Beware the Unfamiliar Grain, Corn

Most people can easily name the common grains such as rice, wheat, oats, barley, and rye, but forget that corn also belongs in that category, as they perceive corn to be a vegetable.

Corn is a grain, and it has all the negative health impacts of a grain. According to recent research, the demise of certain Native American Tribes in earlier centuries can be mainly attributed to corn. Their eating patterns shifted away from the primarily meat and vegetation diet of a hunter-gatherer society to a homogenous diet based almost entirely on corn with the arrival of the Spanish. The research shows that the bones of the Native Americans during and after this transition show much higher evidence of anemia, dental cavities, osteoarthritis, infections and other health issues than those who lived prior to this transition.

Corn is relatively high in sugar, which is one of the main reasons it’s America’s number one crop, consuming over 80 million acres of U.S. land and sneaking its way into an endless array of food (and other) products. In its unprocessed or “whole” state, corn offers negligible health benefits at best; sweet corn, for instance, contains vitamin C. However, you are far better off avoiding the corn’s negative health impacts on your health and obtaining higher quantities of vitamin C and many other antioxidants from real vegetables such as broccoli and asparagus.

You are best served by avoiding corn in its processed state. Food with labels containing corn derivatives such as corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, cornmeal, cornstarch, dextrose, monosodium glutamate, xanthan gum, and maltodextrin, have no place in your grocery cart. Corn sweeteners are actually now the most widely produced of all sweeteners, accounting for 55% of sweeteners on the market. This is primarily high fructose corn syrup, which is the dominant ingredient in soft drinks, fruit drinks, cookies, candies and other popular grocery store items.

Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup increased from zero in 1966 to a whopping 62.6 pounds per person in 2001, and is a key culprit in the diabetes and overweight epidemic. There is one more “hiding place” for corn that you must be aware of: in your beef. Most of the beef you’ll find in grocery stores, and virtually all the beef used in fast food and other restaurants, is from cattle that were force-fed diets high in corn.

There are two more factors you should know about corn. First, corn is only second to soybeans as the most genetically modified (GMO) crop in the U.S. GMOs, which were first introduced in 1995, are a potential disaster waiting to happen, as no studies have been done with humans to show what happens when genetically modified foods are consumed. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has assumed that these modified foods are equivalent to the original foods, and therefore, does not require any studies to have them approved. This is despite the fact that: 1) this technology has never before existed in the history of the world, and 2) the United State’s track record on genetically engineered safety is terrible.

Second, as you can read in detail in Doug Kaufmann and Dr. David Holland’s book, Infectious Diabetes, corn is one of the foods highest in mycotoxins (wheat and several other grains are high as well), which are toxins from fungus that can lead to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a wide host of other serious diseases.

Nevertheless, there is hope! One of the most profoundly important changes you can make immediately in your diet is to switch to consuming healthy meat. Atop this list is choosing nutritious and safe alternatives to corn-fed beef, such as grass-fed beef or grass-fed bison, which are discussed in detail in Chapter 4 and used in some of the recipes in this book.

Learn What You Currently Eat and Drink