The Corn Effect

The belief that by paying less for food is better than paying more for quality is a widely accepted part of the American society. This relates to fast food restaurants like McDonald's who have an entire dollar menu based solely on the fact that people don’t care what they are eating or how good it is for them but the fact that it costs a dollar and it tastes good. This is made possible by the mass production of corn by farmers and the subsidies they receive from the federal government. This is causing major health risks for children when they get become older. This is also causing obesity rates to go up in adults which lead to other health problems.  I believe however this method of selling food should be changed to a system of cows being fed what they have been adapted to eating which is grass.  

With the style of mass producing corn the modern American is feeling the effect severely. With it influencing the way we eat and drink it is causing us to choose price over quality. This is shown with the mass amount of money the federal government is putting into subsidizing farmers for growing corn which is “a cost of some four billion dollars a year (out of a total of 19 billion dollars in direct payments to farmers) ” (Pollan2006). Corn has become so prominent in everyone’s daily lives that “If you are what you eat and especially if you eat industrial food, as 99 percent of Americans do, what you are is "corn."(Pollan2006). This shows that so much of what we eat and drink has its roots go back to corn. Whether it be Fast food or soda or just about any type of industrialized food or drink you’ll find some form of corn in it. There has been research done to prove this which entailed “Chemical analysis from restaurants across the United States shows that nearly every cow or chicken used in fast food is raised on a diet of corn, prompting fresh criticism of the government’s role in subsidizing poor eating habits.” (Brandan2008). This is changing how Americans spend their money from before the 1960’s when reforms were first made to allow farms to grow as much corn as they want. Before farmers would use grass to feed the animals which is what they had been adapted to eating but now they eat corn which can be grown on a much larger scale. This in turn saves Americans money on there week to week spending on food but in return causes them to become less healthy and a greater chance of having something wrong with them which could be in the thousands of dollars in medical bills and fees.

The mass production of corn over the past forty years has come to a conclusion of putting children at risk for having health problems earlier than they ever would have if it had not been for the mass production of corn. When kids start off at a young age eating fast food they are in taking things that are horrible for their bodies and can cause a number of things to go wrong. One of the main problems is “In the last 30 years, childhood obesity rates have tripled” (Cheney 2007). This can lead to any number of things later in that kid’s life whether it is them having a heart attack or heart disease or whatever it is. Corn is also used for corn syrup which is the main sweetener in most soft drinks which is one of the top drinks that most kids drink. This is one of the major reasons why “One in two children of color is on track to develop Type II diabetes” (Cheney 2007). By making sodas so easily available children are able to get them in mass amounts and cause themselves harm without them even knowing. Both of these shows how just because of how cheap something is how much of an effect it can have on America’s future generations and the choice of lifestyle people will have to make.

The effects that this is having on the average Person is also something to be seen as a major concern for society. With the use of corn syrup in drinks it is causing a large amount of people to start to develop diabetes so much so that “One in eight new Yorkers have Diabetes” (Cheeny2007). This shows just how much of a problem corn syrup is becoming, with it being so easily accessible and cheap and being everywhere to the point that you could find it at basically any food or convenience store. (See Appendix A) Another major problem faced by many Americans is that “Most of the resulting corn is fed to livestock who didn’t evolve to subsist entirely on corn. Many of those livestock end up in high-calorie, low-nutrition franchised fast foods, which have been repeatedly linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.”(Brandan2008). This shows that by eating this type of fast food it can be detrimental to your health and possibly putting your life at risk.

An obese man eating fast-food (www.cbsnews.com)

The mass production of corn is affecting Americans in a multitude of ways and a majority if not all of them are effecting them for the worse. Whether it be the effects on children or adults in American society it is setting them up for a life of troubles with their health and maybe even their lives being at risk. It also shows how the government is actually promoting this by giving billions of dollars to farmers every year for growing it and the differences in how we live today from our parents and grandparents who had lived in times when corn production had a limit set by the government and food prices were much higher than they are now.

Reference

Brandan , K. (2008, November 10). Fast food: Just another name for corn. WIRED, Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/fast-food-anoth/

Pollan, M. (2006). We are what we eat. Retrieved from http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/we-are-what-we-eat

Cheney, I. (Director) (2007). King corn [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.kingcorn.net/

                                                                                                                                                              

Appendix A

A picture inside a store showing the easy accessibility of soda/ junk food for low prices. (www.grist.org)