KING CORN

Haha, sorry about the all caps thing. The title just reminds me of some huge announcement like KING KONG!! Um...anyway....

I got a free two week trial to Netflix. Out of boredom yesterday, we watched this documentary online. Here's what it's about:

After discovering that both of their great grandfathers originated in the same small town in Iowa, two guys decide they want to move back to that same small town and grow an acre of the crop that everyone else grows. They send a letter to a farmer and ask if they can use an acre of his land. They are fascinated with how important corn is in America and decide to try to follow what would happen to their corn after it had been harvested.

Ian and Curt talk about the history of corn and how the corn grown in Iowa has been genetically modified to contain more starch and less protein, so much that one farmer called it "crap." Although these farms grow the corn, the farmers do not eat it because it isn't really edible. 

They discuss how this corn makes it's way through America's food system. Probably the most disturbing part of the documentary was when they discussed how it is fed to factory farmed animals. Curt and Ian talk to experts and farmers about how this diet of corn that they feed cows is fed for the purpose to fatten up cows for slaughter. They visit a cattle feed lot and see all the cows who basically just sit around and eat corn all day, which makes them, in their words, "obese." An expert explained how this diet of corn is so bad for their bodies that they couldn't live much longer than they were expected to be slaughtered. 

One man even went as far as to say that grain-fed hamburger was fat disguised as meat because the saturated fat content is far higher than grass-fed. Then they showed this cow trapped in a chute that basically had a hole in it's body. The hole was positioned above one of the cow's stomachs and one man was reaching his hand in and pulling grain that the cow had eaten out of its stomach. I don't remember why they said they were doing this because I was so shocked. I think the gist of it was that they were trying to figure out how a cow's stomach was digesting this diet of corn. Mark discussed it with a coworker and she said that they do that if a cow is having problems digesting the  corn, so they must get it out of her stomach. Bleh. Either way, I thought it was so sad that I almost started crying. I felt so bad for that cow. 

Moving on... sniff...

The pair investigated how this corn makes its way into America's soft drinks. They even figure out how to make their own high fructose corn syrup and make some themselves. (gagging after they tasted it.) They explain the problems with consuming beverages with high fructose corn syrup and how consuming one beverage a day doubles your risk for getting diabetes. Pretty scary. Then they find out just how many processed foods have byproducts from corn in them. 

So why are American farmers growing this stuff instead of something else? One farmer admits that you basically lose money when you grow corn, but government subsidies make it possible to grow and make money. They discuss how genetically modified corn, herbicides and modern machinery make it possible to produce much much more than what their great grandfathers were able to produce. So not only is it easier to produce this "crap," our government is paying for them to do it, too. 

There's a lot more in this film, but you'll just have to watch it. The best part is probably the ending and I won't give that away. I would highly recommend watching it if you have the time. (Click here to see a preview.)

For me, this show only affirmed my decision to eat a whole foods, plant-based diet. About a month ago, I had a conversation with an individual about soy. For some reason, she blamed America's obesity problem on soy, stating that it was in everything and that it was bad for you. I was so blown away that all I could say was, "Hmm...I haven't heard that before."

But what I realized yesterday was that you could make this same argument about corn. The problem is not with the plant itself; the problem occurs when you start modifying certain aspects of these plants and isolating certain compounds and putting them in everything processed. Yes, it might be true that soy is in everything, but it's in everything processed. There's nothing wrong with eating whole soy and whole corn foods (just as long as they're not GMO). I can't say for certain about isolating soy proteins and such because I don't think they've done research about it, but I can say that we can see the problems when we process corn, right? All the more reason to stick to a whole foods diet, people! 

And the best part about watching the documentary? Shortly after, Mark announced that he would no longer be eating beef. Coming from a guy who used to eat Quad burgers at Burger King, it must have been a huge decision. I am so SO proud of him.