[AnotherNamedKate]

Originally Posted by Macky

Corn is a high-calorie and nutritious grain crop that you most definitely want in a survival garden. It's sustained entire peoples for centuries in some parts of the world (usually in combination with beans, which compliment the nutrients in corn). Corn is not awful and is not unhealthy.

I agree with this! Corn and beans were a staple of Native American diets long before Europeans came along.

There's nothing inherently wrong with corn, but the problem is that it's somewhat difficult to find corn that isn't a GMO and organic... but you CAN find it, you just have to look a little harder, and it's delicious too!

Also, it's a pretty popular myth (but it is a myth nonetheless) that "humans can't digest corn, so they just poop it out". It's only the outer casing of corn kernels that pass right through your digestive system. As for the rest of it, corn is a fairly nutritionally sound food. It's a good source of B-vitamins, magnesium, and folic acid (among other things I'm sure) and it's also got a lot of fiber in it, so it keeps you full-feeling for a while.

I think that maybe a lot of our "fear" (for lack of a better term) about corn is due to the fact that most corn isn't grown or used for the purpose of being a "unaltered veggie side dish". We eat a lot of corn, but it's not yummy grilled corn of the cob, it's things loaded with corn syrup, Doritos or other "corn chips", beef that's been fattened up on corn, etc... Corn isn't the problem, it's the way we use it. It's like potatoes. There's nothing wrong with potatoes, but the only way Americans ever seem to eat them is french fried or in chip form, and so we associate them as "junk food" when it's really not.

---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:53 PM ----------

Originally Posted by simplegirl

I'm afraid to watch Food Inc I know I should, but I know I won't want to eat anything after that.

You know, I did watch Food Inc. I think it was pretty well done, but I do not think the documentary is above all repute nor the "end all be all" source for nutritional eating and statement of why we have the food culture that we do. It is not as in depth as people make it out to be. It touches lightly on a broad spectrum of topics rather than focusing in depth on a single issue. It's also highly one sided (although, granted, the film makers were declined interviews from the "other side" (executives/scientists from Monsanto for example) so it's not one-sided by choice). I think that, for what it's worth, it's a great introduction to the state of our modern food supply for someone who might not have much previous knowledge, but it is not a great reference source.

I think that if you're interested in the topic of corn farming, specifically, King of Corn is a much better documentary. However, there again, just like Food Inc., there's a lot of information that was left out in order for the film to make a more sensationalistic point, and thus be more "entertaining" for a broader audience. I guess I really just don't feel documentaries are a good source of comprehensive information. They have to be entertaining or no one will watch them, and they're not going to be so entertaining when they rationally explain the benefits and negatives of both sides of any given argument.