Chapters 1 and 2
The first two was chapters of this very intriguing book focused primarily on corn. It talks about the continuing and mostly like unstoppable rise of the the wonderful crop through western culture and the deep impact it has had on our daily lives. Corn is every where, "If we are indeed what we eat, we are corn" After reading about the amazing journey of corn through the past hundreds of years, I could not help but think about the many people that always say, "I hate corn!" I was amazed at how absurd that statement actually is; because if that is truly the case, then that person basically hates every food product that was made in a factory in USA. Another sentence that was a particular gem was, "A notably unhealthy country obsessed with eating healthy." That sentence summarized American culture astonishingly well and made me realized how very flawed this country really is in even everyday affairs like food.
Chapter 3
Corn has fallen from its seat of royalty but it still has the same value. Corn is being produced in an incredibly high yield that the grain elevators can no longer accommodate it. No matter what kind of corn it is, it is piled up by the elevated as golden mounds of grain ready to be shipped too all over the country and beyond. Workers work tirelessly to try and utilize all the corn for maximum efficiency, all 10 billion bushels of it. Thanks to over production of corn, many farm animals who previously weren't corn consumers have no other choice but to accept it.
Chapter 4
Precis
Corn fields in the USA take up more land than New York State. The pungent odor of one of the feedlots can be smelt from many a mile away. The animal wastes that used to serve as a natural fertilizer in farms is now being used to spread diseases among not just the farm animals but humans as well. The cows often eat their own feces along with that of their bretherin. The bacteria that cow consumed will also be consumed by the kid in McDonald's who wanted a hamburger instead of the snack wrap.
Gems
"'Hell, if you gave them lots of grass and space, I wouldn't have a job.'"
Insight
The healthier way is always the inefficient and more costly way. The cows are looked at as if they are just products, like cardboard in a paper factory. If one of them is deformed they are just cast aside. They are all just numbers in a industrial machine. There is no respect for the other species of the world anymore.
Chapter 5
Precis
Corn is one of the most important aspect in our everyday lives. The corn is hardly ever seen in the form of a kernel anymore. Every part of it is processed and artificially engineered to make it into an ingredient in almost every type of food that we like to enjoy. The very existence of natural food is being changed my scientists. Almost every type of food sold in stores nowadays is being changed and new ingredients are being added to make some use of the incredibly over production of corn. High fructose corn syrup is something that is pure poison but yet food companies continue to add it to the products that people continue to consume on a daily basis.
Gems
- "It takes a certain kind of eater- an industrial eater- to consume these fractions of corn, and we are, or have evolved into, that supremely adapted creature: the eater of processed food."
- "There's money to be made in food, unless you're trying to grow it."
General Thoughts and Questions
I follow Alex Jones a lot and he has some very interesting things to say about food. He jokingly made a petition where he asked the food companies to change the name "high fructose corn syrup" to "cancer corn". He was very serious about it because this "cancer corn" is in all of the soft drinks that teenagers consume litters after litters every day. I wonder if open minded people like Alex Jones will ever get their wish and actually be able to stop the food companies from destroying our lives...
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