One of the agronomic, dietary and political fads of the moment is to demonize maize. It's subsidized, exhausts soil, sucks up water and makes you fat. It's the foundation of industrial agriculture in the US and some other nations, a fact that has economic and political implications as well as agronomic and environmental consequences.

I've been saying much of this for years, online and offline. An incident that in some ways characterizes this long effort is a series of rants at the old Electric Minds virtual community in 1997 when I tried to convince Howard Rheingold and Bob Watson of these things. I was speaking heresy at the time but it has almost become conventional wisdom now.

Unfortunately as the ideas have become more popular they have become less sensible, less accurate. Since there is less resistance it is now possible to make claims that don't stand up under scrutiny. They aren't so thoroughly scrutinized. One of those claims is that it's all a deadly conspiracy to sell highly processed junk food made palatable with sweeteners - high fructose corn syrup, HFCS, the demon in your big gulp.

There is no denying the increasing prevalence of obesity in the US, and it’s spreading to other industrialized nations. This epidemic is characterized by spectrum of weight-related disorders, including hypertension, insulin resistance, obesity - these combine to form what’s known as metabolic syndrome. As many as 1/4 to 1/2 the US population may suffer from metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome begins early in life, starting with sedentary children who get too many empty calories. Lots of saturated fats have been the traditional culprits, but new evidence also suggests a role for fructose.

In the US, a very vocal and powerful sugar lobby has ensured that sugar imports into the country are very expensive. As a result, the corn industry takes advantage of this to create high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) through of a process that breaks down the starch in corn into glucose, some of which is then converted into fructose enzymatically. This is then combined with glucose to be blended and formulated into various grades; these normally contain 42 percent, 55 percent or up to 90 percent fructose. This syrup is then used by commercial food manufacturers in just about every processed food you find in the US today; cereals, breads, sweets, soft drinks, condiments, prepackaged meals, fast food - it is almost ubiquitous.

It's good to bash Americans. They are brash, loud and fat as well as hugely powerful and successful. If you can't beat them, mock them. This is good phun but there's a little problem - HFCS isn't actually any worse than good old cane sugar.

. . . fructose isn’t that great for us, but here it’s important to note that normal refined sugar, the kind the rest of the world uses and gets from sugar cane, also contains fructose, and in similar proportions to the lower blends of HFCS. So in and of itself, HFCS probably isn’t any worse for you than refined castor sugar. But here’s the kicker - over the past few decades, sugar intake has been increasing. . . . Alongside this, children and adults are exercising less and less, preferring instead to sit in front of TV screens, content to only exercise their thumbs. As a society, we are eating ourselves to death.

Of course, not everyone is taking it lying down. Although HFCS is probably only as bad for you as refined sugar, as mentioned above, it is fast gaining notoriety amongst the general public. . . . At the annual American Medical Association conference, delegates are suggesting that a tax be levied on sugary sodas. Although I can already hear your outraged comments over this suggestion, I’m sure similar anger was present when taxes were proposed on alcohol and tobacco. As a society we have accepted that those socially damaging behaviors merit sin taxes - why should obesity be any different?

Yeah. Good idea. Taxes really helped reduce alcohol and tobacco consumption. Poor people had to switch to rot gut, moonshine and roll your own bulk tobacco. Nobody drinks or smokes any more.

The crass stupidity of this whole HFCS scandal need not obscure the significant issues. Maize is an agronomic and environmental problem created by subsidies. Without them less would be grown. Farmers would grow more profitable crops on some of their acreage. Ethanol subsidies are as bad as any other from this perspective since they prop up king corn. Americans are over-weight and under-exercised, an aesthetic problem as well as a health problem, though it isn't clear to me that this is the proper concern of government or that any good can come of government regulation or preaching. It's merely a jobs program for bureaucrats, and entertainment for priggish nags who have otherwise unsatisfying lives. (Do we need a government program for that aesthetic failure too? Who nags the nags?)

These problems were created by the national attempt to manipulate the agro-economic system. They will not be cured by more of the same. Rather than using taxes and subsidies to manipulate the economy and culture - a demonstrated failure - we would be better off if we stopped meddling in these affairs. We'll still have vocal nags - it's a common character defect - and we'll still have boosters, hustlers and grifters of all sorts seeking to enrich themselves through advertising products of dubious worth. But if the government doesn't intervene to pick winners this competition will proceed on something closer to merit, and we will all be better off as a consequence. The environment will be better and our waistlines will shrink. . . a little. This is a transition period. We are a less physical culture now that we labor less, now that we do our work seated. It will take time to adapt.