King Corn

I'm a documentary watcher. The really good ones present a story for you and let you form your own opinions. The best ones are the ones that make you ask questions and think, "wow... I didn't know that." Last night I watched King Corn.

From Netflix:

In Aaron Woolf's thought-provoking documentary, friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis move back to America's Corn Belt to plant an acre of the nation's most-grown and most-subsidized grain in an attempt to follow their crop into the U.S. food supply. What they discover about genetically modified seeds, powerful herbicides and the realities of modern farming calls into question government subsidies, our fast-food lifestyle and the quality of our food.

Being a parent has made me aware of food in a way that I wasn't before. How much we buy, how much it costs and especially what we feed our kids. One thing that we have tried to cut out of our diet is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This was even before I had heard about King Corn. We make sure that the juice we buy doesn't have it, we buy ketchup now that doesn't have it, and no more soda. We are finding out that it is hard to buy items without HFCS. After watching this documentary, I can see why. HFCS should be on the same list of "very bad for you ingredients" as trans-fats, or hydrogenated oils.

So the one question that watching this film brought up: is the federal government, through their agriculture policies over the last thirty years, inadvertently making us literally fat and happy?

Take ninety minutes of your week and check this documentary out. If you have Netflix, it is available for instant viewing on your computer.