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[quote user="Murphy Siding"][quote user="Bucyrus"] QUESTION:How many pounds of corn does it take to make one pound of byproduct, and what is the value and nutrition content of that quantity corn, compared to the value and nutrition content of the one pound of byproduct?If there is more nutritional value in the pound of byproduct than in the presumably greater quantity of corn that it took to make the pound of byproduct, then it would be easy to see how ethanol production would not be reducing the corn feed supply.  However, this does strike me as a sort of nutritional perpetual motion machine.  If this were possible, I would think corn would have been converted to DDG prior to the ethanol boom even if ethanol were not made in the process and there were no subsidy.  [/quote]Well........If we were playing poker, I guess this would be the point where I fold and say "I'm outta here". [{(-_-)}]  I think Rairoad Ken's post above says that the nutrition remains the same, it's just the starch taken out.  If so, it's a wash.  To get technical answers beyond that, is asking a lot for members of a trains forum.     Remember this:  No matter what ethanol is now, or will be in the future, it was started for one purpose-to expand the market for the corn farmer's crop, and raise the price he could sell the corn for.  It has succeeded.     I gotta get back to railroad subjects- a lot more fun to talk about than ethanol[:P][/quote]If RRKen is correct, it does sound like ethanol is produced from corn with no actual consumption of the corn in terms of its food value as animal feed.  Therefore the diversion of corn to ethanol production cannot possibly be contributing to the rapidly rising cost of milk, eggs, chicken, and beef because, although the corn is diverted to ethanol, its total food value is retained and returned for use as animal feed.  Perhaps there is some other loss of field corn based food derivative that is consumed directly by humans such as the corn sweetener mentioned by Convicted One.  But I don't know if that would be sufficient to explain the media driven notion that ethanol is driving up food prices.  It may be that they are just fanning the flames of another crisis.  Maybe they are sowing the seeds of the food price bailout while ignoring the damage they are doing to ethanol in the process.  It does seem like the only two commodities that are being constantly cited as inflationary these days are energy and food.
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