King Corn!

We finally saw the movie KING CORN! Woooha!

After seeing Food, Inc. and Supersize Me, King Corn is a great film that takes you to the root of the problem. How, why and where corn is used in our food system- which is everywhere! Yup, it's making us fat!

This film is entertaining and informative - it traces the complete life cycle of corn, from seed to grain elevator to soda and your cheap hamburgers. College friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis decide to move from the East Coast to Iowa for one year - to find out what it takes to grow and acre of corn, and where it goes.

Besides the facts about corn it is very interesting to see the lives of farmers in Iowa, and how they have changed over the last few decades due to politics and how America has come to use high fructose corn syrup in everything. None of the corn grown is edible right off of the plant - it is bred to be high in starches, and must be processed into myriad forms in order to be consumed.

I also loved the graphs, charts and little stop motion animated segments illustrating facts about corn farming and how it has grown. The time and detail put into these handmade features perhaps says something about how much time these guys had to sit around waiting for their one acre of corn to grow.

Now.. the challenge... eat nothing with corn in it for a full month! I am tempted to try...although I feel my options will be quite limited!