When we walk into a supermarket we are hit with an illusion of diversity. We have 50 options for cereal, cheese,yogurt, etc. In reality the majority of those options contain the same ingredients, and most of them will contain some form of corn. This commodity crop has become so cheap to produce, that we had such an excess of corn we had to find uses for. Thus began putting corn into all of our food products, as well as feeding it to our animals. High fructose corn syrup or corn sugar is now as much a part of our diet as water is. Ketchup, coke, stove top dressing, Yoplait yogurt, any Kellogg’s cereal, candy, bread, cough syrup, baking mixes, applesauce, ice cream, syrup, salad dressing, bbq sauce, soups, and the list goes on and on. The list of supermarket food that contains some form of corn is staggering.
From the movie Food Inc- Michael Pollan.
[quote style=”boxed”]Corn is the great raw material.You get that big fat kernel of starch and you can break that down and reassemble it. You can make high-fructose corn syrup. You can make maltodextrin and diglycerides and xanthan gum and ascorbic acid. All those obscure ingredients on the processed food– it’s remarkable how many of them can bemade from corn. Plus, you can feed it to animals.[/quote]If you haven’t watched the documentary King Corn, I highly recommend watching it. Here is a short video that explains a little more about the corn industry and high fructose corn syrup.
I challenge you to take a look at the items in your pantry or fridge and see just how many of them contain corn syrup.
