Crap, Corn?

Last evening I trekked out to Eden Hall Farm with Jenn, Amber and Quayla for a film screening of King Corn with the director Aaron Woolf. Before the film we chowed down on salad with lettuce and radishes harvested seconds before eating, along with some delicious local cheese.

The only beverage choice available was Coca Cola. After learning about food systems for the past year, drinking soda, even sparingly, sends me on a guilt trip. I have already given up soda and sweeteners for drinks. This article was single-handedly responsible for causing me to think about the dangers of sweeteners: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/22/060522fa_fact_bilger. Later on this year in Dr. Wardi's World Literature class, the politics of drinking Coca Cola were amplified. In the film "A World Without Water" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3930199780455728313# I learned that Coca Cola has literally bought the water supplies beneath Rajasthan, India, massively affecting water table levels and putting farmers in peril. Drastic amounts of water have been taken to produce Coca Cola for consumers around the world, so this water is permanently torn from the biosystem and is never replenished. This has been just one journey of knowledge to learn about my own consumption.

Aaron Woolf's film "King Corn" took me on yet another journey of consumer enlightenment. The film is structured in a similar manner to Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, documenting the journey of an acre of corn that best friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis plant and harvest. While this film shocked me on many levels, the most depressing aspect included the instance when Ian and Curt sit in the field, tasting a raw corn cob that "tastes like crap." Essentially, this corn, as a majority of the corn in Iowa, is inedible until it is processed. Contrary to popular perception, American corn is not for consuming whole, but as high fructose corn syrup. It is impossible to escape this entity as it is responsible for satiating our sweet tooth, even if we're unaware. A trip to a supermarket revealed that high fructose corn syrup was in practically everything.

Ian and Curt attempt to make high fructose corn syrup. After cooking their corn kernels for around 18 hours, they proceed to add ingredients including obscure chemicals that have images of a skull and crossbones along with a hand dipped into the liquid that reveals a skeletal hand. Yum! While there are so many other points this movie makes such as the decreased nutritional value of products and the inevitable epidemic of diabetes in America, I really appreciated the film as yet another journey to considering where and how our food comes to the table.

While this film includes political awareness that can instigate action, Aaron does not have a definitive answer of how to cause change. Part of his solution is his Urban Rustic grocery store in Brooklyn. This interesting business venture includes working with local farms to sell produce in season. While many vegetables are frozen to satiate a palate craving a tomato in December, Woolf emphasizes the importance of shifting taste to what makes sense locally (such as winter crops root vegetables celeriac or black radishes). This film on a microcosm affected how Jenn, Quayla, Amber and myself think about consumption. Even if we opt for water over soda, or a salad over McDonald's, effect on the local level matters.