Where did High Fructose Corn Syrup come from?

Our universal sweet tooth is the cause and making money always motivates mankind.

"In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" -- my mother-in-law was fond of this quote so it's stuck with me.

What was the purpose of Columbus's voyage? To seek the spices of the Orient by sailing west. One of those spices was sugar.

Later in history to supply the French sweet tooth during the English blockade of France in the Napolean Era the French developed sugar from beets.

Developing sugar from corn became imperative in the 70's because for some reason the government (US) imposed tariffs and quotas on imported sugar. This upped the price of sugar in the US and Canada well above the global price.

When corn lost its market in the making of margarine because soybeans became the preference, the US subsidized corn and it became cheap.

The technology for making sugar from corn had already been invented in 1927 so, following industry's usual modus operandi, they broke down a natural substance into its basic components, tinkered with it with enzymes and made cheap sugar.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) was born.

HFCS was introduced into our foods from 1975-85 (Coke and Pepsi began using HFCS in 1984) and is now in 80% of our processed foods.

Now, in Europe, HFCS is subject to quotas keeping it restricted to 2-3% of sugar production.