We Are All Made of Corn

On Friday night we went to go see King Corn at Space Gallery. Unfortunately we got there about 3 minutes before start time and had to stand... for 2.5 hours. That sucked. But at least I was in the first row of standing people.

Anyways... on to the movie. King Corn is about 2 friends from Boston who move to Iowa, rent 1 acre of land, grow corn for a year, and see where it goes. At the start of the movie, they get their hair analyzed and find that their hair is essentially made of corn protein-- through eating high fructose corn syrup, corn-fed beef, food fried in corn oil, and everything else corn gets into (which is essentially ANYTHING processed).

So they find a farmer in Greene, Iowa to rent them the acre. They grow the type of corn that is not for human consumption-- it goes to livestock feed, ethanol production, and high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm! During the course of their experiment the boys find out all about farm subsidies and how they encourage detrimental farming practices (over-farming, use of fertilizers, etc.) and how farm subsidies, at the end of the day, subsidize the American diet of cheap CRAP food. We wouldn't get cheap soda, oil, and beef otherwise.

After the movie there was a Q&A session with one of the guys. He revealed that there were 400 hours of footage and many storylines/issues they had to abandon for the sake of time and flow. One was that the wife of the family they were staying with actually died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma during their stay, and they suspect it has to do with agricultural chemicals seeping into their well water supply. They also visited pig, cattle, and fish "CAFOs" to observe them firsthand. At the end of the day they focused on mainly on the farm subsidy issue, which has become a pet project of theirs. Overall, a great movie that exposes the disconnect Americans have between farm and food, and also the converse-- the disconnect farmers have with where their produce goes. I have to recommend you watch it seated though.