King Corn

I recently watched the movie/documentary King Corn, and I have to say it was pretty interesting. I don't know if it's because I'm a former farm girl or if it's because I didn't know I had corn in my hair (more on that later), but I found this movie to be very fascinating while still being educational.

Basically, the movie follows two college friends as they raise an acre of corn and try to see how their corn becomes part of the food supply.

As expected, the city boys discover some pretty funny things and more than a few disturbing aspects of our food systems. I think my favorite moment of the movie is the one shown by the movie promo picture (as retrieved from the King Corn press area). The guys decide to eat an ear of their corn straight from the field. They soon realize what everyone on the farm knows: that corn is NOT edible as is!

Along with providing me some laughs, this movie was extremely informational. I, too, had always wondered how the corn in the field feed America, and now I have a good idea. Some of that corn is used to feed cattle, which feeds us through hamburgers, etc. Over half of the corn is used to make corn syrup, which is used in many foods, such as pop, as a cheap sweetener. About a third of the corn produced in America does not enter our food supply. Instead that portion goes to ethanol production and other non-edible commodities.

Another important point in this film is that almost every processed food made in America uses corn in some way. For example, cattle are mostly corn-fed, so we are essentially eating corn when we eat beef. Many foods use corn syrup for a cheap sweeteners, so in that way, Americans are eating lots of corn, too. I loved the example that a McDonald's hamburger meal has corn in every part. The hamburger is made from corn-fed cattle meat, the fries are fried in corn or soybean oil and the pop has corn syrup for sweetener.

Because Americans do consume so many products that involve corn, the agricultural product shows up as the carbon in our hair, which as dead cells is essentially a record of things we have eaten. That is just crazy to me! Now, I really want to get my hair tested to see how much of my diet involves corn. I eat beef like crazy, and so I can only imagine how corn-fed I must be!