Comment by logfromblammo

What? Where do you think soybean, corn, Canola/rapeseed, peanut, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, olive, coconut, and palm oils come from?

Animal fats are rather expensive in comparison, but I can also buy pork lard, beef suet, and butter rather easily.

The problem there might just be fragmentation. Growers of cane and beets (and sorghum, too, I guess) have basically just one major homogenized end product: refined sucrose. There are a few related products, like molasses, brown sugar, and confectioners' sugar, and the stuff like bagasse, that tends not to be seen by consumers, but refined sucrose is the moneymaker. Corn growers can also side with the sugar lobby thanks to corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup.

There's definitely an industry ($800M/year?), but it isn't one that has a great common marketing association around, to collect dues and pitch catchy slogans that play well on television and radio.

The soy and Canola/rapeseed growers might come together to promote B20 biodiesel, though, while simultaneously bashing palm oil plantations. I can't currently imagine anyone trying to convince me to eat more fats and oils in my diet, at the expense of sugars. Low-carb is still largely seen as an irresponsible, unhealthy, fad diet in the mainstream.