1 comment print

We at the Yonder realize that everything in America these days is moral. But corn? We watched a video of Michelle Obama talking with school kids about the coming White House garden. She asks the kids about gardening and one student brings up the "three sisters" — the combination of corn, beans and squash that sustained families for generations. "Are we having the three sisters?" asks the First Lady. Nope.  The Whites House garden will only have two, beans and squash. "We're not going to have corn," said the First Gardener. See the video here.

Corn is baaaaaad. Corn makes us guzzle tanks of soda and wolf down box after box of Big Macs -- or so we're told. Corn is an "evil" crop these days, grown only to make expensive biofuels and to concoct corn syrup to make our schoolchildren fat. The New York Times reported this week that corn has gotten such a bad name that companies are advertising that their products have "natural" sugar. Pepsi Natural is the drink without corn syrup. And "natural" foods is a national movement, led by chef Alice Waters (above, with no corn).

Why corn is UN-natural is never exactly explained. The last we looked, corn grew out of the ground just like cane. The New York Times explains this week there is really little difference and that if a tyke guzzles a gallon of Pepsi Natural each day he'll get just as tubby as a kid who downs a gallon of pop sweetened with corn syrup. Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco Children’s Hospital, said: “The argument about which is better for you, sucrose or HFCS, is garbage. Both are equally bad for your health.” Only one, however, makes you feel righteous.