on corn

Sara is reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. I haven't read it, but she's been telling me some of the things it says about corn. Which is what lead to this little exercise:

Last night we went to Safeway to get some sort of dessert and went about reading all the ingredients lists to find something that didn't have corn products in it. Almost everything in the candy aisle, the cookie aisle and the baked-goods area contain corn syrup. The only exceptions were some imported chocolates and cookies from Europe, and a single type of Mocha-Hot Chocolate powder.

But even if you manage to find something without corn syrup, it's next to impossible to find something that doesn't have any corn related product: corn starch, corn flour... even xanthan gum is derived from corn.

Preview: I'll be posting about two amazing ports this week. Stay tuned.