King Corn
I watched King Corn the other night. If you’ve watched Super Size Me or read Fast Food Nation or In Defense of Food you’ll get the idea. In short it’s about two college buddies from Boston who decide to raise an acre of corn in Iowa from seed to harvest to find out what happens to the corn. Some interesting takeaways:
- Many Americans are made out of corn! Seriously. They do an isotope analysis of the filmmakers’ hair.
- Most corn farmers today can’t eat what they grow. The corn is largely inedible and its ultimate purpose is to be turned into sugar.
- Beef cattle are not designed to eat corn, but that’s primarily what they’re fed. After six months on a corn diet a cow will die, which is why they’re shoved into packed feed lots where they can barely move and fed corn for five months before slaughter. Buy grass fed beef.
- 1 in 8 New Yorkers is diabetic. Sugar = Death. Think twice before reaching for that daily soda.
- Corn (usually as HFCS) is in nearly every processed food. Read the labels.
To better food.