I don’t mean to be repetitive, but I’ve been reading the blog of Chris Prillo Lockergnome Extraordinaire today and have found quite a bit of inspiration there. I even posted on essay to another blog so I wouldn’t over do it here.
His post, Corn Kills More People Than Terrorists Do, points out that terrorism has killed a very small number of people this year compared to the number who die of obesity. Of course his readers made all kinds of excuses for why this fact is irrelevant or misleading. This graphic was included:
Complaints were lodged that we can’t prove corn causes obesity, obesity is a choice–terrorism isn’t, people die from old age so why don’t we work to outlaw getting old.
I restrained myself from posting a comment this time. But I knew I had to discuss it.
As one person pointed out, corn isn’t really the culprit–it’s high-fructose corn syrup (HFC) that gets ingested by so many people. And that happens because HFC is so cheap. Sugar from cane and beets costs more to grow and process.
I don’t want to argue that corn is more dangerous than a terrorist. I do agree that a person has a much greater likelihood of suffering from ingesting it than being the victim of a terrorist. Just like one has a greater chance of dying in a car accident than dying from an airplane crash. But the airplane crash scares us much more than a car crash because it is out of our control and so many more people suffer at one time.
My concern is the HFC. We don’t need to ban it as some would encourage, but we can make it more equitable. Corn is one of the most subsidized crops in this country. Large corporate farms plant acres and acres of corn that government money subsidizes from direct grants to plant it to guarantees of the price paid at harvest.
These subsidies cause many problems beyond creating cheap HFC. Our farming culture has created mono-cultures of plants that become subject to disease and insects because of the lack of diversity in the landscape to provide natural pesticides and barriers to transmission of these problems. In much the same way that interbreeding animals causes weaknesses in their genetic make up by replicating problems alongside the desirable traits they want.
Then the seed companies work to create genetically modified organisms (GMO) in laboratories to combat the disease and pests they cultivated in their mono-cultures of subsidized crops. And no one knows what problems these GMOs will bring in the future. What will happen if they interbreed with native species? What will happen if they evolve and mutate once as they are breed and rebreed together? What will happen if pests develop that they are no longer resistant to? And how long will these things take?
So I suggest that we rethink our farm subsidies and develop new ways to grow our food–or maybe it’s a return to the old, old ways. Diversity of plants on the land, low tillage, and local consumption. And a first step is to de-subsidize corn that is destined to become HFC! If corporations want to make HFC and use it in foodstuffs, they should be able to, but they should have to grow and purchase it through a real free market–no more socialism for corporate farmers.
I think the same should apply to livestock confinement as well as mono-cultured plants, but I’ll leave the big argument for another post.
The other arguments posted to the comments are that obesity is a choice and we cannot prove a link between obesity and HFC.
While I do not know of any scientifically rigorous study that found a link between the two, the empirical evidence listed in the graphic makes a pretty good case for it. A 125x increase in the consumption of HFC between 1970 and 2000 and the dramatic increase in obesity during the same period can’t be just coincidental. That doesn’t mean it’s the sole cause, but it must be a contributor.
Corn makes fat cows and pigs fast. And fortunately for the fat cows and pigs, they are killed before the obesity can kill them. And then we consume their fattier meat and wash it down with HFC-laden soft drinks. I know that just because 2 things happen at the same time doesn’t mean they are linked, but cheap and abundant sweeteners and weight gain just have too much in common not to have a link.
Then I want to take issue with obesity as a choice. I don’t know many people who really choose to be obese. Many may prefer to be a little overweight rather than eat a tasteless diet that leaves them hungry all the time or spend hours slaving in a gym, but obesity is not a choice anyone I know would consciously make.
I don’t know how some people become as large as they do. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how I grew to be as large as I am. But there it is. Some of us end up carrying around hundreds of pounds that we don’t remember putting an order in for. I count the calories that I consume and can’t see how that’s the cause. Also, I don’t eat when I’m bored or because I’m sad or because it’s in front of me. I eat when my stomach starts to hurt after hours of not eating anything. My mom complains about my size in one breath and in the next she’s trying to get me to eat more because she doesn’t know how the small amount of food I ate could fill me up.
And I could spend hours in the gym, but I have more things to do with my life than that. If I spent enough time working out to really lose weight, I’d never get anything else done so that cannot be the answer. I try to move as much as possible, but hours in the gym isn’t my ideal life.
And for many food is an addiction. Much like any other and they will need assistance to combat it. And people who do not succumb to addictions don’t understand the hold they can have over a person so they label the behavior a choice when it is actually a mental health issue as well as a physical health issue.
And I still say cutting the HFC will make us all healthier and we can begin the process by stopping the subsidies. And we can all make a personal choice to avoid eating/drinking it by reading our food labels until then.
Filed under: Economy, Health Care, Politics, Self Tagged: agriculture, capitalism, corn, corporate farming, Economy, farming, health, Health Care, illinois, iowa, life, livestock, mental health, Politics, subsidies 
