Whew, I almost forgot it was earth day, even though some earth day thoughts have been on my mind. I do have a food post for later today, but since it is Earth Day, I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about what’s on my mind. And that is corn.
Last night I took the time to watch “King Corn” a documentary about a pair of men who decide to find out what goes into raising an acre of corn. They take care of the whole process, preparing the field, planting, harvesting, and along the way, they try to learn where their corn will eventually end up. The whole project came about when they heard that for the first time ever, our generation is expected to have a shorter lifespan than our descendants- and that it’s a direct result of our diet.
Before watching this documentary, I knew, of course, that corn was prevalent in our diet. It’s very difficult to escape high fructose corn syrup these days- it’s in so many convenience products, and even in places where you wouldn’t expect. But what I didn’t think of was the meat that we eat. I watched last night as these two men visited a feed lot and saw exactly where corn and corn products go. At least 60% of a cows diet in a feedlot is corn or a corn byproduct- and cows are not meant to eat corn. That I didn’t know. Corn used to be one of the ways you would get a cow through the winter, you could feed them some feed corn when grass wasn’t available, but cows are not meant to eat corn, and the purpose it serves is to fatten them up. Hence feed lots. They eat corn, they move little, and they get nice and fat and ready for slaughter. The way I look at it, it was no different than if I’d decided to eat just McDonald’s food for every meal of every day. It may be a good short term solution at times, but all it will really do is make me fat and unhealthy over the duration.
It was really an eye-opening documentary to me. I’d never seen a feed lot in action before. And while that could be something that could sway me to not eat beef for awhile, it wasn’t that part that really stuck with me. What stuck with me was the feed lot manager saying that if there was a demand for grass-fed beef, they would find a way to raise grass-fed beef instead of the corn fed beef. But the fact of the matter was that people want cheap meat. And the cheap way to raise it is on corn, grass fed would be much more expensive, and people don’t want to pay that.
And then later on in the documentary, they interviewed the gentleman who introduced the world to the farm subsidies back in the seventies. One of his points was that here in the US, we, on average, spend 16-17% of our income on the food we eat, which is much less than other parts of the world. And that’s how people want it.
So when the documentary was over, that’s what was ruminating in my mind. It’s not secret here that I’ve been very budget conscious, and I’ve been trying to limit what I spend on groceries, but it seems to me that if change is going to happen as far as the American diet goes, that we need to change that mentality. Instead of limiting what we spend on groceries, and reaching for that cheap ketchup loaded with high fructose corn syrup, we should opt for the more pricey organic ketchup. But then we need to give up something else to increase the grocery budget. That, to me, is the hard part. Why is it that when we’re trying to pinch pennies the groceries are the first to go? It’s because that’s an easy one-it’s easy to choose differently at the grocery store. It can be hard to give up those movie rentals or a magazine subscription or a gym membership instead.
I guess I have no solution here, no real ideas. But my vision has been broadened, and I have to say that if you have an opportunity, you should watch “KIng Corn”. It’s part of the Independant Lens series on PBS, and it really was worth the time to watch it. I truly did not know that the majority of the corn that I see in the fields around me is not edible as it is. So today I’m going to celebrate Earth Day with more of an awareness. I still need to process a lot of what I saw on King Corn, but I have already reached a few conclusions of my own. One is that as soon as I’m done here, I’m going to be sending an e-mail to a local organic beef and hog farm, because that feed lot was enough to make me swear off eating beef altogether, were it not for a local option. I may also see if I can find another pot or two in the shed to plant some more seeds. I’m feeling inspired this Earth Day.
So how are you going to celebrate Earth Day?