How Corn Makes Us Fat

In “The Consumer”, Michael Pollan explains how corn has contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States. He recognizes that the corn industry is a not direct cause of the increase in the rate of obesity. Instead he argues that the price of corn products as well as their poor nutritional values is a major “cause behind the causes” that have left us more obese (102). Corn is so abundant in our foods for many reasons: corn yields per acre are the highest of any crop; the government subsidizes corn; corn can be turned into many useful products, and corn products are cheaper than the alternatives. Because of these reasons corn is the main ingredient in a wide variety of foods including chips, soda, supplements, candy, chicken, and beef. If we look at the process step by step the problem becomes clear. The government subsidizes corn, an already high yielding crop, so it is produced in massive quantities. It is then turned into its unhealthy subunits. We then turn these subunits into unhealthy foods such as chips, candy, soda, beef, chicken, and pork. As a result of cheap corn prices these products are the cheapest calories on the market. People then buy these products because they are cheap and taste good (because they are sweet and high in fat). And because people buy these products so often they become obese and suffer from diseases such as diabetes. As a result, government subsides of the corn industry actually “guarantee that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest” (108). At the same time the surgeon general is leading efforts to fight the obesity epidemic.

Does this mean we should stop subsidizing corn? Or is a continued effort to discourage people from eating unhealthy food the best solution? In my opinion, the best way to fight this problem is from the source. The government should shift corn subsidies to healthy nutrient rich foods such as carrots or rutabagas. They should continue this shift until the cheapest food choices are healthier than the current ones containing corn. Because it is so well established, corn based foods will still be prevalent. We still need to answer the question, how can we discourage people from eating unhealthy foods without simply making it more expensive relative to healthy foods?

Is There An American Cuisine?

Cuisine is an aspect of culture, but does every culture have a cuisine? Sidney Mintz, in “Eating America”, explores whether or not the United States has its own cuisine. When I think of nations with distinctive cuisines I usually think of Italy, China, India, Thailand and France, because these are the nations that restaurants in my area use to identify with. A cuisine, however, is more than just styles of cooking practiced by restaurants. In my opinion, a cuisine is a group of foods and style of cooking them. Mintz, however, argues that, “a cuisine cannot exist unless there is a community of people who eat it, cook it, have opinions on it and engage in discussions involving those opinions” (29). Using this definition, can we say that the United States has its own distinct cuisine? It’s clear that the US has regional cuisines, such as Cajun cooking, but Mintz maintains that there is no true American cuisine. Some think of hamburgers, hotdogs, barbecue, fried chicken, and French fries as the American cuisine, but this group is too narrow and does not have the same type of root in our culture as the cuisines of other nations.

Sidney Mintz goes into great detail to attempt to explain why the US does not have a cuisine. She traces the absence back to the way in which the US was created and populated. When people migrated to America, they brought with them their cultures. This created what is often described as the melting pot of cultures. It would then follow that the cuisines of these immigrants would all melt together to form a new cuisine. Because these cultures were coming together in an industrial era with a growingly commercialized food system, these cuisines did not melt together. Instead they formed a tossed salad of cuisines, where each maintains its own identity. Nations develop cuisines when they have access to a limited number of ingredients and cooking techniques for a very long period of time. This promotes a homogenized style of cooking that with time becomes a cuisine. The US, however, has access to an unprecedented number of ingredients and techniques. On top of that, the commercialization of the food industry, that is the switch from home cooked to prepared food bought from sellers (everything from hotdog stands, to restaurants, to TV dinners), has also prevented the developed of an American cuisine. In my opinion, it is not possible for a country as large as the US, founded as recently as the US, which was populated by people who totally rejected the culture of the natives and came from a huge variety of backgrounds, to develop a cuisine.

Cloning Livestock

In “The Other Other White Meat”, Ben Paynter explores the use of cloning in the livestock industry. Despite having a clichéd title that barely makes sense, the article gives an insightful look into the many sides of the cloning issue. Cow and pig breeders have turned to cloning in an effort to make their animals the best they can be. Cloning allows the breeders take an animal with particularly desirable traits and produce an offspring that carries all of these traits. Traditional breeding and artificial insemination do not guarantee that the offspring will take on the traits that made their parents so valuable. This is why breeders are willing to pay more than ten times as much to have their animals cloned.

Although there has been to evidence to show that cloned meat or milk is any different, many still argue that products from cloned animals should not be allowed in stores. Currently the FDA has banned cloned meat from supermarket shelves. This is largely because no long term generational studies on cloned meat have been finished. Several of the breeders Paynter visited, however, all felt safe enough with the cloned meat that they would eat it themselves. Should the FDA reconsider its policies? I think that we will eventually find out that cloned meat is just as safe as regular meat, but until then the FDA should adopt some policy to deal with this issue. Stickers that tell the consumer they are eating cloned meat would be a good idea because this would support the cloning industry and warn those who are wary of cloning. An important aspect to consider, however, would be the impact that cloning would have on the livestock industry. Would it push it towards an even more harmful industrial state? Or would it push it towards a more high tech industry with smaller more environmentally friendly farms?