The Empire of Corn II
Another serving of corn for you, on this fine Friday afternoon. Open wide...
It’s Friday. Welcome to another essay post from me, the Raw Egg Nationalist, on my Substack. This one’s about corn again. More corn!? Yes, more corn. But corn is important. In fact, it’s probably the most important food commodity in the US today, besides soy. The industrial corn system is responsible for America being the country it is today, for good and ill, and for Americans being the people they are today, for good and ill. In short, I think it’s impossible to understand America and Americans without understanding corn.
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In my most recent book, The Eggs Benedict Option, and in essays for American Greatness and this Substack, I’ve discussed at length how important corn is for understanding the state of the US today. And by that I don’t just mean the terrible state of Americans’ health as a result of record levels of corn consumption via processed food and industrial confabulations like high-fructose corn syrup. I also mean the state of the American economy, American politics and America’s relations with the rest of the world. From the vast oceans of corn produced in the Midwest, enormous tributaries flow to other countries, including the US’s southern neighbour, Mexico.
In recent years, however, since the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO, for short) as Mexican president in 2018, the US has had a serious corn problem on its doorstep. You see, 90% of American corn is now genetically modified, and AMLO and many Mexicans don’t want genetically modified corn: they don’t want it imported, and they don’t want domestic producers growing it either. They say it’s a health risk. Billions of dollars of US corn exports are at risk, as well as the profits of American corporations that produce genetically modified corn seeds and the pesticides, like Roundup, that are used to treat genetically modified corn.
As we know, when billions of dollars of American money are threatened, the American government tends not to react well. And they aren’t reacting well.
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