How the (Finally Ended) Corn Ethanol Subsidy Made Us Fatter

America's food chain has lately produced a bumper crop of headline-ready catastrophes. From arsenic in apple juice to antibiotics in beef to E. coli-tainted lettuce, a trip to the friendly neighborhood grocery store can sometimes feel like a round of Russian roulette.

But the biggest threat -- the one that food experts agree is most responsible for America's health, economic, and dietary problems -- has just been neutralized: At the end of 2011, Congress allowed the much-vilified corn ethanol subsidy to expire.

Ethanol, a gasoline replacement and additive that could help reduce America's dependence upon foreign oil, has long been America's top recipient of alternative fuel funding. And since 1980, corn ethanol -- essentially, gas made from corn -- has been the biggest beneficiary of the biofuel craze. Over the past 30 years, the federal government has given an estimated $45 billion to the corn industry to help support ethanol production. In 2011 alone, those subsidies totaled about $6 billion, or about 45 cents for every gallon of ethanol.

But the investment in generating more home-grown fuel has also generated a host of painful side effects. First, by driving down the cost of corn, the subsidy helped spur the wider use of America's most notorious sweetener: high fructose corn syrup...