224 Years of Substance Abuse: Why do American companies use HFCS so obsessively?
1st June 2013
As you might expect, government is to blame.
The reason it is cheaper is that the US government intentionally keeps domestic price 3X higher than the world market price. American food companies operating in competitive markets cannot pay this obscenely high price so they move their production lines outside of the country (which works only for products with relatively long shelf life, e.g., candy) or they switch to HFCS.
This is nothing new. US sugar industry has been enjoying trade protection since 1789 (that was one of the first acts of the Congress). The initial goal was to gain the loyalty of the sugarcane farmers in the Louisiana Territory.