If corn is so bad why are we still growing so much of it?

y_p_w said:
Maybe not starch, but sugar cane is ridiculously efficient. Takes almost no fertilizer. It literally grows like a weed. I know they don't grow it commercially in Hawaii any more, but I saw it just growing feral. Still - Brazil probably has a better climate for sugar cane than even Louisiana or Florida
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Sugar cane is a tropical crop, you cannot grow them in MidWest.

The import sugar ban was not to protect Hawaiian growers (that's likely propaganda) but rather the corn farmers in swing states and their HFCS demand. I don't think people are buying that protection anymore and people who wants to pay more will get the real sugar they want, they are not that expensive compare to the marketing cost when you are selling exotic junk foods.
 
The import sugar ban has little to do with HFCS and corn farmers.

HFCS gets used because it is significantly cheaper than US produced sugar.

US Sugar prices are propped up by the US government regulations resulting in US sugar prices being much higher than ,much of the rest of the world. Imports of refined sugar and sugar making inputs are governed and limited, and are all charged tariffs.

There are instances of manufacturers who use real sugar moving their manufacturing operations to other countries to take advantage of lower pricing afforded by sugar priced at world market pricing.

Price protections were to protect US sugar producers and farmers, not US corn producers.
 
PandaBear said:
Sugar cane is a tropical crop, you cannot grow them in MidWest.

The import sugar ban was not to protect Hawaiian growers (that's likely propaganda) but rather the corn farmers in swing states and their HFCS demand. I don't think people are buying that protection anymore and people who wants to pay more will get the real sugar they want, they are not that expensive compare to the marketing cost when you are selling exotic junk foods.
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i just remember hearing in the early 80s when I was in elementary and jr high that the reason why we didn't have a whole lot of imported sugar was to protect the Hawaiian and Southern sugar farmers. I live fairly close to the C&H plant in Crockett and that probably processed most of the sugar coming from Hawaii for decades.

I know a bit about the Big Five companies in Hawaii that were big in real estate and the sugar industry. A relative of mine worked for a division of one of these companies - Alexander & Baldwin. Still gets a pension and the statements come from a bank in Hawaii. But my understanding was that for the longest time they were protected by import restrictions.
 
wpod said:
I drove truck for Coca Cola UAS in the late 1970 through 1981 on a casual basis and we would pickup cane sugar from C&H Sugar in Crockett California and Beet sugar in Tracy and Hamilton City California. Tracy and Hamilton Beet sugar places are gone now .
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Quite familiar with C&H as was mentioned. Still there and they've had some issues with improper waste dumped into the Carquinez Straight and San Pablo Bay.

Tracy and Hamilton City would have been Holly Sugar. Not sure if there's still a lot of sugar beet production in California, but there was in the 70s.

I grew up with C&H commercials that featured scenes of sugar cane growing in Hawaii. There were a series they did in conjunction with Mrs. Field's Cookies. Some were where they insisted that it was their sugar that made it so good. Another was of a native Hawaiian worker at a sugar plantation believing that "Mrs. Fields" was a local Hawaiian woman.
 
y_p_w said:
I grew up with C&H commercials that featured scenes of sugar cane growing in Hawaii. There were a series they did in conjunction with Mrs. Field's Cookies. Some were where they insisted that it was their sugar that made it so good. Another was of a native Hawaiian worker at a sugar plantation believing that "Mrs. Fields" was a local Hawaiian woman.
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By the time I tried Mrs Field I'm sure they are not using Hawaiian Sugar anymore, I'm not sure if they taste only ok because of that or the corporate America corner cutting (like nobody says KFC taste great because of Colonel's 11 spices original recipe in the last 20 years). The cookies from Specialty's Cafe and Bakery taste much better (the ones that deliver sandwiches to office catering) and I'm sure they also didn't use Hawaiian sugar.

Anyways, 2 years ago we visited Honolulu, both to the Dole Plantation and to the palace of the last Monarch, and the stories are quite the opposite of each other's. I'll stop it right here before it divert into politics.

Anyhow, I don't know how my wife could tell but one bite and she can tell whether something is made with HFCS or not, and she would pay a premium to not eat anything with it (i.e. 20% more), because it taste gross, not because of health reason.
 
So, another question. Are corn oil a byproduct or a main product of corn? It seems like when I eat corn I don't taste the oil in it, compare to peanuts or sunflower seeds.
 
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PandaBear said:
By the time I tried Mrs Field I'm sure they are not using Hawaiian Sugar anymore, I'm not sure if they taste only ok because of that or the corporate America corner cutting (like nobody says KFC taste great because of Colonel's 11 spices original recipe in the last 20 years). The cookies from Specialty's Cafe and Bakery taste much better (the ones that deliver sandwiches to office catering) and I'm sure they also didn't use Hawaiian sugar.

Anyways, 2 years ago we visited Honolulu, both to the Dole Plantation and to the palace of the last Monarch, and the stories are quite the opposite of each other's. I'll stop it right here before it divert into politics.

Anyhow, I don't know how my wife could tell but one bite and she can tell whether something is made with HFCS or not, and she would pay a premium to not eat anything with it (i.e. 20% more), because it taste gross, not because of health reason.
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Here's some C&H commercials. I grew up and remember the jingle. Some of these were before I was born, but I definitely remember the 70s era commercials.



As for Specialty's - I used to work in downtown San Francisco for a part-time college job. There were huge lines. Most of their sandwiches were made on thick cut bread and not rolls, and the prices were less than $4 each. Or I'd just get a cheese roll. Lines were out the door and sometimes I'd be sent to bring stuff back to the office. I also worked with someone who did HR for them. A few job interviews I had, I was given a chance to order from them where it was delivered to the office. I guess they've shut down for good.

HFCS and sucrose do taste different, although I can't necessarily say one is better than the other. It's just different and a matter of taste. When I get something like a Coke using sucrose I can tell. It's usually less sweet. But it's not a big deal to me.

The way I hear it, some bakers prefer cane sugar to beet sugar. There are some differences in the impurities since it's impractical to make it 99.999% pure. It probably wouldn't matter when dissolved in coffee or a soft drink, but it's different when cooking or baking.
 
PandaBear said:
So, another question. Are corn oil a byproduct or a main product of corn? It seems like when I eat corn I don't taste the oil in it, compare to peanuts or sunflower seeds.
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The answer is yes - ie: both. Corn oil can be produced from either wet-milling or dry milling. In wet milling, which is used to make HFCS, corn oil is extracted using solvents. Dry milling, which the bulk of ethanol production is can also produce corn oil as part of the distillers grains - which has been referenced in other posts as the waste that is typically used for animal feed.
 
PandaBear said:
The cookies from Specialty's Cafe and Bakery taste much better (the ones that deliver sandwiches to office catering) and I'm sure they also didn't use Hawaiian sugar.
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The specialty's across the street from my office closed down over the past two years. That sucks, they had awesome food.
 
Many farmers alternate corn, soy, cover crop / hay and have all their equipment specialized to one crop.

They grow what they know, how they know

There is little motivation to change entrenched farmers who have had a lifetime of corn and soy experience and because so much investment and legislation surrounds them nothing is likely to change
 
Labor is a huge issue. The bang for the buck with minimal labor is huge compared to other crops. Not to mention the harsh, unpredictable summer Midwestern environment that makes other food production very risky.

That’s why the irrigated desert became so hit for veggie growing. The Midwest can grow the animal feed and oil crops (corn and soy) while the coasts grow veggies.

That’s all changing with the Western drought, but you get my point.

Corn may be tough on our loan soils in the Midwest, but intensive veggie farming would be far, far worse.
 
wpod said:
What bothers me and leads to my food habits is the GMO crops which are round up ready and other herbicide ready as well as other ag products are sprayed with round up to kill the weeds or to finish off the crops to speed the drying and give a consistent harvest . Round up etc can't be the best to eat. Meat has Round Up in it as well from being fed the ready crops.
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That’s fake news….not true at all.
 
Pelican said:
As an ex farmer I can tell you this: Corn is bad for the soil (too long to explain here) Only reason to grow so much is political (ethanol and the corn belt votes) It helps selling combines which are a big tkt item and the "almost as good as meat" crowd jump on the fact that it's a poor conversion into meat which is true.
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Absolutely Pelican. It is not safe to ask that question around here.
 
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