Corn, Corn, and More Corn.

Consuming corn is inevitable, it is near impossible to avoid in this day and age unless you essentially grow and eat your own food. The tricky part is corn has multiple pseudonyms so the majority of the time you’re completely oblivious to it even being there! For example, my dark chocolate has dextrose and vanilla extract, both containing corn, while my canned soup has cornstarch. Given corn is such an integral part of food nowadays, and beverages, it was hard to go a day without eating it. During that time period I ate mostly salad, with a variety of vegetables and used just a simple olive oil and vinaigrette dressing. I unfortunately could not have my normal Kashi Good Friends cereal as it contained waxy maize starch, natural flavors, yellow corn meal, corn flour, corn bran and a multitude of other ingredients that questioned whether Kashi is truly a "healthy, natural" product or if they're just really good at marketing. So instead I opted for a banana and almond butter. Sadly, that evening, one of my roommates made gingerbread and mollasses cookies which has traces of corn and were the culprit behind my ending the corn free fast.

The existence of corn in just about everything we ingest makes one realize the importance of understanding ingredients and what each really signifies. For me, the longer the name of the ingredient (or more foreign looking) the less natural it is. This may or may not be true but I have found it to be a fairly good rule. My organic rolled oats have one ingredient…organic rolled oats whereas oatmeal that has flavoring for instance can have upwards of fifteen ingredients, many of which encompass corn. The fact that corn can be traced back to a multitude of ingredients also shows our connection to corn production in the U.S. Tying into what Michael Pollan discussed in the Omnivore’s Dilemma about the consequences of government subsidies.