I am reading with increasing dismay about the steady march of Ethanol into the North American psyche as an alternative to buying fuel in the form of light, sweet crude oil from those mean, nasty Arabs. On the surface the idea behind biodiesel and ethanol is appealing and touches all of the perceived pain points of the modern, SUV-driving, suburbanite nuclear family: we can be energy-independent in North America, since the one commodity we have plenty of is space. Canola and Corn, the prime sources for biodiesel and ethanol, are hearty plants that can grow with less effort than potatoes, lettuce, or other food sources, too; theoretically in places where growing those latter crops can be tough. The promise, therefore, of guilt-free living is a simple one with universal appeal: we can have our gas-guzzlers, and eat it, too!

Indeed, this whole Ethanol fuel thing would be all hunky-dory if only it didn’t take dozens of gallons of oil derivatives per acre on a seasonal basis to grow it. The ONLY reason why Ethanol is a “cheaper” source of fuel is because of all of the government subsidies which exist in the US and Canada to nurture the growth of canola and corn instead of real crops that could end up on our dinner table, not to mention subsidies at the pump in the form of tax breaks for the oil companies. Those subsidies of course find their way into the coffers of companies like Monsanto, BASF, and Bayer CropScience, who market genetically-modified crops and integrated pesticides, controls, fertilizers to cash-strapped farmers. But here’s the hitch: we still need to import oil to grow our gasoline in an Ethanol scenario. Without oil-based fertilizers and pesticides, and diesel for tractors and farm equipment, we would have no corn.

Our fields should be used to grow food, not gasoline. Show me a country that doesn’t subsidize corn as a crop, and I’ll show you a country that thinks that Ethanol is a big fat joke.

A Harper’s Article recommended a few years ago that we simply follow the money. As we know, that path usually leads us to politicians.

BUSH is of course a big Ethanol supporter because it suits the short-sighted needs of his constituents: namely, red-state farmers and their enslavers: biotech companies like Monsanto who collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year lobbying in Washington and suing farmers for such inanities as “breach of patent”. For Bush, it’s also a way to show the voting public that the oh-so-progressive Republicans are taking direct action to avoid the perceived impending oil crisis.

North America in particular is addicted to corn, and it’s affecting us around every corner:

• Our obesity epidemic is in large part the result of the overuse of High Fructose Corn Syrup as a replacement for sugar,
  
• The evolution of new species of control-resistant weeds and insect is due to the corruptive influence of Genetically-Modified Corn and Canola,
  
• And now, we’re hooking ourselves up to the Ethanol addiction. Yippee!
  

Soon enough every square inch of arable land will be occupied by canola and corn destined for soft drinks, junk food, and gas tanks. We’ll be paying less at the fuel pump but exponentially more for imported wheat, vegetables, and other food stuffs. And the intricate system of subsidies which allows people to declare that HFCS is cheaper than sugar, and ethanol is cheaper than crude oil, will continue to skew the economic system so that these crops look viable, until someone has the cojones to stand up and declare how ridiculous the whole circle jerk has become.

Politicians frequently meddle in the economics of our food supply with dramatic, though unintended, consequences. That’s how we ended up with corn subsidies in the first place. Of course, no politician wants to confront the reality here, which is that North American farming practises have become so poor that hearty weed-like plants such as Corn and Canola are just about the only remaining crop that can grow in the increasingly depleted soil table of our farmlands, a problem which Europeans confronted centuries ago — by changing (gasp!) their behaviour.

Like Hydrogen, Ethanol is a storage medium for fuel. It’s not a source.

-Ian.

I think that, just to be sure, the US should install warning labels
on all fingers indicating that putting them in proximity to one’s
mouth while holding food could result in dire obesity, particularly in North America. But does
anyone really think that Warning Labels are meaningful anymore, after
decades of useless labels on CDs, Cigarettes, and Ladders?

In the longer term I think that history will illustrate that the real
problem isn’t simply, “sugar” (which is a generic term referencing
dozens of different additives) but instead High Fructose Corn Syrup,
or what I call “engineered sugar”. HFCS was born in the 1970s, in
part to address two things: the high cost of sugar, due to America’s
ongoing embargo of Cuba (which has traditionally ranked highly within
the top five exporters of sugar); and the dramatic overproduction of
corn, due to America’s moronic ongoing subsidy of its growth by
farmers (which has also resulted in the wholly unnecessary emergence
of Ethanol, BioDiesel, and lots of other stupid Corn-Into-Gold
technologies).

High Fructose Corn Syrup is not natural. Its existence is the result
of a mad chemist’s array of processes, fermentations, chain
reactions, and engineering. As such it’s natural to assume that we
organisms might have a really hard time ingesting, processing, and
excreting it safely. Consumed in high enough quantities (which most
of us do today) it has been revealed to effectively turn our bodies
into mush.

What’s circumstantially different between the relatively svelte
peoples of Europe and the statistically obese heifers of North
America is the quality of the sugars we intake. Europeans consume
lots of sucrose (from beet and cane) and us Americans eat mostly
biochemically-engineered sugars. We’re fat. They ain’t.
Confectioners can’t even use the term “chocolate” in the EU unless
their product uses real sugars, which is one reason why Mars bars in
the UK kick ass on North American ones.

So go ahead and label Soda cans all you want, but it’s pure,
unmitigated folly and will have no appreciable effect on the number
of forklift cases faced by paramedics in the future.

You really wanna cope with the obesity problem?

– Educate children (and adults) in schools on how to eat
better in SIMPLE terms
– Stop subsidizing the growth of corn and other crops we
don’t need
– Stop fucking with our food supply unless you’re going to test thoroughly the effects
– Disincentivize the sale and distribution of junk food with extra taxes, etc.
– Close forever the revolving door between the FDA and Monsanto

.. of course we won’t do that, because the Fat Kids can’t afford
expensive Washington/Ottawa lobbyists as can Monsanto, Yum! Foods,
and McDonald’s. Instead, the problem will just continue to amplify
until — like the hormonally-unbalanced, permanently ill beef cattle
of the North American livestock industry — many of the people of our
countries will be managed in a continuous state of illness and sloth,
taxing our social services to the maximum while displacing the truly
sick. All of this at no expense and to the massive profitability of
a dwindling (through consolidation) number of megacorporations
(including, of course, health providers who triage and manage the
lingering deaths of the populace) in the BioTechnology, Food, and
Health Care industries.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is a poison by many names (dextrose, glucose-
fructose, etc.), and is so pervasive in North American foods that
it’s almost impossible to avoid consuming it. My Snapple that
contains the “Best Stuff On Earth!” lists glucose-fructose second in
quantity only to water on the label. Just about the only package on
my desk today that doesn’t contain any HFCS is my bottle of Evian.

Some info:

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/jun99/927695713.Ch.r.html

A short term answer: go organic.

But what happens to society when only rich people can afford to eat a
healthy diet, free from chemicals and engineered foods?

-Ian.