We've added extra calories to traditional foods.

In the early 1970s, food manufacturers, looking for a cheaper ingredient to replace sugar, came up with a substance called high-fructose corn syrup. This new invention made perfect sense: Corn was cheap and adundant- thanks to heavy goverment subsides-and Americans had an ever-escalating desire for sweet foods. Today, HFCS is in an unbelieveable array of foods--everything from breakfast cereals to bread, from ketchup to pasta sauce, from juice boxes to iced tea.