King Corn
In King Corn Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are two Ivy league grads who after analyzing their hair samples discover that the carbon in their body is mostly made up of corn. They also discover that they are the first generation to potentially have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation. Both of these issues are directly related to our diet and what we eat.
Determined to find out how corn has become such a staple of the American diet they move out to Iowa to grow an acre of corn. After convincing a farmer to lend them an acre of land they set out planting a crop. Little did they know planting and growing the crop would be the easy part, once their acre of corn ended up in the commercial grain system it was easier said than done tracking it’s progress as it was processed into other products.
Wanting to find out exactly what happens to all this corn lead them to examine the underbelly of American corn production. They begin by explaining why America in particular produces so much corn, how it’s subsidized and how the corn differs from the corn we eat at the dinner table.
They also discover how corn has seeped into every corner of the food supply, from artificial sweetners, to hamburgers, all of it corn. The fact that just about everything we eat is corn based has drastically altered our health, and not necessarily for the better.