The Riddle Of Corn (Part 2)
from the article "Children Of The Corn":
Michael Pollan: Corn is the keystone species in America. When corn is cheap, it all follows—beef is cheap, butter is cheap, eggs are cheap. It costs about $3 a bushel to grow corn and the price is about $1.50.
Vice: And why is this bad? Corn isn’t unhealthy.
MP: First, to grow all that corn causes environmental devastation. Also, to eat so much highly processed food—because it isn’t like we’re eating fresh corn on the cob—causes lots of health problems. We’re designed by evolution to eat a wide variety of different things. But if we’re just eating rearrangements of corn we’re not getting all our nutrients.
This is all tied in to the obesity epidemic too. The main ingredient in Coke, people don’t often realize, is corn. High-fructose corn syrup. So, with all this corn, it makes sense that Cokes are getting bigger. When I was a kid, the average Coca-Cola was a six- or eight-ounce bottle. Now it’s this 20-ounce jug.
V: Oh yeah, Coke is corn. That’s fucked up.
MP: It’s all corn, plus a few chemical sweeteners and a couple natural flavors.
V: What else is corn?
MP: I took a McDonald’s meal to a scientist on campus here and he ran it through a mass spectrometer. You can actually trace the identity of the carbon in the meal. The carbon in corn has a very distinct signature. He ran the meal through and told me exactly what percentage of everything was corn. In the case of the soda, it was 100 percent. The cheeseburger was like 66 percent, and the Paul Newman salad dressing was about the same. Even the French fries were dripping with corn because they are fried in corn oil.
V: So corn is like gas, but for people. Or something like that.
MP: We are the people of corn.
And Germans, and the rest of Europe, are not. Corn is a New World phenomenon that has never truly caught on here -- definitely not to the extent of the American subsidies. And while every European country will have subsidies as long as internal prices are higher than the world market, no one produces or exports as much corn as America.
Americans aren't active enough, and don't get enough exercise. Americans don't think about their health (Wellness) that much. Americans don't eat healthy foods, nor do they eat appropriate portions. But the reason so many Americans are obese -- and even morbidly obese -- is corn. It's also the reason why the countries that are eating American, like France and Spain and yes, Germany, are following suit.
Pollan keeps dropping the corn bomb in this Christian Science Monitor article.