Corn. This is the starting material if not the main component of what we eat on a regular basis. Pollan goes into great detail about corn and where it comes from and how it has become such a huge part of our diets. He explains how corn is in more than a quarter of the forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket. From the coating on our produce to part of what makes up a Twinkie, we are virtually always eating corn. The Europeans who colonized America considered themselves wheat people and most American's probably would still if they had to choose, Pollan explains, however we are now truly corn people seeing as how it primarily makes up most of our diet. It is actually very impressive how corn, a tropical grass, has taken over not just our diets, but our land too.
Pollan starts this book discussing how people who eat both meat and plants, also known as omnivore's, face a difficult decision on a regular basis. This decision that we all have to make is really as simple as the question, what should I have for dinner tonight? The answer really is not as simple as deciding that it's pizza night so let's just go with that, but it boils down to what type of food, not just what kind... Should we go with the organic route or not, but what does organic really entail anyway? Does it mean there are no added hormones or does it just mean that there is nothing immediately added? These are only a few of the questions that could arise when attempting to determine what route to take for the type of food you might like to enjoy. Personally, I have no idea what route to take anymore... I like to try to eat healthy with the occasional treat but then I find myself wondering, is the power food asparagus really as healthy as I think it is or are there so many chemicals added during growth that it just cancels out the healthy. The way I look at it is that eating healthy doesn't just mean eating foods that will keep you thin, but being able to have food that won't end up giving us long term problems in the future. Will we ever really know what we are eating?
It is amazing how much of the American diet comes from corn. All that sugar, not very healthy. And the way he describes the farming, doesn't seem like much fun for the farmer.
ReplyDeleteWe're just corn people! I like your outlook on eating healthy. I've tried to go through a lot of info too, I look at organic food as playing it safe. Organic food can't be genetically modified or sprayed with chemical fertilizers so it's more "natural". But like you said, there's more to his question "what should I eat?" than 'organic' or 'non-organic'.
ReplyDelete