Corn

Corn is arguably the most important crop in the US. It can be used for almost anything and everything, and is in a surprising amount of our foods. In addition, it is fed to most of the livestock we eat. While hearing this you don’t think of it as a bad thing, corn sounds natural and healthy; after all it is a vegetable. However, the ways the corn is genetically engineered and transformed for other purposes is very unhealthy. But, because of the FDA’s loose laws on genetic modification, bio technicians are allowed to genetically modify corn in anyway they want and put it in anything they want without the general public having any idea about it. While there is no denying that corn is an important crop in America, it is currently being used for many improper uses and is affecting our country and its people negatively overall.

            When you go to the grocery store the isles seem so full of many different and unique types of food. However, this is not all true. When further examining the ingredients you will be surprised to discover just how many of them contain corn (Food Inc.). Companies use words such as high fructose corn syrup, dextrin, maltodextrin, dextrose, glucose, food starch, modified, food starch, xanth gum, and many more to disguise the use of corn in their products (Corn-derived food ingredients I avoid). After reading this article I went to the convenience store in Centennial Halls to see just how many of the foods I was eating contained some amount of corn and was very surprised by the high number I found. There were more foods than not that contained some form of modified corn. Some of the being: Nutrigrain bars, Pop Tarts, Cheeze-its, Rice Krispy’s, Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Nilla-Wafers, Kettle Potato Chips, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Cheetos, Sun Chips, Doritos, Ruffles, Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, Ramen noodles, M & M’s, Reeses, Pringles, and so many more I cannot even list them all. One thing that I found very surprising was that modified cornstarch was the second ingredient in Ruffles potato chips. When buying potato chips, you assume that you are getting only potatoes along with whatever other oils and seasonings the companies use. People do not think that they are getting a high amount of corn along with this. This is a clever trick devised by the company in order to make more profits. Because corn costs are so low, sneakily incorporating it into their products can up their profits. The fact that the majority of the foods in the halls convenience store contain corn and cornstarch is not good. Having these only these foods and not natural foods readily available can only add to the high intake of high fructose corn syrup and other unhealthy modified corn products.

            Now the next question one may ask is why is having corn in these foods such a problem. Corn comes from the ground, it sounds natural, what could be bad about that? Well the form of this “cheap grain” has nothing healthy about it. It is vastly over produced because of all the government subsidies it is the cheapest crop and biggest legal cash crop in the US (Michael Pollan). Pollan writes, “I believe very strongly that our overproduction of cheap grain in general, and corn in particular, has a lot to do with the fact that three-fifths of Americans are now overweight”. One main modified form of corn, high fructose corn syrup, has been linked to causing obesity by researchers at Princeton. They found that if they gave one group of rats high fructose corn syrup, and the other regular sugar, the group that had was given the high fructose corn syrup gained a significant amount of weight, while the other group did not. There is no way to deny that high fructose corn syrup isn’t good for you, so the next step is to have it removed from all foods and have regular sugar replace it instead.

            Another use for these huge amounts of corn that we are producing is that of feeding livestock. Cows are now fed only corn because it is much cheaper than their natural grass diet. Because this isn’t the cow’s natural diet they excrete more and spend the whole day standing knee deep in their own feces. This causes many diseases that are spread from cow to cow and therefore are very prevalent in the meat that is being sold at stores and fast food restaurants. Because the government and taxpayers subsidize corn, a total of 19 billion dollars a year is going directly from the taxpayers to the farms. This makes corn unbelievable cheap and causes people to try and find every use possible for it. The truth is, corn is not the answer to everything. Cows natural diets have been made up of grass for millions of years and this can’t just be changed without many unintended consequences arising.

            While I have only wrote about the negative aspects of corn, there are some positives as well. Corn farming is the largest cash crop in the US and brings in huge sums of money for our country every year. It also creates many jobs and helps to stimulate the economy. Still, the health of Americans as well as our livestock is being negatively effected by this overuse and disguising of corn in the foods that we eat. In order for the obesity epidemic to end and Americans to become healthier, health foods such as vegetables have to go down in price so that they are affordable. In addition, corn needs to become less prevalent and less available. If Americans are not being bombarded with corn products they will inevitable eat less of it and become overall healthier.

Work Cited

Parker, Hillary. "A Sweet Problem: Princeton Researchers Find That High-fructose Corn Syrup Prompts Considerably More Weight Gain." News at Princeton. The Trustees of Princeton University, 26 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/>.

Pollan, Michael. "We Are What We Eat." Center for Ecoliteracy, 2006. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/we-are-what-we-eat>.

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