Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I Ramble on About Corn

Lab Results
Well, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with my lab results. I got a 5.4% on my Ha1c, which is .2% lower than 12 weeks ago. And last time I was taking 2000 mg of Metformin a day. This time around I was only taking 500 mg. Maybe by the next go around I won't be taking any. That's one of my goals, anyway.

Corn
I've talked briefly in the past about the paleo (or primal) diet. We were designed to eat meat, vegetables, berries and nuts. When refined grains and sugar were added to our diets, humans as a species started developing problems, like diabetes and heart disease. Study after study has indicated that when these refined grains and sugars are introduced into native diets, populations who've never shown signs of these diseases start getting them at an alarming rate.

When we eat animals, we eat what they eat. So if you feed a cow grass (which we can't digest)—and which is what cows are supposed to eat—we end up getting the benefits of what's in the grass. For example omega-3s and leaner, tastier beef.

If you feed a cow corn, which is the norm now thanks to those horrendously inhumane feedlots all over the Midwest, along with lots of government subsidies for growing the stuff, the cow will eat the corn. But the cow will not be a happy, healthy cow because its digestive system isn't designed to eat grains. So the cow requires lots of antibiotics to combat all the beasties growing in his tummy caused by his diet and his living conditions. When you eat this cow, or drink milk from this cow, you get a dose of antibiotics with every serving, whether you want it or not. Which is why, in many a parents' opinion, girls are getting their periods as 8-year-olds instead of 12 or 13 and young boys may develop breasts. How sick is that?

Now, yes, botanically speaking, corn, wheat, rye and oats are grasses. But we don't eat the leafy green part of the grass and neither does our livestock. When you eat corn and other grains, you're eating the seeds.

Then there are all the weird things that come out of corn as byproducts made in a laboratory somewhere. The worst of which is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This stuff is amazingly cheap to produce and a lot cheaper to use in processed foods than sugar. Remember back in the eighties when Coca Cola came out with New Coke? Well, the new part was that they stopped using cane sugar and switched to HFCS. Candy bars used to actually have sugar in them, too.

Fast forward 20+ years and a good portion of us are twice our normal size now. So as a culture did our diet really get that bad in 20 years or is maybe HFCS to blame for some of it? Personally, I think the stuff's addictive in some form, if my problems with processed foods were anything to go by.

I warned you this was a ramble. I have no clever way to wrap this up. Just something to think about.

4 comments:

Marianne said...

Great post and I agree with you about the HFCS.... it's everywhere and practically in everything.
I thought it was the 70s though, when they started using it a lot...

Good going on the lab results!

katrynka said...

I have to agree with you about hfcs. I think that it is addictive in some way. I had such a hard time kicking the soda habit. I really craved the stuff. My huband and I just started eating grassfed beef, and we love it. We will not go back to store bought. We are looking for some good pork and chicken/egg people near us, and then I will lean more toward vegetarian when I am not eating at home.

snappydawg said...

Marianne: I could be off on the dates with the HFCS. I think New Coke came out around my freshman year of college (along with music videos!), around 1981. ;-)

Naomi said...

I am glad your tests continue to improve and your dependance on the meds is going down too. That is something to celebrate!

I'm so motivated by your example. I must say I have been working out and have been walking on average 3.5-4 miles a day. Yes I've been at the gym but at a different time than you! See what you have done? Thanks so much!

Also - G is drinking the old coke - you can get it now with sugar not the hfcs. He's trying to kick the habit but he likes his coke so he buys the one with the sugar instead(the ones in the glass bottles).