The Many Ways Corn is Making Americans Unhealthy

Corn is the world’s most widely grown cereal crop. Yes, it’s a grain, not a vegetable, as many mistakenly assume it to be.

Being a grain, corn has been causing health problems for thousands of years. Based on studies done on excavated bones of some Native American tribes in Florida, renowned anthropologist Dr. Clark Spencer Larsen found that a corn-rich diet contributed to serious and widespread disease.

His team found evidence of anemia, dental cavities, osteoarthritis, bone infections and other problems in the bones of Native Americans who lived after the arrival of Europeans and adopted a more homogenous diet largely based on corn, than in those who lived prior to colonization and had a traditional hunter-gatherer diet rich in animal meat, plants and seafood.

Aside from the fact that corn breaks down into sugar very rapidly to increase insulin levels, Dr. Larsen provides other nutritional problems attributed to a corn-rich diet:

• Corn’s sugar content promotes cavities and contributes to poor oral health.
• Corn is a poor source of protein and is usually deficient in 3 of the 8 essential amino acids: lysine, isoleucine and tryptophan.
• Corn contains significant amounts of phytate, a chemical that binds to iron and inhibits its absorption by the body. A diet high in phytate may increase the risk of iron-deficiency anemia, as well as other problems associated with poor iron status.
• Corn is also a poor source of certain minerals such as calcium and some vitamins such as vitamin B3 (niacin). Lack of niacin or the amino acid tryptophan can result in pellagra, which is common in corn-eating communities and can cause a variety of symptoms such as dermatitis, diarrhea, and depression.

The 'Cornification' of America

We are a nation saturated in corn, says Michael Pollan, author of the The New York Times bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma, which examines the American way of eating. Pollan explains that our entire food supply has undergone "cornification" in recent years.

In Mexico, people have been eating corn for centuries, but in the United States, we don’t even see most of the corn we consume, having been heavily processed, usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup, or passed through food animals before it reaches us. Chickens, pigs and cows are fattened with a diet of corn, regardless of whether it is good for them.

Even farm-raised salmon are being bred to feed on corn, because it's the cheapest thing you can feed any animal. Because fish aren’t used to eating corn, who knows what kind of effects it could have.

The dangers of high fructose corn syrup have been well documented. It’s probably no coincidence that the obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemics in America started when we switched from sugar to corn sweeteners in the 1980s. High fructose corn syrup was a blessing for soft drink makers (and a bane for us) because it gave them a cheap sweetener, resulting in bigger servings and marketing budgets.

Other beverages, snacks and processed food products then began using high fructose corn syrup, causing an unhealthy spike in the amount of fructose in our diets. A quarter of the 45,000 items in the average supermarket now contain processed corn, often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

Because corn is such an important crop in America, scientists are constantly looking for ways to increase production, and as a result, genetically modified corn has slowly been introduced in the food supply.

Studies show that the process of genetically altering food can damage the digestive and immune systems of mammals. Rats fed genetically modified corn had smaller kidneys and variations in their blood composition, signs that human health can also be compromised by eating such foods.

These are just some of the dangers of corn and how it is damaging your health. But did you know that our 80 million acres of corn are also causing serious and permanent damage to the health of the environment?

Pollan cites that modern corn hybrids are the greediest of plants because they need more nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide than any other crop. These chemicals find its way into the groundwater and, in the Midwestern corn belt, into the Mississippi River, and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where marine life is dying in a 12,000 square mile area.

Vast amounts of oil and natural gas are also needed to produce the chemicals we apply to our cornfields, which is another way that corn is contributing to pollution.

We should stop sacrificing the health of our bodies and the environment by limiting our corn intake. Eliminating corn from your diet will greatly contribute to your good health and weight loss aspirations. The no grain diet will help you break free from corn and carbohydrate addiction and guide you into selecting the right types of food.

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