Carbon Footprint: Sugar vs HFCS

June 3, 2010 3:15 PM

which is worse for the environment -- high fructose corn syrup, or conventional table sugar?

A facebook discussion today about this story has me wondering: health and other issues in this debate aside, which sweetener is worse for the environment. Specifically, what is the carbon footprint of each, derived from agricultural fuel, petroleum-based fertilizers, vehicle miles traveled for shipping, processing energy and other data?

I tried searching this on the internets and in the university library, but was surprised to find no easy answers or handy infographics for simpletons like myself. Most of the data and studies appear related to health effects.

posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! to Science & Nature (13 answers total)

hmm i would say maybe sugar? Since sugar can be grown in less places.
posted by majortom1981 at 3:16 PM on June 3, 2010

Are you going to pull in social policy effects? HFCS is the result of excess corn which was brought about by agricultural subsidies which did a lot of the work of destroying variculture in the US.
posted by KathrynT at 3:18 PM on June 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

hmm i would say maybe sugar? Since sugar can be grown in less places.

Cane sugar for sure is geographically tough, but they used to grow quite a few sugar beets in Iowa. I'd have to side with HFCS being an overall net not-so-bad, for the reasons listed by KathrynT above. So, you know, split the difference and just use honey. Everyone likes bees! Well, almost everyone.

NOT ALLERGIST.
posted by jquinby at 3:22 PM on June 3, 2010

Response by poster: KathrynT -- I feel like I have a pretty decent understanding of that, and agree with you, but I guess I'm interested here in narrowing the focus down to emissions and energy use resulting from the growing, processing and shipping corn or beets+sugarcane.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 3:24 PM on June 3, 2010

hmm i would say maybe sugar? Since sugar can be grown in less places.

Well, the posted probably needs to clarify - table sugar can be derived from sugar cane (as is the case here in Australia) or sugar beet (which, I understand is more common in the US) - I assume the answer would be different.
posted by Jimbob at 3:25 PM on June 3, 2010

Best answer: I found the perfect article for you that compares both environmentally

http://www.slate.com/id/2218599

Sugar cane and sugar beets require less rescources then corn BUT require much more strict environmental qualifications .

So if we were to switch to sugar more would have to be trucked and shipped in from central and south american countries because they have the hotter land.

So the best for the environment seems to be a good mix of the two

Read the article it explains it better.

PS A lot of our organic labled sugar comes from central and south america.
posted by majortom1981 at 3:38 PM on June 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Large scale corn production involves the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. Some of these flow into rivers and wind up in the ocean, contributing to the "dead zone" in the Gulf. Of course the Gulf has, er, more pressing problems at the moment.
posted by sanko at 3:39 PM on June 3, 2010

Corn is one of the least efficient crops possible. It's certainly the least efficient "cereal grain" in terms of nutritional density. It requires a huge amount of pesticides, has very few nutrients, and HFCS raises the glycemic index more than straight sugar.

Hypothetically if we continue develop cleaner transportation and shipping methods less dependent on fossil fuels then I feel extremely confident in saying geographically remote sugar will be astronomically less damaging than "local" corn.
posted by carlh at 5:45 PM on June 3, 2010

... HFCS raises the glycemic index more than straight sugar.

No, it doesn't. They're very close, depending on whether you're talking about HFCS 42 or 55, slightly lower or slightly higher.
posted by signalnine at 5:54 PM on June 3, 2010

Large scale corn production involves the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. Some of these flow into rivers and wind up in the ocean, contributing to the "dead zone" in the Gulf. Of course the Gulf has, er, more pressing problems at the moment.

Sugar cane also requires nitrogen fertilizers, both require around the same amount (~100lb per acre).
posted by signalnine at 6:00 PM on June 3, 2010

Corn also sucks the living hell out of the soil, as far as nutrients go. Farmers generally have to restore nutrients to the soil before they can plant anything again.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:21 PM on June 3, 2010

Corn also sucks the living hell out of the soil, as far as nutrients go. Farmers generally have to restore nutrients to the soil before they can plant anything again.

And sugar cane doesn't?
posted by delmoi at 11:46 PM on June 3, 2010

Regarding sugarbeet regions: Sugar beets are grown everywhere from Texas to the Canada border, and as far west as California and Oregon. They grow in everything from thick black dirt like you use in flowerpots, to thinner, sandy soil; they can handle long, hot growing seasons and cool, short growing seasons. I'm not where Slate gets their "we need hot land to get sugar", because some of the largest sugarbeet-growing regions in the US are Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming; internationally, it's grown in Scandinavia in large numbers. Scandinavia. Not exactly a hot-house crop. Compare to a map of corn production, and they overlap significantly, although beets extend further into arid regions that had traditionally been ranching or grassland areas.

Besides home-grown corn subsidies, from here: Unlike the United States, which imports roughly 1.65 million tons of sugar regardless of need..." (non-special-interest data here). So, we've got a sugar crop that's more efficient than corn, has as large a growing area as corn, and is in the high-demand sweetening market, but we import millions of tons of cane sugar from our trade partners and then subsidize corn instead. Politics are one of the biggest things hampering US' domestic sugarbeet crops.

(sorry; come from a sugarbeet growing family; in disclosure, my dad has been an agriculturist for both Holly-Imperial Sugar and Crystal Sugar during his 20-year career)
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:51 AM on June 4, 2010