Sugar and corn

Last week i mentioned the sugar tariff on American sugar and the way in which it effects our soda and ultimately our cans.

It all started in 1816 when our government put high tariffs on sugar to incite farmers in the Louisiana territory to grow the crop.

"Protectionists warned that if sugar tariffs were lifted, then the value of slaves working on the sugar plantations would collapse — thus causing a general fall in slave values throughout the South"*

In 1934 the government instilled sugar import quotas.

"Like most arcane systems, the sugar program vested vast power in the few people who understood and controlled the system. As author Douglas Cater observed in 1964, "In reviewing the sugar quotas, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Cooley has had the habit of receiving the [foreign representatives interested in acquiring sugar quotas] one by one to make their presentations, then summoning each afterward to announce his verdict. By all accounts, he has a zest for this princely power and enjoys the frequent meetings with foreign ambassadors to confer on matters of sugar and state."*

These sugar prices are making the average American pay way more for a cheap commodity. The net worth of a pound of sugar in the global market is 3 cents a pound, Americans pay 21 cents .

"Each 1-cent increase in the price of sugar adds between $250 million and $300 million to consumers' food bills. A Commerce Department study estimated that the sugar program was costing American consumers more than $3 billion a year. "*

Sugar is difficult to grow in American, so the few farmers who undertake the task get great pay offs due to the sweet's legislation. 

How does this relate to soda? Because sugar cost is so high, Coke and Pepsi replace sugar with high fructose corn syrup. This syrup is unnatural, unhealthy and tastes way worse. In Europe, Coke is manufactured with real sugar...it tastes a thousand times better.


*thank you to James Bovard's article The Great Sugar Shaft from The Future of Freedom Foundation.