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High fructose corn syrup v sugar and other political solutions

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High fructose corn syrup v sugar and other political solutions

IT’S a general truism that politics doesn’t actually solve much: it’s really just a way of working out who gets what without resorting to slaughter and rapine as a method of division. However, in that solving not very much part of each political solution is the kernel of the next grievance which we need to use politics to resolve.

Take, for example, the little spat in the US over High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and sugar. It’s all a he said/she said nonsense over what you can say about the two different sweetners.

Big Corn and Big Sugar are locked in a legal and public relations fight in the US over a plan to change the name of a corn-based sweetener that has gotten a bad name.

The fight began last year when Corn Refiners Association, a trade association, proposed changing the name of high-fructose corn syrup to merely “corn sugar.”

The group said the new name “more accurately describes this sweetener and helps clarify food products labeling for manufacturers and consumers alike.”

But the sugar industry argued this change would be a bitter pill for US consumers and would only add to the confusion about a sweetener that has drawn criticism by some health advocates.

Sugar producers have filed suit alleging the corn industry has spent $50 million in “a mass media rebranding campaign that misleads the consuming public by asserting falsely that HFCS is natural and is indistinguishable from the sugar extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets.”

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Posted: 28th, December 2011 | In: Money | Comments (2)