The ethanol debate is so politically charged and there is so much disinformation about it out there that I think many of us have a "received opinion" about it: we believe what we are told to believe... some of us are prejudice against it maybe for the wrong reasons. Cars have been run on alcohol since Model T days.
When I visited Brazil in 1992 approx 60% of the cars ran on alcohol made from sugar cane. I don't know what the percentages are today.
Back to the original question of what fuel you should run; your 216 will run just fine on straight gas or the E10 blend that is so common everywhere. I run mine on the cheapest pump at the station. With some tuning and re-jetting of the carb it would probably run fine on E85. Though admittedly with some less power and fuel mileage as alcohol has less BTU's per gallon than gas.
