If subsidies were put in place for fresh fruit, agribusiness would switch from corn sugar to sugar extracted and refined from, say, grapes. The end result is that the market finds a cheap way to put large quantities of sugar in foods.
These are the unintended consequences of subsidies.
That is true, but they're going to drop the sugar from some of the products as well, since it's not as cheap as HFCS right now.
It's better to remove all subsidies though, or subsidize things like spinach and broccoli. If they want to extract something from those and add it, I guess I am fine.
If the govt were concerned with the health of its populace, it could enact a law to limit what govt-subsidized fruit and vegetables could be used for. Imagine it: only whole corn, kernel corn, and popcorn from subsidized corn. Doritos would suddenly be too expensive to manufacture.
This will be great once we can all agree on what is healthy!
CSPI (mentioned in the article) campaigned hard in the 80s for fast food restaurants to switch from lard to cholesterol-free 100% vegetable oil. After all, back then, cholesterol and saturated fat were considered evil. They complied and switched to partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which was laden with trans fat... which is now widely thought to be worse than saturated fat and is itself being phased out (again at CSPI's urging).
That's a good reason to ignore CSPI as a parasite on the American public, not to throw out the baby of public health with the bathwater of bullshit rent-seeking pseudoscience.
