I guess we can blame my college. I didn't realize that these have really only been popular since the 1980s. I thought it was much longer.
from wikipedia (so it must be true)
Supersweet corn are varieties of sweet corn which produce higher than normal levels of sugar developed by University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign professor John Laughnan.[3] He was investigating two specific genes in sweet corn, one of which, the sh2 gene, caused the corn to shrivel when dry. After further investigation Laughnan discovered that the endosperm of sh2 sweet corn kernels store less starch and from 4 to 10 times more sugar than normal su sweet corn. He published his findings in 1953, disclosing the advantages of growing supersweet sweet corn, but many corn breeders lacked enthusiasm for the new supersweet corn. Illinois Foundation Seeds Inc. was the first seed company to release a supersweet corn and it was called Illini Xtra Sweet, but widespread use of supersweet hybrids did not occur until the early 1980s. The popularity of supersweet corn rose due to its long shelf life and large sugar content when compared to conventional sweet corn. This has allowed the long-distance shipping of sweet corn and has enabled manufacturers to can sweet corn without adding extra sugar or salt.
