Corn Facts

The first invaluable thing I have learned from the first chapter of Omnivore’s Dilemma is: Corn is everywhere. Of the 45,000 items present in the average grocery store, one quarter contain corn (p. 18). The combination of modern chemicals and decades of corn surplus have produced a miraculously homogenous list of food products and ingredients.

In his first chapter, Pollan presents a historically and socially informed explanation of how and why there is so much corn. His investigation covers the plight of the modern farmer, the role of government subsidies, the capitalization of agriculture, and the desires of the modern corn consumer. But what stuck with me, is the unnatural accident of corn’s oligarchy. From the haphazard mutation which created the first kernels, from the characteristics which made it attractive to and simultaneously dependent on man, to its too-good-to-be-true genetic engineering potential, corn’s international success does not originate from the wheel of genetic fortune, but from its symbiotic interaction with earth’s dominant species, man.

Corn, or Zea mays, is the result of a mutation of an origin species, believed to be the teosinte plant. This mutation resulted in the large cobs with large kernels that provide storable nutrients but which require our attention to husk and distribute the seeds (p. 27). At the same time, the distance from the pollen producing tassel to the pollen receiving corn silk just invites interference from us, something Native Americans started doing to produce hybrids with desired features. Fast-forward to the early twentieth century, when corn breeders figured out how to cross two, inbred strains of corn to create the seeds of the so-called the F-1 Generation. Fortuitously, the F-1 plant produces identical plants and higher yields, but also, creates a F-2 generation seeds which produces less than one third the yield of their parents. Therefore, in order to produce competitive yields, F-1 corn seed must be bought each year from a breeder. This discovery represents a significant turning point in the history of corn agriculture and its intersection with capitalism; by producing a seed which cannot reproduce itself, agri-breeding companies’ transformed corn from an agricultural product into a commodity and ultimately, intellectual property. As Pollan states, this was the “biological equivalent to a patent” (p 31). What has become clear to me was that corn's rise to dominance in our fields and our diets was anything but natural.

About a decade ago, during three weeks of early, damp, and hot summer mornings, I unknowingly participated in this corporate creation of corn. As a corn detasseler, I was paid to walk up and down every-other row in a corn field, removing the tassels of the ‘female’ plant in order that the pollen from the ‘male’ plants would fertilize the whole field, producing an F-1 generation of hybrid corn seeds. At the time, I understood the simple science behind hybridization, but not how I was part of the vast industrial corn-chain. Standing in dark pre-dawn field, dwarfed by the corn stalks and soaked by dew, I felt close to nature, part of the ancient practice of agriculture, and I felt surrounded by food. However, it seems that a simple food chain no longer exists. That corn field was not full of food, but full of potential, somewhat absurdly, it was full of the potential to make more corn. The kernels I helped produce that summer must have had enough potential yield, and critically, enough potential profit to warrant two growing seasons of effort and time, rather than one. It is at this point, when Mother-nature is no longer ruler of that field, that the farm becomes factory.

While tracing the origins of corn to farmer in Iowa, Pollan experiences a similar disillusionment. There, the average farmer keeps 129 Americans in corn and soy beans, but they cannot survive as a family of four (p. 34). When we think of the Canadian Prairies and the American Mid-West we think of pioneers and rolling fields of wheat waving in the wind, and we think of that as a natural landscape, worked by people of the earth. Standing in corn fields, an activity now part of my day-job (see profile pic), used to make me feel connected to the cycle of life between sun, soil, and sustenance, but that is an outsider’s antiquated understanding of agriculture. Today, corn fields are mechanically and chemically managed factories, the same as any plastics or carpet works. The green leaves and dark soils of rural North America are just a facade, because those waxy leaves are coated in pesticides, some derived from their corn ancestors, and the dirt is black with synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, not the organic leavings of plants gone before.

We must put aside our pastoral delusion of the family farmer coaxing life and sustenance from the land and open our eyes to the reality of industrialized agriculture. Agri-business has superseded the relationship between man and nature in favour of cross-continental consistency and even higher yields at lower cost and, of course, more profit. If over the last one hundred years the countryside had been walled in, and roofed over to create manufacturing floors and warehouses, would we have been so complacent in the Factorization of our food chain? I don't think so.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

One of the most championed pieces of literature linking our current food culture to the reality of our environment and our health is "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. I'm reading it upon strong recommendations and no doubt some of this dilemma will inform my own choices in consumption.

Although having only completed the introduction, one poignant quote has stuck with me: "Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds" (p. 10).

To me this sentence synthesizes much of the allure and power of cuisine has over us; culture is the pivot point that all our food choices hinges on, going back and forth between the nodes of pleasure, convenience, nutrition, and emotion. We all struggle to find the balance and this enculturation of food is a trait unique to the human. Although primatologists have proven to us that chimpanzees cracking nuts for food is a learned behavior passed down through generations, the nutcracker chimp's experience cannot compare to what it means for a Neapolitan to prepare a hierloom spaghetti, or to drink Champagne direct from France, or even what it means to impulsively wheel into a McDonald's drive-through. Food, and the preparation, serving, eating, and presentation of it, is a most ritualized realm. We are what we eat, not just in terms of molecules and vitamins, but also in identity.

Pollan poses that the current North American pathological obsession with eating is bred of a lack of strong food culture. Without rooted traditions holding us to tried and true recipes for proper nutrition coupled with soul-soothing family favourites that cater to our physical and sentimental needs, we North Americans were left wide open to the influx of a modern express culture of take-out and frozen entrees, a culture impoverished in nutrients and narrative.

This explains a universal reluctance to reject our long-time touch-stone staples such as pot-pie or cupcakes in favour of a low-fat, low-culture diet. Even our fast-food nation has infused food with meaning, and we desire the consumption of that meaning daily, sometimes hourly, to reinforce our place and persona within the world. This addiction has created an American-sized portion of health problems and environmental strain. It's time for us to start counting calories and redefine our consumption culture, to satisfy and nourish both body and soul.