Look on the label of almost any processed food and one ingredient always shows up. High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS is created by processing corn into a sugar like substance. This substance keeps longer than conventional sugar as well as being cheaper to produce. But what is the real cost of high fructose corn syrup?

High fructose corn syrup has gotten some recent bad press related to products that were almost entirely HFCS being labeled as "all natural". This deceptive practice should surely be illegal with the high rates of obesity in this country, but we had to wait for the Center for Science in the Public Interest to file a lawsuit to have it stop.

Some scientists and nutritionists are of the opinion that HFCS is harder for your body to digest than natural sugars, and therefore contributes more to obesity than other sugars.

Why is it that a substance with no nutritional value is included in almost every food item that we consume? According to the Environmental Working Group corn subsidies totaled over 50 billion in the period from 1995-2005.

Sugar is produced in tropical developing countries that have had any and all trade subsidies slowly destroyed by the WTO with the US government at the helm. At this same time we are subsidizing corn producers in the United States so that the price of real sugar stays high in comparison to HFCS.

I am glad to know that my tax dollars are helping to contribute to the plague of obesity in our country.