So Much Corn: Corn-Fed Animals Strike Again.

I know I have posted different articles about corn in the past, but corn seems to be in the news a bit lately. As a fresh piece of produce, no one is denying the nutrition I have mentioned earlier, however (love that word), that does not mean I want it snuck (sneaken/sneaked?) into my diet at every opportunity just so corn farmers can make more money and deplete soil and pollute with pesticides even further (somehow, I have the feeling this is going to have negative repercussions). I love corn. I love corn grown on small farmsteads fresh from the fields. I do not want a CORN BURGER when I crave grease, though. Is real beef too much to ask? Apparently it is.

A recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS) showed that the burgers we order at random fast food joints are mostly corn. I don't eat at these places often but about twice a year, I will admit, I do get a craving for all things artery clogging. The scientists discovered this by doing a chemical analysis in burgers, chicken, and french fries from certain fanchises. The sample size was quite large (more than 480). The study found that you could actually determine chemically how much corn was in the diet of the animals... and french fries. Of the meat tested, only 12 samples showed that the animal may have been fed less corn than other animals.

Strange how what we feed the animals comes back to haunt us, but there you have it. The beef tested actually contained more corn-like values than you would expect. People on the West Coast, rejoice, though, beef there was found to have less of a "C-value," C for carbon, not corn, than the beef served on the East Coast. Middle America was a toss up. What does this mean for Average Consumer Person? So far, nothing yet. There are still tests being done determining the affects of corn byproducts on the human body at John Hopkins. Until the the results are in though, buy grass-fed beef or bison and make your own.

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More Corn

My post yesterday got me thinking of the amounts of corn I am going to eat this weekend whether in the form of cornbread, corn on the cob, the cornflakes that make fried chicken so crispy and other things (like the horrid high fructose corn syrup that makes soda-pop so yummy). This, in turn, got me thinking of what health benefits fresh corn has (not the evil refined things we get force fed in our cereals and juices). I can't help these trains of thought, I'm a science geek. It happens daily.

The good news is fresh ears of corn (grilled with a tiny drizzle of olive oil and salt please!) are LOADED with fiber and B vitamins. Corn also has a lot of complex carbs and essential fatty acids. If you are a carb friendly person, like me, this doesn't seem so scary. White corn is deficient in vitamin A but yellow corn has plenty of vitamin A. Corn also has lutein, so it's good for your eyes! There is even a bit of vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, magnesium and phosphorus. A serving is 1/2 a cup and counts as starchy veggies.

Now that guilty pleasure doesn't seem so guilty does it? Get to grillin'!

Happy Emancipation Day! (July 3rd, Virgin Islands)

Photo from the USDA website so is Public Domain.

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The New Environmentally-Friendly (?!?!) Plastic

This photo is from the USDA and is therefore public domain.

There is a new plastic (well not that new) on the market and it's gaining popularity. This plastic is made from corn and touts its biodegradability. The material is polylactic acid and it has been known about for over a century. It is only now gaining popularity due to another wave (similar to the early 90's) of eco-consciousness.

While this new plastic does have a few things going for it (a renewable resource and, in principle, compostable) there are a few things a lot of people haven't really studied or answered.

The pros:

• Regular plastics use an average of 200,000 barrels of oil a day to produce our demand
• Corn is a renewable resource and the plants help offset the amount of carbon produced in the plastic's manufacture
• Plastics take up 25% of dumps by volume
  
• PLA (polylactic acid) is compostable within 3 months at a controlled composting facility
• It costs less than $1.00 to make a pound of PLA (see here)
• Generates less air pollution to make
  

The cons:

• PLA takes much longer to compost in a bin or even in a landfill
• There are only 113 controlled compost facilities nationwide... only a quarter of these facilities accept residential scraps
• PLA must be kept separate from other plastics to keep it from tainting their recycling process
• Estimates for this breaking down in landfills are anywhere between 100 and 1,000 years (see here)
• Cannot survive temperatures of 114 degrees Fahrenheit
  

Possible cons (of the controversial type)

• Made of highly genetically modified food
• Is using a food product to make non-food stuffs while people are going hungry
• Still supports single use and disposables still adding to landfills

So it seems that the pros and cons are evenly matched and there are some controversial issues that are brought up... but I guess at least it is a start in the right direction. At least there is a push for biodegradable containers.

The biggest manufacturer of PLA in North America is NatureWorks. Go check out the website and tell me what you think!

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