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153 Comments
- Wosat, on 07/08/2009, -0/+61End sugar subsidies and we can have real sugar in our beverages again like the rest of the world.
- steelersfan7roe, on 07/08/2009, -5/+39FOOD NOT FUEL
This is ridiculous. ***** Ohio & Iowa and their ethanol fuel subsidies. Why the ***** does congress keep giving them subsidies to use their crop land for fuel?
These are not mom and pop farms we're giving subsidies too. These farming companies are just like big oil, except big oil never took up crop land and made your food more expensive. They are massive corporations. - DangerCollie, on 07/07/2009, -11/+37Farm subsidies primarily benefit the south. Let's cut off those welfare state deadbeats. Aren't they the ones all up about social programs to feed the poor?
- steelersfan7roe, on 07/08/2009, -0/+16Don't you mean tariffs?
- pathouston22, on 07/08/2009, -0/+16Mexican Coke + Dublin Dr. Pepper
Little more expensive, but worth it. Sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. - holesome, on 07/08/2009, -2/+17Driven MOSTLY by the spike in fertilizer prices, the price of ALL corn is up and farmers are quickly planting more acres of corn. What drives fertilizer prices? PETROLEUM prices. Fact.
- onClipEvent, on 07/08/2009, -1/+14Americans still pay a lot less for their food compared to western europe....
- Wosat, on 07/08/2009, -1/+14An import tariff can be seen as a domestic subsidy. (Yes, I meant tariff. Doh!)
Or I could have been talking about corn subsidies, which make corn syrup artificially cheap... yeah, that's what I was talking about... - wolfing, on 07/08/2009, -0/+11hmmm... why not add that average salary is like 3 times that of most other countries to make a fair comparison.
- inactive, on 07/08/2009, -0/+10"It pretty much provides no nutritional value"
What? Are you on drugs? Milk has nutritional value. - lettruthout, on 07/08/2009, -3/+13The word "oil" does not appear in the article. Neither does the word "petroleum". When 10 calories of fuel goes into the making of each single calorie that we get, oil has a huge impact on the price of food.
Hardly a balanced look at the situation.
Buried. - Otto, on 07/08/2009, -0/+8Actually, no. Sugar and corn are primarily grown in northern and western states. Louisiana grows the majority of sugar, to be sure, but corn is almost entirely northern.
http://media.artdiamondblog.com/images2/SugarFarmi ...
http://www.italianfarmmachinery.com/assets/ov_map_ ... - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -1/+9Its loaded with fats, sugars and proteins. Plenty of nutritional value. If anything, it can be accused of having TOO much nutritional value.
- BoneheadFarker, on 07/08/2009, -0/+7Ever hear of not spamming?
- ask03, on 07/08/2009, -0/+7Mid-West corn farms? I think it is the heartland that is after the political profits here...
- Otto, on 07/08/2009, -1/+7Seriously, you have Google too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk#Nutritional_valu ... - Hetman, on 07/08/2009, -1/+7What about baking and cheese? Milk acts like a binder like eggs does. It is also necessary for a lot of sauces. Personally I do not want to live in a world with no cheese. It does taste good on cereal I might add.
- moskrin, on 07/08/2009, -1/+7A lot of people pay huge premiums for terrible prepared foods rather than buying base ingredients already, so why are they going to worry about a little exra for the subsidies?
- StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -2/+8"***** the people who bitch about welfare programs, my tax dollars are going to a cause that allows people to suck fluids from another animals nipples?"
I suppose you don't eat the insect vomit that is honey either. You realize that grains are basically fertilized plant ova, right?
What the hell do you think food is, but other living and once-living things? - FredFredrickson, on 07/08/2009, -1/+7I agree! I also think we'd see a sharp decline in obesity and diabetes if we stopped using corn syrup in everything.
- FredFredrickson, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5No, but it'll stop them from washing it down with a substance that is proven to yield higher rates of diabetes.
- AvatarofJustice, on 07/08/2009, -1/+6I personally like having a domestic food industry of some sort in the US rather than letting it get priced out of existence by other countries. Protectionism? Yes. Isn't that why we are a nation? Banding together to protect ourselves from rival groups? Having a viable farming industry is like having a fuel stockpile in case of war. Inefficient in a peaceful world, much appreciated if things go south.
- StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5"@StaticThunder, by that logic, twinkies and ding-dongs both have nutritional value. You should eat at least one of each to get your daily intake of calcium and vitamin B."
No, not by that logic at all. If you're going to invoke logic, you should learn it.
1) Milk has nutrients: proteins, fats, sugars, vitamins
2) You can get the nutrients in milk from other locations
3) twinkies have significant nutritional value
4) milk has no nutritional value
3 and 4 do not, in ANY consistent informal or formal logic, follow from 1 and 2.
You know, I was all for legalizing pot until I started talking to you. Now I'm not so sure. - bat-21, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5The US also has sugar price supports. Americans currently pay 3 times for sugar as everyone else.
- PresidentWikis, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5aspartame & high-fructose corn syrup GTFO
- mikeyp51, on 07/08/2009, -1/+6It's really not that bad, if you actually take the time to look up raw commodity prices over the last 20-30 even (40-50) years you'll see that they are way, way behind inflation and in the last few years they have been starting to catch up again. Americans actually have access to some of the cheapest commodities on the planet.
In the late 90's my dad and I were trying to figure out based on the ingredients list and the package weight, how much the farmer would have been paid for all corn in a box of corn flakes. The answer that we came up with was between 1-2 CENTS. I'm sure it's gone up by now, but by my best estimates it's probably in the nickel range and definitely less than a dime. This does not equate to a 40% increase in the total product cost of a box of cornflakes.
Seriously though, do the math sometime. Here's some starter numbers for you:
1. Corn is currently trading anywhere from 3.40 to 4.00 (for July 2012 corn) per bushel. See http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,1213,00.h ... for up to date numbers.
2. There are ~56 pounds of corn in a bushel.
3. Try to estimate how much corn is in a box of corn flakes (probably less than the total weight of the box), commonly estimated at around 12-13 ounces. - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -1/+6What does the amount have to do with it? If you drank less milk, would it be less disgusting?
Government subsidies aren't really my problem. Talk to your legislators. I honestly couldn't care less. - KKKamikaze, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5I honestly have no problem playing a little extra money to know that my product comes from America. This helps the American economy, not foreign markets. I am sick and tired of how we outsource everything to other countries and then wonder why our markets are falling apart and why we struggle with unemployment and have an constantly decreasing middle class.
As a personal opinion, I think we should mostly only import those things that we deem absolutely necessary by which we can not get through domestic means. - noutoo, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5Oh sure that is all we need is milk from China. Then they find lead in the milk. Food is one thing the US should not import. You see we can't even get Peanut Butter right. This would only help places like Walmart.
- Bytes_U, on 07/08/2009, -0/+4FYI: Cost of Corn Flakes
5 percent of the purchase price reflects the corn price. The remainder of the cost is in packaging and advertising (source-NCGA)
"price of the corn in your flakes is about 40 percent higher than it was a few years ago"
Big deal, the cost of corn is only 5% of the input costs. Let's talk about massive corporate gouging on the rest. - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -1/+5What ad hom. I was stating a fact about my own personal bias and your influence on it.
If you want ad hominem attacks, I can certainly oblige you, but I was trying to be civil.
"So what you're saying is that no vitamins exist in a twinkie? Because it looks to me twinkies contain calcium, protein, and iron."
I never made that claim. If you weren't so addled, you might realize that.
You want to quibble about amounts? Milk is a lot more nutritious than a twinkie. Its a nutritient delivery device for mammals. Twinkies are designed to taste good.
Dumbass. (thats an ad hom, and a fact). - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -0/+4"I'm more annoyed by the amount of money the industry gets. "
Well, in the grand scheme of things, $4B is nothing. California alone dairy is a $31B industry. Americans use some 16 Billion gallons of milk a year. Even if they didn't get a subsidy, all I personally think you'd see is fewer suppliers or more milk imports. - SeekerDarksteel, on 07/08/2009, -1/+5Err...you realize that the cost of a box of cereal that is due to the cost of corn is a small fraction of the actual cost of the cereal? Most of the cost is due to manufacturing, advertising, transport of the raw ingredients, and distribution or the finished product. So even IF farms were switching to producing ethanol in such high percentages that it doubled the cost of corn, you wouldn't even notice when you went to buy your box of cereal.
There's plenty of reasons to oppose farming subsidies, both for food and ethanol, not the least of which is that corn ethanol is extremely inefficient at reducing fuel prices. We don't need to manufacture outrage over something that is in fact a non-issue. - Hetman, on 07/08/2009, -0/+4Are you a vegan of sorts or do you just not like dairy products?
- TheUnlearn, on 07/09/2009, -1/+5Buddz, do you know where the methodologies for the studies in the first link can be found? It's seems like those were all indirect studies and can't show any conclusive links between milk and those diseases.
Notmilk is retardedly biased and worthless.
The yahoo answer only had two sources that weren't "notmilk" so it's also worthless. Not to mention "cows are diseased" etc. You've got to be kidding me. - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -1/+5Apparently twinkies and pot are what passes for his vegetarian diet.
- inactive, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3And they say pot is harmless.
- TheUnlearn, on 07/09/2009, -1/+4I read through the studies in the first link and not a single one of them says "Drinking milk will cause X" they all have some variant of "Milk has something in it that may be linked(this is the key word) to X disease." Those summaries say that they don't even know what exactly is causing it, just that there appears to be a connection.
I wanted to see the methodologies because if they observed or recorded people's dietary habits and then performed a medical exam then they have no way to know the true cause (these are called epidemiological or indirect studies and only show association not cause). You need a direct study (like a clinical trial) to be able to get conclusive evidence for the cause.
I haven't repeated any nutritional facts from a milk carton, i'm looking at the evidence you've provided and pointing out the problems with them. My biggest problem with your "Milk is bad, mmkay" standpoint is that there aren't any "bad foods." The problems come from over consumption. That's over consumption of anything, including fruits and vegetables. Once the body gets the nutrients it needs everything left over is stored as fat. That's why people gain weight and get chronic diseases, not because they eat fast food or drink milk but because they eat *too much* fast food or drink *too much* milk or anything else for that matter. Different foods have different amounts of nutrients that the body needs and some(like twinkies) have so little value that you never have to eat one. But if you want to, every once in a while, you'll be okay.
I'll just leave you with this:
http://www.healthandage.org/professional/health-ce ... - StaticThunder, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Yeah and you can sweeten your drinks with molasses instead of corn syrup. Substitutable isn't the same thing as NO nutritional value.
- IllBeBack, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Corn is going to kill us all. Oh wait, it's already killing us all.
- zip000, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3I didn't get past Frosted Flakes.
Mmm...Frosted Flakes. - JigoroKano, on 07/08/2009, -1/+4"It pretty much provides no nutritional value"
That is about as ignorant as humanly possible. Milk is the _most_ nutritious food for mammals (yes you are a mammal) on the ***** planet.
After learning how to herd animals, humans quickly evolved adult lactose tolerance, a trait not found in other mammals as they can't sustain lactation in the wild.
In fact, this happened no less than 3 different times. Do you realize how much evolutionary pressure it takes for nature to find 3 different solutions to the same problem? That's how good for your milk is. Really ***** good. - omgwtflawl, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3Actually I don't seem to remember ever saying milk was good for you. I never drink the stuff. Maybe you could point out any location where I indicated to the contrary?
As for my Libertarian comment, I was referring to your statement decrying the fact that your tax dollars go to people and firms you would rather they didn't go to. - zeth006, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Off the topic, but it's more like the classic college student's poverty only reasons for buying and eating ramen noodles are his poverty and/or his inability to cook.
After college, most kids should have learned to make a dish or two using unprepared ingredients. - MrSteamTank, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3It's because you buy you're meat from far away. I know as a fact that Uruguay(where I'm at) is one of Iran's meat suppliers. Having to send meat this far away will surely raise the cost.
- DankBuddz, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3I don't eat any meat or dairy, more for health reasons than anything else.
I do eat Fish, and I do eat honey (which hardcore vegans don't eat).
I still eat fish mainly because I haven't broken the habit. I love sushi more than anything in the world. - Wosat, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3That's all we need... a powerful nut lobby.
- jkleinfeld, on 07/08/2009, -1/+4That's right IVI33, government "distortions" messing up our perfect no holds barred free market system. Looks like you've been fornicating with Friedman for too long. How about a nice trip to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil or Indonesia to see how those wonderful free market experiments turned out?
And the audacity of the people to have a say in the running of their affairs! Why don't they just trust the wealthy amongst us to provide food, health care, social security, governance and schools? - rocknog, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Maybe a health premium, but prepared foods are much cheaper than buying fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. Granted, that's because prepared foods don't HAVE any of those ingredients, but the price is a major selling point for prepared foods.
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