[AlanSE]

https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/350461...

An interesting quote which echos what you're saying here:

> That means that table corn, carrots, cabbage, apples and broccoli are all examples of what is called, paradoxically, “specialty crops” — and they largely don’t get the same support as the heavily subsidized industrial crops.

The absurdity here is that "specialty" crops are what you might call "food". Most corn is "what my food eats".

If survival was important, people could switch trivially. I would take a 99% vegetarian diet in exchange for not dying. Problem is that the costs may be collectivized, and weighted towards future generations.

[8bitsrule]

Lots of ways. We can live with much less sugar in our food. One example: sugarcane. According to the (UN) FAO,

"The present area of sugarcane (Saccarum officinarum) is about 13 million ha with a total commercial world production of about 1254.8 million ton/year cane or 55 million ton/year sucrose. (FAOSTAT, 2001)." [https://www.fao.org/land-water/databases-and-software/crop-i...]

That climbed to 1.9B tons by 2020. [WP ... 40% in Brazil] And 13Mha = 130,000 km^2 > 50,000 sq.mi. About the size of Iowa. And then, there's almonds.

[bombcar]

6% of corn is used for sweeteners. That could be removed entirely and probably do the USA a world of good.

https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...