Sugar the new oil as prices soar

[Newsjock]

Source: The Guardian

The price of sugar on global commodity markets has doubled since the beginning of the year and is close to a 28-year high as hedge funds and speculators jostle to bet on the possibility of an international shortage of the world's favourite natural sweetener.

For financiers seeking adrenaline-driven price lurches, sugar has become the new oil. Historically, raw sugar has traded at between 10 and 12 US cents per pound at the New York Board of Trade. But the price briefly touched 24.85 cents last month, its highest since 1981, and sugar is now hovering around the 23 cent mark.

... The London-based International Sugar Organisation predicts that global consumption of sugar will outstrip production by 9m tonnes next year, forcing food companies and governments to dig into stockpiles. In the US, snack manufacturers including Mars, Nestlé and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts urged the Obama administration to relax import controls, warning the US could "virtually run out of sugar".

Experts say the spectre of a rapidly moving price has attracted the attention of hedge funds seeking to make a short-term speculative buck.

... A political outcry over speculation pushing up oil prices last year has encouraged some funds to shift their attention to agriculture futures – in typically lower- profile, less-noticed trading pits. "It doesn't draw the attention of regulatory authorities like maybe energy does," said Steve Platt, a futures strategist at Archer Financial Services in Chicago. "There has been some movement of index funds into a heavier concentration on sugar."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/06/sugar-prices-soar-new-oil

[Horse with no Name]

1. It should be illegal for the robber barons

to manipulate our food/energy supply the way they do.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Why do I get the feeling that the rest of the world is about to experience the wonders of HFCS?

This will be the perfect excuse for MonSatan to expand their poison worldwide.

Brazil shouldn't be turning sugar into ethanol. That would be a much better use for the FrankenCorn.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

14. HFCS bad for liver and kidney...

...it takes at least 2 or 3 times longer for the liver to process HFCS than sugar, and that is just the beginning. The reason they use HFCS in beverages and anything they can slip it into is because, you guessed it, IT IS CHEAPER THAN SUGAR. But not by much.

"There is growing evidence that excess fructose consumption may facilitate insulin resistance, and eventually type 2 diabetes. However, some of this effect may be from chemicals in soda which reacts with the high fructose corn syrup."
<http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/fructosedangers.htm>

This article is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg where HFCS is concerned. I make a conscious effort to avoid food with HFCS in it, but it is hard to do so.

More scientific information on just how HFCS tosses the digestive/internal system for a loop is here:
"Fructose is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract by a different mechanism than that for glucose. Glucose stimulates insulin release from the isolated pancreas, but fructose does not. Most cells have only low amounts of the glut-5 transporter, which transports fructose into cells. Fructose cannot enter most cells, because they lack glut-5, whereas glucose is transported into cells by glut-4, an insulin-dependent transport system. Finally, once inside the liver cell, fructose can enter the pathways that provide glycerol, the backbone for triacylglycerol. The growing dietary amount of fructose that is derived from sucrose or HFCS has raised questions about how children and adults respond to fructose alone or when it is accompanied by glucose. In one study, the consumption of high-fructose meals reduced 24-h plasma insulin and leptin concentrations and increased postprandial fasting triacylglycerols in women, but it did not suppress circulating ghrelin, a major appetite-stimulating hormone (4)."

<http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/86/4/895>

[harry_pothead]

21. Also HCFS doesn't trigger satiation like sugar

Which is a big reason why America has so much obesity. Not to mention that we are going to need that corn to fuel our cars, not our waistlines.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. nooooooooooooooooooooo - not my sugarrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

hehehehe

[freeplessinseattle]

6. my exact thought when I saw the heading, lol n/t

[tomm2thumbs]

8. I must eat some sugar to comfort myself now /nt

[sasquatch]

4. I bet Cuba is about to clean up

[aquart]

5. Jelly beans are out of control now.

Soon we will be forced to rob candy stores.

[handmade34]

7. on the march...

[aquart]

22. I adore buttered popcorn jelly beans. Sigh.

[Crowman1979]

9. I only use sugar for coffee, and it comes from Maui.

[CatholicEdHead]

13. I prefer American Crystal Sugar from Moorhead, MN

and the greater Red River Valley from Sugar Beets.

It is harvest season right now up there, I would not mind if some of this trickled down to the sugar beet farmers but I am not holding my breath as the middlemen are really good at taking their cuts.

[Thor_MN]

18. Sugar beets would make a lot more sense as a feedstock for ethanol than corn

[cali]

24. I use maple syrup for most sweetening.

[Vinca]

10. Isn't this a good thing given the current environment

that pretty much blames obesity on the health care crisis? Maybe if my three favorite food groups - chocolate, pie and ice cream - cost too much I won't buy them.

[woundedkarma]

11. Sugar???? *lol*

Do we really use that much anymore? Almost every ingredient list (including all but specialty store/small brand soft drinks) has high fructose corn syrup listed instead. Only name brand candy makers seem to use the real stuff anymore and not all the time.

[AlienGirl]

16. I use a lot of sugar! Every cup of coffee takes at least 5 Tbsp, and I drink at least 2 cups/day

I avoid HCFS when I can, but I love the sucrose to an absurd level.

My sister has suggested that I am actually a hummingbird.

Tucker

[sofa king]

12. I wonder how Brazil will react.

They recently moved their entire auto fleet over to sugar-based fuel derivatives though the use of flexible-fuel engines. Those engines can run on gasoline, if it's cheaper. They might be inclined to try to stabilize prices, or they might have an interest in lopping off a big short-term profit by temporarily adjusting their fuel formulae.

[Joanne98]

15. Hedge funds should be illegal!

[MissMillie]

17. well, just in time for the holiday fudge making....

figures.

[jasi2006]

19. Sugar not tat goo for you. Taxes on sweets make this gouging

laughable.

[harry_pothead]

20. Different chips, same casino.

[Blandocyte]

23. Sweet!