Fast Food: Just Another Name for Corn

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/fast-food-anoth.html

by kwamenum86 • 18 years ago

19 31 18 years ago

blog.wired.com

bjtitus• 18 years ago

The book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" talks a lot about this. Basically, everything in American diets is corn based (corn fed beef, chicken, corn syrup, corn starch, etc.)

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Fast Food Nation is also an interesting read. They can make practically anything taste well, like anything.

maximilian• 18 years ago

Despite the fact that Fast Food nation has a section devoted to "fast food", I found it to be a "The Jungle" for the 90s. The real muckraking was its expose of the meatpacking industry of the midwest and its terrible labor practices. I could care less if they can make something smell like a cheeseburger. I care a lot about how we get our meat. I think this is an issue that is as important or more than fast food troubles.

ojbyrne• 18 years ago

Loved the book. And it actually says that everything in American diets is corn & _petroleum_ based. Corn & Oil, yummy.

bmj• 18 years ago

I would also recommend anything by Joel Salatin (http://www.polyfacefarms.com/library.aspx), who farms in Virginia (and was featured in Pollan's book). A quote from a Mother Jones interview:

This fundamental understanding drives our production models. Herbivores in nature do not eat dead cows, chicken manure, dead chickens, grain or silage: They eat fresh or dried forage. Of course, what’s neat is that empirical data is discovering the nutritional and ecological benefits of this paradigm. We’re reading about Omega 3 and Omega 6 balance, conjugated linoleic acid, polyunsaturated fats and riboflavin. Whenever a new laboratory confirmation of our philosophy hits the news, we make sure our patrons know about it. In a word, this is all about healing: healing our bodies, healing our economies, healing our communities, healing our families, healing the landscape, healing the earthworms. If it’s not healing, it’s not appropriate.

vlad3• 18 years ago

A comment from the article made me think: if a cow is pumped full of drugs, hormones, and food it doesn't normally eat (corn), with the goals of making the animal as fat as possible as fast as possible in order to feed the most humans in the quickest time, how can that meat not cause similar side effects when eaten by humans?

mynameishere• 18 years ago

Because it undergoes various chemical reactions between being corn and being cow.

vlad3• 18 years ago

I appreciate your prompt reply! However, I can't parse your post because I can't come up with a word for "it", as used in your sentence. I've tried "meat", but it doesn't work.

Could you please elaborate on what you are trying to say?

Are you trying to write that chemicals are put into meat before it leaves the factory to cancel out all the other hormones, drugs, and other chemicals that have been part of the cow's entire life? I've heard of many studies where that is not the case at all. In fact, the use of hormones in poultry is banned--is it because hormones don't transfer to humans, or because they do? Though meat from cows doesn't need to be hormone-free... does it mean it's organic, and that the cow was fed the way it would be normally? I don't think so.

In your case, what about the possibility that since corn is almost exclusively used to feed cows even though it's not their normal food, shows that it must provide some benefit to the owners, one of which may be that the cows grow fatter from the same amount of corn versus the same amount of another plant? That would be one example of a situation where a bad trait can be developed for those who eat corn and for carnivores who eat that meat, without chemicals. Thanks!

pchristensen2• 18 years ago

"making the animal as fat as possible as fast as possible"

Who says it doesn't?

vlad3• 18 years ago

What do you mean?

mattmaroon3• 18 years ago

I would pray every day if I had someone to pray to for a corn famine. Some insect, weather pattern or bacteria or something that just wrecks the entire crop for a few years.

It would be painful for a lot of people, but corn, like oil, is so cheap and easy that we won't let it go until we're absolute forced to. Our dependence on it is killing us slowly and surely. Our corn monoculture forms the base of an unsteady food economy and an unhealthy, overprocessed diet. We've traded costs at the dinner table for costs in the hospital, and we've come out way behind.

anamax• 18 years ago

> I would pray every day if I had someone to pray to for a corn famine. Some insect, weather pattern or bacteria or something that just wrecks the entire crop for a few years.

There almost was sometime around 1990. A killer strain of some corn disease was going around and there was serious concern that corn would go extinct. Then someone found a resistant strain somewhere in Mexico and hybridization did the rest.

A friend of mine who happens to be allergic to corn was one of the people tracking the spread of the disease. Then their equipment was destroyed by lightning and they sat blind for several months.

laut• 18 years ago

If you are voting you could start with not voting for the politicians that keep corn subsidies in place. Which is most of them.

Probably Ron Paul would be one of the few politicians that are actually against it. Because it doesn't say in the constitution that it's the governments job to meddle with the production or prices of food ;)

martythemaniak• 18 years ago

I have a little pet name for the horrid places that are planted in the middle of sub/exurban parking lots - "subsidized corn dispensaries". You know the places - 'patios' that have a lovely view of all the parked cars, fake meaningless paraphernalia on the walls, facades that try to vaguely evoke real architectures and all they have on the menu is corn, wrapped in corn, fried in corn then served with a side of corn.

Around here they are known as "East Side Marios" or "Jack Astor's", around your place they might be "Chotcki's" or whatever, but we know they're all the same crap.

dgordon• 18 years ago

+1 for attempt at Office Space allusion, and the first paragraph as a whole. "Planted in the middle of sub/exurban parking lots" describes it well.

rgrieselhuber2• 18 years ago

My wife and I really started paying attention to where our food comes from a few years ago. We've never really eaten fast food on a regular basis, but even so-called normal food is often prepared from ingredients of dubious origin. In particular, high fructose corn syrup is in _everything_.

Here are some discoveries we made:

1. Most of the major chain restaurants use one or two suppliers that specialize in things like laser-cut chicken mash with painted on grill marks and similarly horrendous things. Once your tastebuds recognize food from those providers, it's almost impossible to eat at any of those places again.

2. Much of what is labeled "organic" fits some legal definition but not the real definition of what organic is supposed to provide. We ended up contracting with a local CSA (community supported agriculture) group for about $60 / month to get a more than ample supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, grown in season and no more than 30 miles from our neighborhood. You could go to the farm at any time and verify that your food was being grown as advertised.

3. We also found meat suppliers that will ship grass-fed beef, goat meat, etc. to our house for about $9 pound. It's a little more expensive than what you would get at the store, but it's a lot less scary.

After making these changes, we found ourselves with better tasting food, more energy and more interest in cooking for ourselves.

biohacker42• 18 years ago

Can you share the contact info for #3?

rgrieselhuber2• 18 years ago

Sure. I was in San Diego, and we used a meat supplier called Old Creek Ranch on the central coast in California: http://www.oldcreekranch.net/

They aren't a well-oiled production machine (which is the point, right? :-) ) so orders will usually take a little longer than you expect but it's worth it.

This site also has links to suppliers around the country: http://www.eatwild.com/

thomasmallen3• 18 years ago

Corn is the most abundant and popular food in the world, beating out rice. I'm not sure how this is surprising.

"We're seeing that corn is the number-one reason that fast food is so cheap and available," said Meredith Niles, a food policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety who was not involved in the study. "U.S. programs are subsidizing obesity in this country."

U.S. programs are making sure that people have food to eat. Boo!

MaysonL2• 18 years ago

Google "high fructose corn syrup" diabetes

It's not just obesity.

thomasmallen3• 18 years ago

The article doesn't mention HFCS. It talks about the horrors of selling corn-fed burgers and such.

simpleenigma• 18 years ago

If you are interested in this you might check out King Corn. It is a documentary about two guys who grow 1 acre of corn to see how it is done and where it goes. They also get into the fact that Americans are mostly made of corn because of the incentives to grow it.

pragmatic• 18 years ago

If you don't like it, don't eat it. I don't agree with crop subsidies but trying to make fast food the new smoking is a bit over the top.

I'm noticing a pattern: "We have a new President taking his place in the White House. It's a great opportunity to rearrange agricultural policy and to think about obesity," she said. "This study shows that it comes down in a lot of ways to one product."

Several of these articles are asking Obama to overreach his constitutional powers and assume the role of dictator.

That's why so many people resent this type of thing. Instead of presenting the facts and letting people judge for themselves, these people advocate government intervention.

Inside every liberal is a little dictator waiting to get out.

icey• 18 years ago

I'm noticing a pattern of people STILL whining about politics and it's after election day. I thought we all agreed to get it out of our system on November 4th.

Fast Food: Just Another Name for Corn

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