Corn is Ubiquitous
Modern corn fields are neither good for the environment nor nutritious for any animal or human who eats corn. Agribusiness grows corn in such huge quantities that all humans and animals are made to eat it without regard for our health.
I began to research corn starch and corn syrup after I began to suffer diarrhea after eating them. I have had to eliminate all forms of corn from my diet and, in doing so, discovered it is present in far more foods and nutritional supplements than I would have guessed. I have learned from my research that cattle that are fed corn suffer even worse symptoms than I do. But first, a brief response to those who claim it is better to eat plants than animals. Monoculture is worse for the environment than animals grazing in pasture.
Not Environmental
Indigenous Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer says the soil’s native plants never grow back after a field has been used for corn monoculture. Nothing grows. The soil is sterile, unable to support even a weed.[1] Large quantities of fertilizer enable corn to grow. Fertilizer that is not taken up by the corn is washed in to the streams and rivers polluting our drinking water and the ecosystem that depends on the river.[2]
Kimmerer says the only environmental way to grow corn is the traditional Indigenous way of the Three Sisters. Plant together one seed each of traditional corn, bean and squash. Together they nourish and support each other and the soil, and they control each other’s pests.[3] But the Combines can't deal with mixed agriculture.
Not Nutritious
Modern corn is mostly starch. Indeed, it is primarily used to make starch and high-fructose corn syrup which are common ingredients in most processed foods. This starch and syrup are sugar by another name. When doctors say to reduce consumption of sugar, they mean starch and high fructose corn syrup. Starch is worse than table sugar because it takes longer to digest. If you eat a cube of cane sugar, it gets rapidly into your blood stream causing only a temporary spike in insulin. However, if you eat a cob of corn or any processed food containing starch or corn syrup, the digestive system takes longer to break the starch down into glucose. This causes a steady drip of glucose into your bloodstream, which causes the continuous release of insulin which locks down stored fat until the starch is all digested ending the steady drip of glucose. Starch is addictive. About 2 hours after eating starch, you feel hunger pangs that compel you to eat more starch, which causes the continuous release of insulin, which keeps your stored fat firmly locked up. This is a cause of obesity and diabetes. Those of us who have removed starch from our diets no longer suffer these symptoms of starch-addiction.[4]
Most processed food is starch. We are tricked into thinking we are eating a varied and nutritious diet by the many different flavourings added by the processed food industry and by packaging that touts added vitamins and minerals. Flavoured starch and corn syrup lack nutrients. The added vitamins and minerals cannot replace the many varied combinations of micronutrients that accompany these vitamins and minerals in foods that naturally contain them. Worse, the addition of flavours, vitamins and minerals to starchy foods confuses our innate ability to identify which foods contain which nutrients and suppresses our natural cravings for nutrient rich foods. Our innate ability to eat a nutritious diet depends on a cellular feedback loop that identifies a food containing a needed nutrient with the particular flavour of that food and causes us to crave or prefer the food with the flavour in order to obtain enough of the nutrient.[5] Fred Provenza explains the science behind this in his book Nourishment. It is best to obtain nutrients from diet alone. To enable our innate cellular ability to choose the right foods, it is important to avoid all flavoured processed foods and all foods that have vitamins and minerals added. (I do not suggest avoiding flavour. Add herbs and spices to your home-cooked meals. Natural herbs and spices provide many nutrients. It is only nutrient-poor flavoured foods that I suggest be avoided.)
Not Humane
Most corn fields do not grow corn for human consumption. Most corn is “cow corn”. It is fed to cattle in feedlots and to chickens in large agribusiness chicken barns and to pigs in big pig barns and even to farmed fish. It is not natural or healthy food for any of them.[6]
Corn is not normal cattle food. Cattle normally eat pasture grass and leafy greens; which may include the seeds of those plants but never corn. In feedlots, starchy corn is fed to cattle to fatten them up. It accomplishes this the same way humans get fat if they eat starch. But cattle are even less able than humans to digest starch. Most of it passes through to their rumen where microbes feast on it and produce methane. Cattle do not cause methane air pollution. Their feedlot diet of corn is the cause. Worse, a diet of corn eventually damages their digestive system, causing diarrhea or, at least, sufficient digestive upset to cause them to stop eating. The feedlot agribusiness has perfectly calculated the point at which a steer is fattened by corn but has not yet begun to lose weight due to digestive system failure. This is why each feedlot steer is slaughtered at 14 to 16 months of age.[7]
Animals confined in corn feedlots suffer increased stress, social disorder and aggression. This is unnecessary and inhumane. Cattle that are allowed to graze in pasture containing a good variety of fresh grass and leafy greens are happy and healthy cattle,[8] provided some of the herd are familiar with the plants in that pasture and can show the others which greens are safe to eat.[9] Most human health problems from eating beef are actually caused by corn-fed beef, not by grass fed beef.[10]
This is not as simple as confining cattle in a field, as many farmers do. It is important to the pasture ecosystem that cattle not be allowed to eat the pasture down to plant stubs or bare soil. Cattle should always be on the move to greener pasture, so as to allow the pasture behind to recover[11] and to reduce the amount of manure so that it does not accumulate in quantities that can contaminate drinking water. (Cattle should not be allowed to graze near sources of drinking water.)
Corn is not normal chicken food. Chickens in nature eat maggots, worms, slugs, snails and insects. When this natural diet is scarce, chicken eat seeds to survive.
Cattle and chickens are capable of a symbiotic relationship. The flies that harass cattle tend to lay their eggs in warm cattle manure, which hatch into maggots. If chickens are allowed to follow the cattle through the pasture, they happily eat the maggots growing in cow manure. To expose the maggots, the chickens use their claws to churn and spread the manure ─ fertilizing the pasture.[12]
Cattle and chickens that eat their natural diets provide humans with nutritious dairy, eggs, organs, meat and fat. A person can be healthy eating only the products of healthy animals and poultry, including the fat which is full of nutrients. People who eat only lean corn-fed meat develop cravings for animal and poultry fat, indicative of nutritional deficiency. One can die of a diet free of animal or poultry fat.[13] These cravings should be fed with fat from animals and poultry that ate natural diets.
Lazy Farming
Agribusiness corn farming is the laziest kind of farming. In the spring the farmer sits for several days on a tractor that sprays weed killer, spreads fertilizer and sows the corn in rows across huge fields. At harvest time, the famer sits on a combine for a few days. Then the farmer sells the harvest and goes south for the winter. The number of days work, all sitting down, can be counted in weeks.[14]
In contrast, livestock and poultry farmers need to be present daily, all year round, looking after their animals and birds and the pastures in which they feed.
Plow under the corn fields
I advocate that, for the sake of the environment, of our livestock and of our own health, all corn fields be plowed under and replaced with quality pasture for livestock and poultry. Ideally, the fields should be allowed to revert to their natural grasses and leafy greens, but this is not possible because the corn agribusiness has made the soil sterile. Local Indigenous people and historical records should be consulted to determine the proper mix of grasses and greens. These should be planted and nurtured until they can support livestock.
Unlike corn fields, pasture supports an entire ecosystem of plants, small animals, birds, worms and insects.[15]
[1] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 175, 200; Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 38-39
[2] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 46-47
[3] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, pp. 128-140; Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp.44-45
[4] Taubes, Why We Get Fat, pp 122-123, 201-212; Teicholz, The Big Fat Surprise, pp 292-315; Provenza, Nourishment, p. 162, 239-240, 245
[5] Provenza, Nourishment, p. 90-100
[6] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 66-67
[7] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 66-84
[8] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 127, 186-187; Provenza, Nourishment, p. 88
[9] Different pasture ecosystems produce plants that look and taste the same but have different levels of toxins: Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 73-75, 176
[10] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 75
[11] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 70-71, 189-197
[12] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 126, 211-212
[13] Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 66, 153-154, 217-218, 228-229
[14] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 40, 200
[15] Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 136, 265-266
I began to research corn starch and corn syrup after I began to suffer diarrhea after eating them. I have had to eliminate all forms of corn from my diet and, in doing so, discovered it is present in far more foods and nutritional supplements than I would have guessed. I have learned from my research that cattle that are fed corn suffer even worse symptoms than I do. But first, a brief response to those who claim it is better to eat plants than animals. Monoculture is worse for the environment than animals grazing in pasture.
Not Environmental
Indigenous Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer says the soil’s native plants never grow back after a field has been used for corn monoculture. Nothing grows. The soil is sterile, unable to support even a weed.[1] Large quantities of fertilizer enable corn to grow. Fertilizer that is not taken up by the corn is washed in to the streams and rivers polluting our drinking water and the ecosystem that depends on the river.[2]
Kimmerer says the only environmental way to grow corn is the traditional Indigenous way of the Three Sisters. Plant together one seed each of traditional corn, bean and squash. Together they nourish and support each other and the soil, and they control each other’s pests.[3] But the Combines can't deal with mixed agriculture.
Not Nutritious
Modern corn is mostly starch. Indeed, it is primarily used to make starch and high-fructose corn syrup which are common ingredients in most processed foods. This starch and syrup are sugar by another name. When doctors say to reduce consumption of sugar, they mean starch and high fructose corn syrup. Starch is worse than table sugar because it takes longer to digest. If you eat a cube of cane sugar, it gets rapidly into your blood stream causing only a temporary spike in insulin. However, if you eat a cob of corn or any processed food containing starch or corn syrup, the digestive system takes longer to break the starch down into glucose. This causes a steady drip of glucose into your bloodstream, which causes the continuous release of insulin which locks down stored fat until the starch is all digested ending the steady drip of glucose. Starch is addictive. About 2 hours after eating starch, you feel hunger pangs that compel you to eat more starch, which causes the continuous release of insulin, which keeps your stored fat firmly locked up. This is a cause of obesity and diabetes. Those of us who have removed starch from our diets no longer suffer these symptoms of starch-addiction.[4]
Most processed food is starch. We are tricked into thinking we are eating a varied and nutritious diet by the many different flavourings added by the processed food industry and by packaging that touts added vitamins and minerals. Flavoured starch and corn syrup lack nutrients. The added vitamins and minerals cannot replace the many varied combinations of micronutrients that accompany these vitamins and minerals in foods that naturally contain them. Worse, the addition of flavours, vitamins and minerals to starchy foods confuses our innate ability to identify which foods contain which nutrients and suppresses our natural cravings for nutrient rich foods. Our innate ability to eat a nutritious diet depends on a cellular feedback loop that identifies a food containing a needed nutrient with the particular flavour of that food and causes us to crave or prefer the food with the flavour in order to obtain enough of the nutrient.[5] Fred Provenza explains the science behind this in his book Nourishment. It is best to obtain nutrients from diet alone. To enable our innate cellular ability to choose the right foods, it is important to avoid all flavoured processed foods and all foods that have vitamins and minerals added. (I do not suggest avoiding flavour. Add herbs and spices to your home-cooked meals. Natural herbs and spices provide many nutrients. It is only nutrient-poor flavoured foods that I suggest be avoided.)
Not Humane
Most corn fields do not grow corn for human consumption. Most corn is “cow corn”. It is fed to cattle in feedlots and to chickens in large agribusiness chicken barns and to pigs in big pig barns and even to farmed fish. It is not natural or healthy food for any of them.[6]
Corn is not normal cattle food. Cattle normally eat pasture grass and leafy greens; which may include the seeds of those plants but never corn. In feedlots, starchy corn is fed to cattle to fatten them up. It accomplishes this the same way humans get fat if they eat starch. But cattle are even less able than humans to digest starch. Most of it passes through to their rumen where microbes feast on it and produce methane. Cattle do not cause methane air pollution. Their feedlot diet of corn is the cause. Worse, a diet of corn eventually damages their digestive system, causing diarrhea or, at least, sufficient digestive upset to cause them to stop eating. The feedlot agribusiness has perfectly calculated the point at which a steer is fattened by corn but has not yet begun to lose weight due to digestive system failure. This is why each feedlot steer is slaughtered at 14 to 16 months of age.[7]
Animals confined in corn feedlots suffer increased stress, social disorder and aggression. This is unnecessary and inhumane. Cattle that are allowed to graze in pasture containing a good variety of fresh grass and leafy greens are happy and healthy cattle,[8] provided some of the herd are familiar with the plants in that pasture and can show the others which greens are safe to eat.[9] Most human health problems from eating beef are actually caused by corn-fed beef, not by grass fed beef.[10]
This is not as simple as confining cattle in a field, as many farmers do. It is important to the pasture ecosystem that cattle not be allowed to eat the pasture down to plant stubs or bare soil. Cattle should always be on the move to greener pasture, so as to allow the pasture behind to recover[11] and to reduce the amount of manure so that it does not accumulate in quantities that can contaminate drinking water. (Cattle should not be allowed to graze near sources of drinking water.)
Corn is not normal chicken food. Chickens in nature eat maggots, worms, slugs, snails and insects. When this natural diet is scarce, chicken eat seeds to survive.
Cattle and chickens are capable of a symbiotic relationship. The flies that harass cattle tend to lay their eggs in warm cattle manure, which hatch into maggots. If chickens are allowed to follow the cattle through the pasture, they happily eat the maggots growing in cow manure. To expose the maggots, the chickens use their claws to churn and spread the manure ─ fertilizing the pasture.[12]
Cattle and chickens that eat their natural diets provide humans with nutritious dairy, eggs, organs, meat and fat. A person can be healthy eating only the products of healthy animals and poultry, including the fat which is full of nutrients. People who eat only lean corn-fed meat develop cravings for animal and poultry fat, indicative of nutritional deficiency. One can die of a diet free of animal or poultry fat.[13] These cravings should be fed with fat from animals and poultry that ate natural diets.
Lazy Farming
Agribusiness corn farming is the laziest kind of farming. In the spring the farmer sits for several days on a tractor that sprays weed killer, spreads fertilizer and sows the corn in rows across huge fields. At harvest time, the famer sits on a combine for a few days. Then the farmer sells the harvest and goes south for the winter. The number of days work, all sitting down, can be counted in weeks.[14]
In contrast, livestock and poultry farmers need to be present daily, all year round, looking after their animals and birds and the pastures in which they feed.
Plow under the corn fields
I advocate that, for the sake of the environment, of our livestock and of our own health, all corn fields be plowed under and replaced with quality pasture for livestock and poultry. Ideally, the fields should be allowed to revert to their natural grasses and leafy greens, but this is not possible because the corn agribusiness has made the soil sterile. Local Indigenous people and historical records should be consulted to determine the proper mix of grasses and greens. These should be planted and nurtured until they can support livestock.
Unlike corn fields, pasture supports an entire ecosystem of plants, small animals, birds, worms and insects.[15]
[1] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 175, 200; Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 38-39
[2] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 46-47
[3] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, pp. 128-140; Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp.44-45
[4] Taubes, Why We Get Fat, pp 122-123, 201-212; Teicholz, The Big Fat Surprise, pp 292-315; Provenza, Nourishment, p. 162, 239-240, 245
[5] Provenza, Nourishment, p. 90-100
[6] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 66-67
[7] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 66-84
[8] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 127, 186-187; Provenza, Nourishment, p. 88
[9] Different pasture ecosystems produce plants that look and taste the same but have different levels of toxins: Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 73-75, 176
[10] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 75
[11] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, pp. 70-71, 189-197
[12] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 126, 211-212
[13] Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 66, 153-154, 217-218, 228-229
[14] Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 40, 200
[15] Provenza, Nourishment, pp. 136, 265-266
