In an article today on American.com today titled “Bitter Sweet: How Big Sugar Robs You,” Michael Wohlgenant and Vincent Smith provide some timely Valentine’s Day commentary and report that:

“For decades, sugar beet and sugar cane farmers and processors have been the beneficiaries of a sugar program that stealthily drives up sugar costs—and, consequently, the cost of that heart-shaped box of chocolates (see chart above of U.S. sugar prices vs. world prices). Over the past 30 years, the annual burden on U.S. consumers has averaged over $3 billion in higher food prices.”

On Valentine’s Day, it’s appropriate that Wohlgenant and Smith remind us that the “hand on your back pocket billfold today is not your sweetheart’s, it’s the sugar lobby’s,” which lifted almost $4 billion from American consumers last year, read more here at The Enterprise Blog.