The Federal government has gone too far in regulating the sugar industry, indirectly worsening the quality of food products like soft drinks.
Though not pertinent to the looming budget fiasco developing in Washington, D.C. or the Middle East protests, government regulation of sugar has nonetheless had a major role in your life without you even recognizing it.
You may have lived your life up till now thinking that all your cherished soft drinks like Pepsi and Sprite were loaded with actual sugar, making them so sinfully delicious. In actuality though, all-natural wholesome sugar has been absent from soft drinks since the 1980s, when it became cheaper to use corn-based high fructose corn syrup than sugar as a consequence of government intervention.
High fructose corn syrup is actually worse than sugar. Its use has gone up over 4,000% in the last 40 years among Americans and it is ubiquitous in grocery stores. More importantly, it has been linked to diabetes and spikes in cases of American obesity. A Center for Disease Control study has shown that ever since the introduction of the substance in American soft drinks and diets, obesity rates zoomed to and hovered at around 60%. Sure, there may be some other variables out there to confound this data, but it is no negligible figure. And for those environment lovers out there, you all should be fully cognizant of the fact that this overreliance on corn means heavy soil depletion, with increased levels of pesticides and fertilizer.
The Agriculture and Food Act of 1981, combined with federal subsidies of corn and quota impositions, created the general sugar pricing apparatus used today. The system is astonishingly complex—as all central planning efforts tend to be—but suffice to say the system offers a three-pronged approach to maintain this sugar high:
- It offers preferential loan agreements to sugar processors to set a minimum price for sugar grown domestically. The intent is to keep prices low for producers based on loan rates set by the government.
- Import barriers shield the domestic market from competition, thus boosting sugar prices. Once taking up fifty percent of the U.S. market in the pre-1981 years, sugar now makes up a meager fifteen percent from such barriers.
- The worst of it all is that the federal government uses a complex formula to guess how much sugar Americans will consume in a given year and sets different quotas for each state. Aside from the fact that it’s a guessing game, the government has a heavy hand in determining how much is consumed based on all of these strategies.
The impacts of this price-controlling scheme are horrific, above all for us, the consumers. The Government Accountability Office estimates that these policies cost Americans about $1.9 billion annually. While the consumer suffers, a small group of privileged, lobbying sugar producers (1% of all producers) receive 42% of government sugar subsidies.
Sugar industries are equally hard hit. Why bother producing in such an unfavorable climate, when they can just as easily close up and settle elsewhere? USDA figures show United States sugar prices to be more than twice the world market price. Thus, for every sugar growing and harvesting job saved by the government-imposed system, three confectionary manufacturing jobs are lost according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Not to mention that like prohibition, this price fixing encourages smuggling. In Operation Bittersweet (I couldn’t make this up if I tried), thirty companies were caught in a sting smuggling in large amounts of foreign sugar. While the Justice Department acquired $16 million in fines, congressmen enjoyed $3 million from the sugar lobby (Public Voice for Food and Health Policy).
These truths are obvious and speak to the power of competition and free trade. With competition from overseas markets and with less regulation of the few sugar farmers that remain in this country, sugar prices would drop significantly and we would most likely see similar relaxing in other agricultural industries. Increased diversity of ingredients in foods at the grocery store equals more choice for the consumer and better-tasting products.
Most importantly (for me at least), this all amount to superior cola, candy, and other junk foods. Ask anyone who has had Pepsi with real cane sugar and they will attest to the infinitely better taste tantamount to a taste bud orgasm. I could really go for some sugar right about now.
Photo Credit: Antiquetrader.com