King Corn & the food we eat
20 Jan
Last night I watched the documentary King Corn. It is a film which follows two Boston film makers who move to a small town in Iowa called Greene, Iowa to attempt to raise an acre of corn. They follow the corn from kernel to it’s final destination in the North American food cycle. This final destination is the stomach of a cow or the artificial sweetener (high fructose corn syrup) in…well…just about everything. It is an entertaining documentary and right up my alley of experience driven experiments (much like the Compact).
It is scary how much of the food we consume comes from corn. On average we consume 75 pounds of high fructose corn syrup every year. The vast majority of the corn grown in North America can not be eaten until it is processed and turned into other things. It really made me rethink having a bowl of ice cream because essentially I am eating a bowl of milk and corn, which actually now that I think about it sounds delicious.
We have tried to put a limit on the amount of processed foods we eat as a family but it is often hard to get away from. We mainly eat fresh home cooked stuff because of Malora’s arthritis but as a youth pastor there are often many late nights full of tim bits, doritos, and coke.
Very thought provoking documentary (although I haven’t finished the whole thing yet). Anybody else seen this movie? Thoughts?
hey – i’ve been stalking you for some time now!
Melora – you had a post a little while back about craft ideas for your boys. when i was in vancouver in november i happened across the COOLEST little craft supply store called “Urban Source” . all of the items in the store would be throw-away or reclaimed items from the regular joe person but they had workshops and ideas for the craziest and coolest things (like giant dragonflies). all of the supplies were like discarded batteries, broken cds, ripped photos and newspapers – it just looked like junk but they had examples of what you could use with each item as crafts. IT WAS AMAZING.
i couldn’t think of the name for the longest time and i realize that the store being in vancouver is a little inconvenient but there must be something similar in calgary that would cater to your compact life. there’s pictures on the website of some ideas.
just a thought. hope you’re both doing wonderful!
BARBARA KINGSOLVER TALKS ABOUT THIS IN ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE, MY NEW FAVOURITE BOOK. I’m obsessed. Haven’t see the documentary. Will have to track it down.