As the title says, why has (especially the United States) created an artificial sweetener that is worse for you than the naturally provided sweetener (sugar cane) that is quite abundant and also grows out of the ground? Almost every nation on the planet besides the US utilizes sugar cane in their food items and this gives them a distinct taste in comparison, why does corn syrup exist? Was it ever needed?
EDIT: I’m delighted to know that I’ve been going at this all wrong, and I’m happy to be educated more on the differences in sugars, the reasons as to why corn is utilized in the US, and general common sense that I didn’t pick up on, so thanks for that.
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The table sugar you get from sugar cane is sucrose, which is easiest to get from sugar cane. But that grows almost exclusively in tropical climates. You can also get sucrose from sugar beets, which do grow well in the US, but it’s not as cost efficient.
The US has import quotas in place on cane sugar in order to protect the beet sugar industry. But corn syrup– which is fructose and sucrose–can be used in place of beet/cane sugar for most things, and is cheaper to produce than beet sugar.
Don’t like high fructose corn syrup? Push your congressman to lift cane sugar quotas–and in the process, give poor/developing countries like Haiti an export market for one of the easiest crops they can grow.
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