I like this graphic better: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/122/299000347_d62adc2956.jpg

Honestly, Ezra, if corn subsidies disappeared tomorrow (and they are almost nonexistent now because the bulk of crop subsidies are now counter cyclical to prices)farmers would still grow nearly as much corn because it is the most economical crop to produce relative to the level of production. Even in marginal areas 100 to 130 bushel crops aren't uncommon anymore while wheat and other "food" grains still yield less than 40 bushels. And don't think that any corn acres will ever be turned into vegetable fields. You can't each that much vegetables. At most, I would guess there would be demand for 10, maybe 12 million acres of vegetable production if meat eating were suddenly banned, leaving 90 percent of US farmland suddenly unoccupied.

By the way, it is spelled barley. Also, by law vanilla extract is vanilla and alcohol, not corn syrup. Fun fact: artificial vanilla is made out of wood chips! Ooooh scary! I get a little sick of people thinking food ingredients are potentially toxic just because they are too stupid to crack a book or hit the internet and find out what they are. You couldn't have mayonnaise without lecithin because that is emulsifier in egg yolks. Are you giving up the world of yolky goodness just because there is a scary chemical in heart of that evil hen-fruit? Xanthan gum is fermented from sugar! Yogurt is fermented from milk, it that evil too? Please, try to get a grip on your chemo-phobia. Or if it is just corn that upsets you I suppose it would be zeaphobia.

Pure vanilla extract is vanilla and alchohol, and that's what you'll get at a gourmet market. But the supermarket-grade stuff is about 25% corn syrup.

Bloix, you are correct, please excuse my error. However, Ezra's description is still inaccurate.

So this graph -- is it all seed corn, or a mix of sweet corn and seed corn? By now, aren't they different enough in use (if not in appearance/growth habits) to be considered different crops?

Anon: Sweet corn and field corn are very different crops. They can't be grown adjacent to each other because of cross contamination problems. Sweet corn production is an almost microscopic portion of the U.S. corn crop.

I'm assuming ethanol isn't significant enough to make the chart?

No, ethanol is the big, growing purple wedge at the bottom, "Fuel alcohol".

Lecithin - a substance widely distributed in animal tissues, egg yolk, and some higher plants, consisting of phospholipids linked to choline.

Soy is used for Lecithin.

Dextrin - a soluble gummy substance obtained by hydrolysis of starch, used as a thickening agent and in adhesives and dietary supplements.

Don't forget the reason there is subsidy in Corn is because there is
tariff in Sugar in order to boycott Cuba.

maize derivatives such as corn oil, cornstarch, modified starch, starch-based granulation additives, corn syrup, xanthan gum and some brands of dextrose, glucose, dextrins, maltodextrins, sorbitol and ascorbic acid (=vitamin C) and some coating agents or carriers for vitamins, colours and flavours;

Justawriter:

Either you totally missed the point of the post or you created a straw man. It is not chemophobia. It is the hidden health costs involved in the massive increase in corn consumption in this country. Corn is not bad - the amount of corn and the forms in which we are ingesting it is bad as our diet, without us being aware, is increasing our sugar consumption (aka massive increase in simple carbohydrates in our diet). Corn production has increased dramatically because of subsidization and the growing use of corn byproducts across our food industry.

Corn production has increased dramatically because of subsidization and the growing use of corn byproducts across our food industry.

Corn is Evil: I more or less agree with your nom de plume. It is obvious that a sharp increase in the use of corn-based foodstuffs is contributing to health problems. But I suspect "justawriter" is correct: ending subsidies tomorrow wouldn't remove corn's cost advantages over other foodstuffs. I doubt the taxpayer subsidies flowing to corn farmers influences the price much either way. Five billion a year sure sounds like a lot, but it's not such a huge number in a $13 trillion economy. Moreover, it's quite possible that the price of corn would eventually fall after an end to subsidies, because farmers would be forced to become more efficient.

I want to end farm subsidies because it's the right thing to do from the perspective of economic policy. But I think we'll need to take much more robust measures if we expect people to radically cut their consumption of the corn. It's always going to be cheap and easy to grow, and cheap and easy to convert into various foods and additives.

There has been a tariff against sugar(from the West Indies)since the early days of the republic. It was often used by the Whigs to garner support from Louisiana(big producer of sugar)for the high tariffs Whigs wished to impose on their Southern brethen to the benefit of Northern industrialists.

Lets not forget that this over-reliance on corn also fuels our morally bankrupt and environmentally destructive factory-farm meat production.