Reinert Week 4 - The Corn Epidemic

The Corn Epidemic

I just finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan for this class. The book exposed the long convoluted food chains that have taken over in our industrial agricultural society. The book covers the author’s experience with farmers and hunter/gatherers. It opened my eyes to the flaws in our food chains.

I found the most interesting part of the book to be the exposure of corn. Corn has dozens of uses, shown in the graphic above, that can be unlocked with heavy processing. However, this variability has its drawbacks. One acre of industrially grown corn can require 50 gallons of fossil fuels. 50 gallons of oil is far too much for corn. This seems especially ineffective when you take into account that we mix fossil fuels with corn products. We first mixed ethanol with fuel in the world wars to stretch the oil supply. It seems smart to make ethanol, 50 gallons of oil for 328 gallons of ethanol. This doesn’t account for oil still making up the majority of fuel, the wear ethanol puts on engines, the amount of energy it takes to process corn, and the negative effects of petroleum fertilizers on the environment. As a country we grow ridiculous amounts of corn that we don’t use. We only eat a small portion of corn. Most is turned into bio-fuels or used for animal feed. Our excess corn is force fed to animals that aren’t meant to eat corn. Cows, for example, have a highly developed digestive system that is perfect for digesting grass. Corn destroys them. They produce lesser quality meat at a fast pace, while causing environmental damage. Cows are blamed as being dirty methane emitters, but when fed a proper pastoral diet of grass, they help reduce the carbon footprint. What I’m trying to say is that the next time you go to a fast food joint or the grocery store, remember the impact of corn.

For further reading on the problems with agriculture and corn, I recommend this article.