high fructose corn syrup

A friend's comments on high fructose corn syrup have inspired me to start reading food labels again (I’m sure I used to read them about a million years ago when I was single and childless). My husband was out of town last week, so I was looking for spaghetti sauce in a jar. I think I’ve figured out why I started making my own (not from scratch, but from canned stuff) to begin with: Every single jar had some kind of sugar added. Most had high fructose corn syrup. Why on earth would you add sugar, let alone high fructose corn syrup, to spaghetti sauce? Then I went looking for some cookies. I figured if I was buying cookies I should at least buy some that weren’t too terribly unhealthy, so I read the labels again and … all but one kind of cookie on the shelf had high fructose corn syrup! The ones that are marketed especially towards kids were the worst of the lot. I’m starting to consider the possibility of a food industry conspiracy.

Why?