Wow. Food Inc., produced in 2008 by Robert Kenner, is incredibly exposing and has really opened my eyes to the not so pleasant truth of where our food comes from. I have learned a lot from having seen Food Inc. twice, but the one thing that has really struck me is the importance of corn to the modern food industry. Corn has become vital to almost everything that we eat and use. Today, corn is fed to animals at meat factories because it is abundant and inexpensive. Corn has given farmers the ability to feed more animals so more meet can go to fast food companies. Now, a hamburger is cheaper then a head of broccoli. But feeding corn is not healthy for the animals. Cows, for example, are not supposed to eat corn because their bodies aren’t built for it. And consuming corn makes cows really unhealthy, fat, and susceptible to infections and diseases. Chickens, also, should not be eating corn; it makes them so fat they literally don’t move any more. We have been eating sick cows and chickens that just sit in their own waste. Ew.

Not only is corn in the meat humans consume, it is in almost anything else. Scientists have engineered corn syrup and cornstarch. Actually, go look at the ingredients on anything in the grocery store and it will probably have some corn product.

I remember hearing somewhere that we consume, in one way or another, so much corn that there are traces of it in our hair; we are literally made out of corn.

Corn is also in batteries and hundreds and hundreds of other products, which is actually pretty crazy to think about those little yellow kernels powering all of your electronics.

How has learning about corn changed my point of view? Well first of all I think it is unethical to feed to animals that aren’t supposed to eat corn. It does horrible things to their bodies, which humans eventually consume. Corn is really unhealthy for not only our favorite farm critters but also us. I also think that corn is the underlying reason to American obesity. Corn products are the majority of unhealthy foods. And unhealthy food is inexpensive because it is made out of low-priced corn.