美国国家公共电台 NPR--'Throughline': How one company contributed greatly to America's sweet tooth

'Throughline': How one company contributed greatly to America's sweet tooth

Transcript¹

NPR's history podcast Throughline explains how in the 1970s Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer² Daniels Midland, used the sugar market to popularize high fructose corn syrup³.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

If you make a resolution to eat more healthy foods in the New Year, you may have to think a lot about the food available on the grocery shelves. And we have some history this morning of how that food changed to include a lot more high-fructose corn syrup. It was originally invented in the 1950s as a sweetener alternative, never really got big until Dwayne Andreas came along. NPR's history podcast Throughline has been looking at the way one company took a little-used product and changed the American diet. Here are our hosts, Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah.

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RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE⁴: You may have never heard of him, but in the 1970s, Dwayne Andreas was one of the biggest names in the U.S. He was a politically connected CEO of one of the country's biggest agricultural companies, Archer Daniels Midland - or ADM. And by the time he ran across high-fructose corn syrup...

TOM PHILPOTT: It was a product in search of a use.

ABDELFATAH: That's Tom Philpott, a journalist and researcher who's written extensively about American agriculture.

PHILPOTT: So he's got this product. And it's a sweetener. And it's really, really sweet. But the problem is that it's too expensive.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: He can't sell it at a price that's competitive with regular old cane⁵ sugar. So ADM comes up with a scheme. The politically savvy⁶ Dwayne Andreas was going to find a way to turn high-fructose corn syrup into cash.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And the president of the United States.

ABDELFATAH: President Ronald Reagan steps up to a podium. It's a crisp fall day. And he's wearing a long, tan coat over his usual suit and tie. At the podium, he's dwarfed⁷ by an enormous metal bin⁸ behind him, a bin filled to the brim with corn.

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RONALD REAGAN: This is quite a show you're putting on here. And what a pleasure it is for me to be back home in Illinois.

ABDELFATAH: He's speaking to a crowd gathered at a family-run farm in the heart of America's corn belt.

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REAGAN: Year after year, here in the Midwest, you produce from your rich, black earth a bountiful harvest called the American equivalent of the oil riches in the Persian Gulf⁹.

ARABLOUEI: Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980 and became president in 1981. His presidential campaign was full of patriotism¹⁰. On the campaign trail, he promised to put profit back in farming and put farmers' interests above the world market. And for Dwayne Andreas, this rhetoric¹¹ presented an opportunity.

PHILPOTT: Jimmy Carter leaves office in 1980. Ronald Reagan takes over. You know, for most people, that's a big contrast. To Dwayne Andreas, he's just a political power player. He's just as tight with Ronald Reagan. And so he goes to work with his lobbying to create a quota¹² on sugar.

ABDELFATAH: A quota on sugar.

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ABDELFATAH: Basically, Dwayne Andreas' plan was to promote the idea of putting limits on foreign sugar to protect domestic sugar companies.

PHILPOTT: There's this history of colonialism and slavery in the Caribbean. And with decolonization in the 20th century, there's still these awful sugar plantations¹³ that are able to produce sugar really cheap. And this sugar is coming in and sort of overwhelming the American market.

ABDELFATAH: Sugar producers in states like Florida are organizing. Like...

PHILPOTT: How can we stop this? And they get a key ally in Dwayne Andreas.

ARABLOUEI: He throws his support behind them like, yeah, absolutely. We got to put Florida's sugar farmers first. We got to slow down the importing of foreign sugar.

PHILPOTT: And so what the sugar quota does is it says only a certain amount of and a rather small amount of foreign sugar can come into the United States. And once you've hit that quota, imports of sugar are banned. And so that is protecting the domestic sugar industry.

ABDELFATAH: But you might be asking...

PHILPOTT: Why would Dwayne Andreas do that?

ARABLOUEI: Yeah. Why would he help the competition in the sweetener market? It's because he's thinking bigger.

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PHILPOTT: It turns out that because there's this quota in place, it raises the price of sugar because American producers are no longer competing with producers in the Caribbean. So the price of sugar rises fairly steeply. And now, suddenly, high-fructose corn syrup is cheaper than conventional sugar. And it's also a liquid.

ABDELFATAH: A liquid that could go into pretty much any processed food.

PHILPOTT: And he immediately starts making deals with Coca-Cola and other soft drink manufacturers. You've got to try this stuff. It's cheaper. It's blindingly sweet. You know, you only have to use so much of it. And then slowly, other industries start to find uses for it. It goes into baked goods, TV dinner makers¹⁴. It just, you know, takes this market by storm.

ABDELFATAH: And what about the sugar industry? Did they realize they were being duped?

PHILPOTT: I think the sugar industry was none too pleased with this development. But they - you know, they made their deal with the devil. And they lived with it.

ARABLOUEI: High-fructose corn syrup isn't used as much today as it was in the late 1980s. But high-fructose corn syrup and other corn-based sweeteners still make up a big portion of the sweetener market. And per capita, Americans are among the biggest consumers of sweeteners in the world. And excessive consumption of these sweeteners is associated with all kinds of health problems, like obesity¹⁵, diabetes¹⁶ and high cholesterol¹⁷. You could argue that they've changed our bodies, our sense of taste and even the way our societies function.

PHILPOTT: The genius of the system is that you don't think about any of that when you're enjoying it. We have this system that is in place that we are all part of. You know, we were born into this system where we have all these really unhealthy foods at our disposal for very cheap. But systems don't arise out of nowhere. They're made by people. And I think it's really important for us to, as we look at these systems and we examine them - well, who are the people that were behind them? Who are the architects of these systems?

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INSKEEP: Tom Philpott speaking with Throughline hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei. You can listen to the whole episode wherever you hear podcasts.

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1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 archer   

n.射手，弓箭手

参考例句：

• The archer strung his bow and aimed an arrow at the target.弓箭手拉紧弓弦将箭瞄准靶子。
• The archer's shot was a perfect bull's-eye.射手的那一箭正中靶心。

3 syrup   

n.糖浆，糖水

参考例句：

• I skimmed the foam from the boiling syrup.我撇去了煮沸糖浆上的泡沫。
• Tinned fruit usually has a lot of syrup with it.罐头水果通常都有许多糖浆。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

6 savvy   

v.知道，了解；n.理解能力，机智，悟性；adj.有见识的，懂实际知识的，通情达理的

参考例句：

• She was a pretty savvy woman.她是个见过世面的漂亮女人。
• Where's your savvy?你的常识到哪里去了？

7 dwarfed   

vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The old houses were dwarfed by the huge new tower blocks. 这些旧房子在新建的高楼大厦的映衬下显得十分矮小。
• The elephant dwarfed the tortoise. 那只乌龟跟那头象相比就显得很小。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

9 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

10 patriotism   

n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• They obtained money under the false pretenses of patriotism.他们以虚伪的爱国主义为借口获得金钱。

11 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

12 quota   

n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额

参考例句：

• A restricted import quota was set for meat products.肉类产品设定了进口配额。
• He overfulfilled his production quota for two months running.他一连两个月超额完成生产指标。

13 plantations   

n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Soon great plantations, supported by slave labor, made some families very wealthy. 不久之后出现了依靠奴隶劳动的大庄园，使一些家庭成了富豪。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. 维恩特波恩的合同完成后，那片林地变得荒废了。 来自辞典例句

14 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 obesity   

n.肥胖，肥大

参考例句：

• One effect of overeating may be obesity.吃得过多能导致肥胖。
• Sugar and fat can more easily lead to obesity than some other foods.糖和脂肪比其他食物更容易导致肥胖。

16 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

17 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。