Nickel
curiouser and curiouser
Hippies don't hate corn, they hate overprocessed food. Too much of anything is no good, and corn (and soy, for that matter) is hidden in a lot of foods.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Thread starter Cowgirl
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smdavis65
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I hate hippies.
lnmarsh
Love * Luck * Faith
Ah ha! Thank you! I learned something new today
I am ok with it in the sense that it can be used as feed “filler” so that farmers are not faced with having their livestock survive solely on roughage (hay, grass, etc). I guess I should have been more specific. I don’t like that livestock are being fed corn as the primary ingredient of their diet. But corn as a filler say, when pastures fry due to overgrazing, drought, etc., is OK with me. Of course a 100% natural fed cow is best but most times its not possible and/or is very hard on the farmer.
Cowgirl
Well-Known Member
The thing is, it's not used as a filler now. It's used as the primary feed source, which is highly unnatural for the animal. When you say the animals are having to "survive solely on roughage", that's exactly what they're meant to do, and what they've been doing for thousands of years. When there's a drought, you feed hay or haylage. It wouldn't be hard on the farmer if that was the standard like it used to be.
lnmarsh
Love * Luck * Faith
No no no... I think Im not making my point clear.
I completely agree with you. Period.
What I meant is that I am OK with it being used as a filler if need be. The way it is being used/fed to animals now is crazy; I know its not being used as a filler, its the animal's primary food source.
Yes, they should be fed only on roughage. Yes, they should be given hay when the pastures need a break. Thats how it should be, definitely. I was just saying that I am OK with the idea of using corn as a filler here and there when there is a need.
Cowgirl
Well-Known Member
I gotcha.
See, and I don't subscribe to the "there's too much of it, so that must be bad" line of thinking. Corn is a product, like anything else. You cannot feed cattle on grass alone because it's not sustainable, not as much beef as we go through in this country. I don't see the problem with corn fuel at all.
Corn, like soy, is easy to grow, cheap and abundant. That's why we use it instead of crops that are hard to grow, expensive, and in limited production. It just makes more sense. And if we start messing with that, we make all sorts of products more expensive, which will bring on a new set of problems.
Corn is like the new DDT. There's been nothing wrong with it, no problems, then some hippie came along and demonized it, with adverse results and unintended consequences.
Corn, like soy, is easy to grow, cheap and abundant. That's why we use it instead of crops that are hard to grow, expensive, and in limited production. It just makes more sense. And if we start messing with that, we make all sorts of products more expensive, which will bring on a new set of problems.
Corn is like the new DDT. There's been nothing wrong with it, no problems, then some hippie came along and demonized it, with adverse results and unintended consequences.
Cowgirl
Well-Known Member
Is it cheap? Really? Or are we as tax payers just helping to make it cheap?
And I think there have been problems with it before now. We as consumers are learning more about it on our own and not just relying on the government or major corporations to tell us what to believe.
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What should we help make cheap instead of corn?
I mean, seriously. "Oh, this is cheap and abundant, so let's don't use it. Let's use something expensive and limited instead."
Help me understand that.
That's because it doesn't. Every day "they" come out with some study that makes a wild claim, or refutes some previous study. Yet we still listen to this crap and believe it. It's madness, I tell ya, madness!
Was there any research done to come to this opinion or did you just pick the anti cane sugar side and go with it? Cane sugar contain lactose, sucrose, and fructose, the first two cause the body to produce the hormone leptin which causes the hypothalmus to to signal that you are getting full. Without this signal the only way your body knows you're getting full is because it has become uncomfortable (like the feeling of a large gas bubble). So the difference is drink a cane sugar sweetened soda and you feel full, drink a HFCS sweetened soda and you don't.
I am not anti-sugar at all. I'm just not anti-corn, and I don't think I have to pick one or the other. However when something is demonized by the media like this, you can pretty much bet there's someone behind it with a dog in the fight. And in this case, the logical suspect would be the cane sugar people.
migtig
aka Mrs. Giant
:sigh: Because it's not really "cheap". Kind of like welfare isn't really free money. And because of the way it is supported with taxpayer money, the production of that product is causing more harm than good long term, not just to the "product" but to the land, soil, other crops and food products, and of course any possible loong term helath consequences that would not have been ovserved as of yet.
This has nothing to do with being a "hippie" and everything to do with learning from our history and observing the land and soil and even animals that are raised for food production. :shrug:
Eating a pound of butter is going to put on signifigantly more weight than a pound of celery. Fat is easily metabolized, celery containing a high amount of fiber and a low nutritional density, isn't.
Nickel
curiouser and curiouser
I'm totally on board with the idea that food is a business and you can't assume that the media is looking out for our best interests. But I also think that people are starting to be more discerning and the internet/social media allows them to be vocal about their choices, without some hidden agenda. I can't see people like Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan being influenced by the food corporations when that's what they're adamantly against.
I don't see anything wrong with paying attention to ingredient labels and I think it's interesting that food that's been processed to within an inch of it's life costs less than something plucked straight from the ground.
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Cowgirl
Well-Known Member
Why do we need to make something cheap? I'm against subsidizing like this, because it does no good. Let's pay the REAL price of the food we eat.
Who is anti corn? I'm not. I'm anti-processed food that turns off receptors in your body saying you're full. I'm anti-liars like Corn Refiners Association that make claims that HFCS is the same as sugar. It's not. Why are they the only ones saying it is? Why do we not see any independent studies claiming the same?
Oh, and I'm anti-society not caring where or how their food is grown or processed.
Exactly. What does Michael Pollan have to gain by saying the things he does?
But we are not talking about product weight - we are talking about caloric value. Yes, you will have to eat an awful lot of celery to get to 3,500 calories. And I think celery is actually a negative because you burn more calories chewing and digesting it than you consume. So that's not a good comparison, unless you just sit around eating celery all day, which creates its own health problems.
3,500 calories is 3,500 calories, no matter where it comes from.
Pete
Repete
I didn't say a "pound" of XXX, versus a pound of YYY, I said 3,000-something calories of XXX is no different than 3,000-something calories of YYY.
3K calories of butter might be 2 sticks. 3K calories of celery is probably a laundry basket full.
Tell that to the poor people who are having a hard time buying their groceries now. Or should we just increase their WIC and welfare payments to make up for it? Maybe say to hell with them and let them starve? Switch to beans and rice like they do in third-world countries, so the food Nazis can start complaining about that?
I mean, what?