My Foodprint

The other night I watched the movie King Corn and was mightily impressed. What begins as a rag tag, grassroots documentary ends up as a large and impacting statement about agriculture and eating in the United States. What I learned: 70 percent of antibiotics in the U.S. are used on cattle to keep them healthy long enough for slaughter. Why? Because the bulk of their subsistence, various incarnations of corn, is harmful to them and eventually will kill them if they eat it long enough. I learned a lot about Iowa. They grow a lot of corn, and most of it is not edible. One of the sharpest comments in the documentary is from Michael Pollan, who makes many appearances and serves as ballast for the film. The irony, he says, is that the Iowa farmer can’t feed him or herself any more. Meaning they survive off govmn’t subsidies and the crops they grow, mostly corn, is used for corn syrup (nasty stuff), cattle feed, and ethanol.

Something about the way the two bumbling, aww gosh me? characters go about the adventure is also enlightening. In many ways they take the approach to farming that Michael Moore takes in his films. What do you mean you don;t pay for healthcare? What do you mean we will lose money on our corn crop without the goverment, and our corn is an inedible variety? A naivete that is endearing to those who can reveal the scariest of things. Check out the movie, learn how the Western diet has completely changed since the 1970s (that’s when the boundaries of farming evaporated in this country). Find out why we all have corn in our hair.

–Nick