Ezra Klein over at The American Prospect takes on big corn's $30 million p.r. pushback. Seems the anti-high fructose corn syrup campaigns are hitting them in the pocketbook. But beyond the $50 billion in subsidies we've turned over to the corn companies over the past ten years, there's the issue of how it contributes to obesity in America, and particularly among the poor.
That's the primary way the syrup contributes to obesity: Not by being more fattening, but by being so heavily subsidized that it makes it far cheaper to sustain yourself on sweetened carbohydrates than on nutritious food.At some point during my stint as a flack for an anti-hunger group in Washington, D.C. some K Street think tank came out bashing poor people for being, in general, big boned. There can't be a hunger problem in America because all the poor people are fat, so the thinking went. I got tons of media calls following that one but it was probably the easiest spin-job I ever had to pull. I couldn't believe it but most of the reporters had never in their lives considered the shocking cheapness of unhealthy, processed foods versus vegetables, meats, etc. The calls went something like this:
Reporter: You're saying 42 million Americans don't always know where their next meal is coming from.
Me: Right.
Reporter: But they're fat. How can they be hungry?
Me: People will do whatever it takes to feed their families. If that means 39-cent mac and cheese every other night, so be it. It gets the kids fed.
Reporter: So, that's good, right?
Me: In the short term. But their bodies turn the stuff into fat more than if they'd had, say, veggies, a chicken breast and some beans for dinner.
Reporter: Okaaay.
Me: So what's the most expensive thing in the grocery store? Meats, fresh vegetables, stuff that's good for you.
Reporter: Oh.
Me: Yeah, they're not eating spinach and salad and whole grains and meat. They're eating McDonalds and Rice a Roni and Hamburger Helper. It gets you fed but it's nothing but cheap calories and salt.
Reporter: Jeez, I've never really thought of it like that.
I was never really sure why the interaction was quite the epiphany it was, but it was. And corn syrup is part of the problem. Think about it. What if we eliminated corn subsidies and spent that $5 billion a year making sure low-income people had better access to fresh food?
