rough draft 1

Biggest Liar: the Corn in the Room

Draft 1

Karina Garcia

Garcia

Humanities

5 November 2010

Abstract:  This research paper takes on the topic of food in the sense that it no longer is pure and simple, yet it is biochemically engineered to appear a certain way by adding certain chemicals and ingredients that help boost shelf life or help bring in the cash flow.  I will reveal the crop of lies that encumbers our food, and remove the veil of ignorance because as consumers we have the right to know the truth.  The secrets they are hiding, once revealed can change the diet of Americans forever, because what they don’t want you to know is that you have the power as the consumer to vote on your food, three times a day.

            Since, a young age I have loved food, the taste, the smell, and the sight.  Though I never considered that some of my food had been created and engineered to look and be a certain way, I didn’t know that the beef I was probably consuming had mostly fat and no nutrition value.  I also didn’t know that because I love white meat chicken better than dark meat, that chickens were being mass -produced with larger breasts. Of course, as I matured I grew to understand that eating fast food, was bad because it made you fat, and that I couldn’t eat candy and treats everyday. This was accepted, to be healthy you had to avoid junk food and exercise regularly. But, is this enough to be healthy, the food industry would like me to answer yes. Though the right answer is definitely not, to be a truly healthy individual functioning at your intended God given capacity, you need to consume a certain percentage of raw foods that will elevate your intake of vitamins and minerals. Also, you should stick to a strictly organic diet, to avoid eating so much corn which has begun to dominate the American diet. Right about now, you might have begun to be confused, what you say, raw foods and organics? Corn, I don’t eat very much corn. Though you shouldn’t fret, the veil will be lifted, no matter what America will know the truth because they cannot lie to us forever.

            Walk into any ordinary American supermarket and without much effort you will quickly find yourself immersed in a land of deceit, the label reads “heart healthy”, but in fact it most likely has the opposite effect. This is because although some ingredients may be tuned to promote heart health, the 14 g of sugar on the label will produce the opposite effect, thus making you think your eating well, when you really are not. Similarly products advertising for whole wheat were free of the healthy grain. “Just a few days ago, a survey conducted by the John Tung Foundation discovered that out of a random sample of over 400 food products claiming to be "whole grain" or "whole wheat," 10 percent was completely devoid of the healthy ingredients”(anonymous). Food companies are blatantly lying to us to purchase their products, but what is confounding is how they are getting away with it when the “The Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 6 issued regulations providing for the most sweeping reforms in food labeling in 50 years. The regulations provide guidance for implementing the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. The new labels, scheduled to appear on products in stores in May 1993, were to provide reliable information about the nutritional content of food.” To avoid the laws companies find loopholes in the system, since sugar is difficult to calculate for nutritional value the FDA does not include it in part of the process, thus allowing food companies a major loophole.

            During the Great Depression consumers look to find good quality affordable meals, this happened around the time that McDonalds restaurants started to advertise the all American meal. The demand for their product was very high, so the ever growing company began to find new ways to make products last and to make production faster, make protein sources and produce fatter, and make everything cheaper. This slowly growing epidemic grew by this foundation the underlying factor always being money. Food companies began to produce high fructose corn syrup, which helped to boost shelf life, and make the product look and taste better, though they knew its effects on the human body, they didn’t have a second thought, what did they care that they were giving their customers heart disease and higher cholesterol. They also began using a cheaper alternative oil to fry their French fries in: palm oil, a saturated fat. Apart from using unhealthy ingredients fast food companies began to grow so large and powerful, and they used their power as the top purchaser of proteins such as: beef, pork, and chicken, to help them control the system. They began growing chickens twice as big in half the time and similarly in beef the cows were being bread for 5 months when before they took 4 to 5 years to reach their full size. This seems almost impossible, but as companies learned about the potential of corn, corn rose to power and infected thousands of products from apples to chickens.