Even sweeter.

• Author: Schwandt, W. Robert
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

I wish to point out that your July-August "Matters of Scale" grossly understates the U.S. consumption of "sugar." Your figure of 30 kilograms per capita is for sucrose and ignores the much larger figure for corn-derived sweeteners. In 2002, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), glucose, and dextrose amounted to 38 kilograms. Per-capita consumption of corn sweeteners has exceeded that of sucrose every year since 1985 due to rapid displacement of sucrose, particularly in soft drinks. Over the 1985-95 decade, per-capita sweetener consumption increased more than 10 percent, with all of the increase going to corn-derived sweeteners, especially HFCS. Since then, consumption has been level due to growth of non-caloric sweeteners. Approximately 800...