Here's another thing: It costs the American taxpayers $2 billion a year to subsidize the sugar industry. Yup, we're paying for the stuff that's killing us. (Sugar is also killing the environment in the places where it's grown, but never mind that now.)
In 2000, sugar processors in default of loans dumped $400 million worth of sugar on the American government. It cost us $1 million a day just to store it.
So do farmers have any incentive to switch over to another crop? Are you kidding? They're covered either way.
The health care costs of fighting diabetes are increasing exponentially. In essence, we pay at the pump and then we pay at the doctor's office. People may indeed have a choice, but the hidden costs of that choice are just astonishing.
Jon Carroll (a diabetic) SFGate May 5, 2003
