The lovely traditional maize has given way to a sea of yellow hybridized cobs taking up valuable farmland.
It’s used as cheap feed for livestock, who are meant to eat grass. When they consume corn (and soybeans), they get sick. And they don’t make the nutrients they need. So when we eat them, we’re not getting the nutrients WE need.
It’s made into cheap sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup. This corny substance is found in all kinds of packaged foods, and it’s linked to the American obesity epidemic.
It’s made into a cheap fuel called ethanol. The demand for ethanol is prompting massive deforestation. It’s also caused the price of corn to rise substantially.
Humans are not made to eat a high-grain diet. Our ancestors relied on meat, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Most of us on a weight loss quest know one of the best moves involves cutting way down on the wheat, corn, and rice. Yet we have a ridiculous food pyramid suggesting we eat 6-11 servings of grain per day. I wonder which industries are subsidizing the USDA!?!
I’m not trying to paint all corn as bad. If you’d like a slice of cornbread with your chili, or enjoy a summertime roasted corn on the cob slathered with butter, go ahead and indulge – but make sure it’s organic and non-GMO.
Corn’s a controversial subject these days. It’s in everything. It’s usually genetically modified unless it’s specified as organic. Unless you have Native American ancestry, chances are you don’t digest it very well.
But the controversial corn was not always a yellow Franken-grain processed to make cheap food and low quality sweeteners. Over 7,000 years ago, native people in what is today considered Mexico began to hybridize a small grain called Teosinte. Gradually, over a period of thousands of years, they selectively bred this grain until it became today’s maize, or corn. The first cobs were only eight inches long!
Maize slowly made its way up the North American continent. Its planting required a shift from the nomadic lifestyle to an agrarian one, and families settled down to tend their yellow gardens. It reached New England only about 1,000 years ago. Native people found it handy to dry the grains for winter storage, and to pulverize them into cornmeal for a snack while traveling.
Corn, along with beans and squash, make up the Three Sisters . Corn provides a pole for the beans to climb. The beans offer nitrogen to the soil. The leaves of the squash provide ground cover. The practice of planting these three together was widespread among Native Americans.
Tomorrow we’ll look at why corn has turned into a creepy mega food product at the hands of the American agricultural system.
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