Corn
If it’s true that you are what you eat, increasing numbers of researchers, journalists, nutritionists, and scientists are coming forward with the same assertion: we are corn. All of us. While we may picture U.S. farmland as our nation’s breadbasket, alive with “amber waves of grain,” the grimmer reality is that we’ve become mass producers of corn, corn, and more corn—so much, in fact, that we don’t know what to do with it. As a result, corn is now everywhere. It’s in your meat; it’s the sweetener in your soda; it’s in your snacks—even the healthy ones—masked by names like maltodextrin and lactic acid; it’s the wax used to sheen your magazine cover; and it’s touted by many (but panned by others) as a green alternative to gasoline.
So how did corn rise to the top of the agricultural totem pole? And, perhaps more importantly, what are the impacts of corn’s prominence in U.S. agricultural policy on our planet, our health, and our farming communities? Learn about the impact of corn from the Independent Lens film, King Corn (watch the trailer below), or read about the issues on the PBS King Corn website.