Corn corn corn!

Mmmm. Sweet and now grossly ambiguous.

   Well, who's sick of corn? I definitely am. Whodathunk that it was behind so many of our foods. If they can be called that. Oy. What really struck me about all of Pollan's research and conclusions was the depth of interconnectedness between all the aspects of the American food system and corn. It isn't just that corn and its derivatives is cheap and can be used in so many different products, its that there has been so much intentional fiddling with the markets, the biology, and the psychology of the American people. Corn hasn't simply jumped into the limelight because of chance or because it is sustainable or beneficial. No, it has moved to center stage because of humans who intentionally forced its production over other crops, who place the capitalist ideals of supply and demand over health. I'll stop ranting now.
   The explanation of all the myriad uses that corn can have might have been the part of this section that effected me the most. My father often likes to point out the strange presences on nutrition labels. I've always noticed corn syrup on a good deal of those lists but I never associated it with a huge agricultural and industrial process established over many years. It always seemed like something familiar, even though I had no idea what it was. It seemed like something that belonged in food. Something, in my younger mind, like wheat. An ingredient that was a base for a ton of different foods present in my life. Now I've come to see corn syrup and other corn derivatives as some strange, almost evil presence in my foods. Maybe that's too strong. Even though it's natural and it comes from a plant that grows in the ground, it just seems like a weird omnipresent artificial additive. Traveling to other countries that don't rely almost totally on corn syrup as a sweetener and tasting soft drinks there can be a refreshing experience. I had the opportunity to sample the diverse array of Israeli soft drinks while I was there. The whole experience seemed so much more fulfilling. The cans cost more and were thicker. Being used to thin American cans, you'd think you still had a fifth of the can left when you picked it up after draining it. Something just tasted sweeter or more genuine about the cane sugar sweetened soda.

My god, even the corncob-holder is made of corn!

    The hardest part of the book so far has been seeing how entrenched we are in the current system. Like I said on someone's blog, breaking out of this cycle of industrial and capitalistic agriculture seems so incredibly difficult. I think one of the keys is the government's stake in the whole deal. The agricultural lobby is just so strong and concentrated, those four or five main companies that control corn and its production hold so much power because the corn industry is so linked to so many other industries; gas, food, plastics. It seems nearly impossible to dislodge the stranglehold corn has on all these aspects of the American economy without destabilizing something, whether its an aspect of the economy or the links between food lobbyists and the government.