changed the amount of purchases by any noticeable amount. People just do their shopping in another town and local stores miss out on the profits.
I imagine for the high fructose, the same thing will happen. People will just pay the tax and not care. This really comes down to being just another tax on the poor which doesn't have any affect on people who make more money. These bans are slowly taking away every option that poor people can afford, when if anyone really cared about changing people's habits they would make healthier choices the same price or cheaper than the unhealthy ones. Since I make a decent wage, my wife and I tried eating healthy for a couple months. It nearly broke us because good foods cost so much more. I'm not talking about buying all organic, rather just trying to change the type of foods we ate. My wife did a ton of research to find things that we both thought sounded tasty, and they really were good, but we had no money left over to do anything fun so we spent the whole time sitting at home watching TV.
tl;dr -- Real change comes from making healthy choices cheaper, NOT by making unhealthy choices more expensive.
Our city banned plastic bags, and it's completely changed the city. Sure, there's still plastic trash, but there's virtually no plastic bags stuck in trees or blowing in the street. Noticed this over the past 8-10 years.
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.
I'm fairly certain cigarette usage is at historic lows. However, we could go after DUIs a lot more aggressively by bolstering public transit and then applying a much more German-style approach to DUIs.
I think we just need a way to incentivize corporations to provide healthy alternatives as well (and not just HFCS, but high sugars in general, etc). Not sure of the best approach, but the bigger issue is that when every corporation is pushing cheap sellers that are addictive, its no wonder most people eat them. Like, McDonalds alone isn't responsible, but corporations in general because their basically saying they can't be held responsible for being successful. But they're putting so much money into being successful and trying to be successful, that it's difficult when you have such large entities pushing that way but then saying "it's not our fault people are going in the direction we push"
Incentivizing a company to do anything besides turn a profit is impossible. You must beat them into submission so that the only choice they have is to conform with the overall public health policy. Removing subsidies on Corn would be a good idea to specifically address HFCS in everything. An even better idea would be to just socialize food production and remove the profit from it and instead prioritize healthy affordable food for the citizenry.
As someone with fructose intolerance, yeah I would as it gives me diarrhea.
I wouldn't ban it but I would ban subsidized corn. The thing is, humans want a sweetener and sugar is just as bad if not worse. Actually the history of sugar is worse then the history of any drug or evil empire. More humans have suffered because of sugar that anything else ever created by man.
It can stay but I'd like to restrict the packaging size of highly processed food and food that's otherwise extremely unhealthy.
For example breakfast cereal. Wtf? How does that even exist? Why was I allowed to eat a fucking bowl of that in the morning as a child?
Because being poor takes all your time. It's way quicker to let everyone get a bowl of cereal versus making food for an hour to find that nobody ate half their plate anyway.
We weren't poor I just annoyed my poor mom to get me cereals because of the toys.
We weren't poor I just annoyed my poor mom to get me cereals because of the toys.
Old and lower class* then lol.
Nope
Not sure about an all out ban but its usage should definitely be reduced. 39g of sugar in a 12oz Coke is ridiculous.
Can I ban surculose instead? Both are bad, but the distinct lack of regulation on surculose baffles me.
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
Is the corn industry in USA not heavily subsidized, and then that product needs to be justified so HFCS was one that they figured they could squeeze $$ out of?
Itβs horrible for you, why produce it at all when the only reason it exists is to justify the government giving tax payersβ money to that bloated industry?
yes
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.
Pretty sure it's already banned here but if it isn't then I absolutely would.
No, people should discipline themselves to eat responsibly. If you don't want to eat HFCS don't buy shit that contains it.