Corn Decoded
I
meant to write about corn for a while but a recent comment from a blogger made
me finally do it. The comment was absolutely innocent, simply stating that the
author does not eat corn product. That is fine. I personally do not eat a whole
lot of it but cannot say that go out of my way to avoid it. However I try to
buy Organic corn or products, like chips, made with organically grown corn. The
reason is that organically grown corn is GMO Roundup
Ready free. At least it should be. That
also means that it does not get heavily sprayed with pesticides.
When
I was looking into GMO free corn products I came across research stating that
only about 4% of corn is actually of GMO variety. It mostly is types of corn
used for oil and feed for farm animals and pets but also being added to various
processed foods. Which means that is added to almost anything and there is no
escaping GMO corn, unless you cook and bake absolutely everything from scratch,
which I do not.
I
like the grilled corn in the late summer, tortilla chips and popcorn to snack
on and I wonder how much that affects my health. Not every single cob or chip I
ate had organic origins and considering the abundance of corn byproducts in
everything does it really make sense to go organic route?
Corn is an ingredient in more than 3,000
grocery products according to this website.
The
more I read about corn and especially it’s GMO variety the less I knew. Some
people claim that corn is not rich in nutrients but when you look at mineral
content it has magnesium, selenium, manganese and iron in 25 -50 % range of RDV
I think it is quite good actually. It is
also rich in fibre. Mind you, one serving is a cup.
Corn
is not rich in protein, carbohydrates and vitamins and has high glycemic index.
When a diet is mostly grain based that means that our bodies are deficient in
many essential microelements and omega-6 fatty acids. That can lead to health
complications like cancer,
depression, obesity, allergies, autoimmune diseases such as lupus and
arthritis, diabetes or asthma. Also farm animals raised with corn and soy meals (also GMO) are
lacking in minerals. Consuming their meat means not getting enough nutrients
from that source either.
Corn
is also a host to 22 different types of fungi, some of them give out dangerous, potentially lethal, mycotoxins. You can find a lot of interesting information on both corn and
effect it has on corn fed animals, here:
As
to avoiding corn altogether, see to what lengths the author of this post had to
go to succeed http://www.commondreams.org/views/2013/07/28/bad-seed-health-risks-genetically-modified-corn
I will give you a little expert on where she
found corn based products:
“Back in 2011, though, I was desperate enough that I was
willing to try the diet Mansmann recommended. After all, how hard could it be
to give up corn? The answer was: way harder than I imagined. Corn was my Waldo,
popping up everywhere: in tea bags, juice, and cheese culture; it lined my “to
go” coffee cups and plastic bags of frozen vegetables; it coated my
store-bought apples and was on the bottom of restaurant pizza—almost everything
my family used, no matter how piously natural and organic, had corn in it. It
came under the guise of dozens of names like “xanthan gum,” “natural flavors,”
“free-flowing agents,” “vitamin E,” “ascorbic acid,” “citric acid,” and
“cellulose,” to name a few. Almost daily, I’d find a new culprit. “Damn, this
toothpaste is full of corn!” Then: “Wait, our dish soap is made from corn!” Or:
“Oh my God, iodized salt has dextrose in it!”
Not to mention the corn that is fed to animals whose meat
and eggs I ate, whose milk I drank. “
There
is a lot of conflicting information out there so it is entirely up to us, the
consumers to do as much research as possible and draw our own conclusions. I
find it quite hard to do, not being a biologist or geneticist or even an MD.
Rats!
So
I am sticking to organic when possible and will pay more attention to what
products are made with corn flour and contain corn derived additives (since
they most likely come from GM corn).
At
the end of the day it all comes back to BALANCE. As long as we are aware of what’s
on our plates, where it came from and making sure that grains and grain product
do not make a base for every meal I think we should be fine.
Even
super grains like Chia should not be eaten in large quantities on regular
basis.
Non
GMO shopping in Canada
Non
GMO shopping in USA
Source
of information on GMO’s
What
are your thoughts on GMO Roundup
Ready corn?
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