A Documentary and I

A few days ago I watched King Corn, directed by Aaron Woolf, made in 2007. Two guys go to Iowa to plant an acre of corn, learn about the crop and the process, and follow their harvest into America's food.

Some fun facts I learned:

Corn in your food: Corn is the basis of so much crap that we eat everyday. In the documentary, the two guys, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, explained that their generation was the first to possibly have a shorter lifespan due to unhealthy eating. Since I am younger than them, I guess that means I'm a corn-fed goner too. Soda = corn. Mickey D's food = corn. It kinda makes me sick to think about.

Corn in your hair: The movie's slogan is "You are what you eat." The movie opened talking about the studies of the carbon in samples of human hair. Most of this generation's carbon comes from corn. Fancy that.

Corn, corn, everywhere!: Corn is made into high fructose corn syrup, but a lot of it is processed into feed for cattle, which also end up on our plates. Grass-fed cattle are a thing of the past. This documentary showed how subsidized farms push farmers to grow more and more corn, a process that's been going on since the 1970's when there was a change in farm policy.

The day after, I watched the follow-up to King Corn titled Big River. This one was about the flip side, the effects of fertilizer on the water, which includes drinking water and ultimately the water flowing from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. One quote that stuck with me was, “In communities along the gulf coast, bringing in an abundant catch of shrimp is as important culturally and economically as a two-hundred bushel harvest is in the Midwest.”

What do I eat with corn? Just for starters, Mountain Dew and Chef Boyardee were the main components of my dinner. (I don’t always eat so unhealthily.) 

Nom noms!