I haven’t had any reviews of books or documentaries but that is all about to change. I just saw “King Corn” and was blown away. This is an informative, important look at how the Standard American Diet or SAD as is more appropriate has far reaching effects on our health and how corn is an integral ingredient in this toxic potion.

The film begins when we meet Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis getting their hair analyzed. Hair is a tape recorder of diet and the isotope analysis shows that the carbon in their body primarily originates from corn. They are made out of corn!

Our diets will shorten our generations lifespan and this will be the first time we live shorter lives then the previous generation. Anyone in the health care field can see this process happening.

So what do they do? Best friends Ian and Curt move to Greene, Iowa to grow an acre of corn and experience what it is like and where the corn goes. They grow Yellow Dent Corn, a field corn destined for cattle feed or industrial processing - this isn’t your Hamptons sweet corn.

They produce about 180 bushels of corn, or 5 tons of food per acre, about 10,000 pounds. It took them 31,000 seeds per acre to produce this yield and with the sophisticated machinery only 18 minutes to plant.

Some corn ends up being made into industrial products that become processed foods. Just about every processed food out there contains corn solids, high fructose corn syrup, or some other hydrolyzed corn product hidden behind a chemical name. 70% of high fructose corn syrup ends in beverages. One of the scary ingredients in corn syrup is sulfuric acid, or what you may be more familiar with - battery acid.

But the real scary part is that most of this corn ends up feeding livestock - and this is how we become made up of corn. We eat meat that is made of corn, thus we are made of corn.

For instance, grass-fed free-range livestock take several years to reach maximum yield. This is too slow. So what do they do? They don’t let them move - thats what feedlots are for. Cattle are fed a corn diet for up to 150 days. But they start getting sick with something called acidosis. This is fatal unless treated. This is why livestock consume 70% of the antibiotics used in this country (low doses to combat acidosis). Guess where these antibiotics wind up…yup, in you.

Grain fed livestock is obese (like we get from processed foods), muscle tissue looks more like fat. For instance there are 9 grams of saturated fat verse 1.3 grams of saturated fat per grass fed cow. Hamburgers are fat disguised as meat (65 % of calories are fat). But we can’t blame the producers- Americans demand cheap food so the cycle continues. 16% of our individual wealth is spent on food. This is the best case scenario, 50 years ago this number was double. We are the first generation where abundance brings too much and shortens our lifespan.

Here is the counterpoint put out by the Corn Association.

So I can, so I can
See the light that’s right before my eyes.

-From the 1984 Corey Hart song

And thats some pretty good advice with some new research coming out. From Sharon Moalem’s “Survival of the Sickest“:

“As everybody knows, skin color changes, to some extent, in response to sun exposure. The trigger for that response is the pituitary gland. Under natural circumstances, almost as soon as you are exposed to the sun, your pituitary gland produces hormones that act as boosters for your melanocytes, and your melanocytes start producing melanin in overdrive. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to disrupt that process. The pituitary gland gets it’s information from the optic nerve - when the optic nerve senses sunlight, it signals the pituitary gland to kick-start the melanocytes. Guess what happens when you’re wearing sunglasses? Much less sunlight reaches the optic nerve, much less warning is sent to the pituitary gland, much less melanocyte-stimulating hormone is released, much less melanin is produced - much more sunburn results. If you’re reading this on the beach with your Ray-Bans on, do your skin a favor - take them off.”

This brings us to the topic of Vitamin D and how it can help prevent many forms of cancer. It’s estimated that up to 50,000 people die from cancers that could have been prevented from proper Vitamin D levels. Now, whats the cheapest most effective way to regulate our Vitamin D without overdosing? Sunshine!

I remember a time when my next door neighbor, a biodynamic gardner, took me out to climb Mt. Yale, a 14′er in Buena Vista, Colorado. He abstained from putting sunblock on and when I asked if he was scared of getting skin cancer, he unexpectedly told me, “Yes” and that’s why he wasn’t wearing sunblock. huh? He told me that sunblock was actually implicated in skin cancer. Now I’ve never seen this study before and I’m not saying it’s true, it just got me thinking. The skin is a major detox organ and is going to be damaged by the toxins in our body - not necessarily by the sun. Since we evolved underneath this solar bath for millions of years why all of a sudden has it become poisonous? That makes no sense.

The FDA recommends 200-400 IU’s daily. Guess what - 15 minutes in the sun should garner your body the best type of Vitamin D possible, the endogenous kind, and in the 10,000-15,000 IU’s range (this varies due to altitude, skin color, and latitude). Remember, once the skin shows signs of gently turning pink in the sun- you’ve had enough. Don’t go crazy now - over doing the sun exposure by tanning can prematurely age the skin and increase skin cancer rates. You must build a tolerance this spring just like you need to rebuild your muscles after relaxing on your couch all winter. Avoid tanning beds and go to the source. When you’ve had enough, make sure to avoid sunblocks loaded with toxins. Go biodegradable and organic. Here is a page of good sunblocks. Here is what you want to avoid:

Para Amino benzoic acid (PABA)
Avobenzone
Cinoxate
Dioxybenzone
Homosalate
Menthyl anthranilate
Octocrylene
Octo methoxycinnamate
Octyl salicylate
Oxybenzone
Padimate O
Phenylbenzimidazole
Sulisobenzone
Trolamine salicylate

The question I have and that I want to leave you with is, is there a correlative between the massive widespread use of UV protected eye wear in our culture with a rise in skin cancer?
I’m going to listen to Corey Hart and only wear my sunglasses at night so I can…

UNTIL he met a reclusive tribe of near-mythical athletes at the bottom of a Mexican canyon, Micah True could never figure out why his running injuries got worse as his running shoes got better. Then, the Tarahumara Indians taught him a lesson that even Nike is now starting to embrace: the best shoe may be no shoe at all.

Mr. True, 53, from Nederland, Colo., wasn’t the only one baffled by the injury mystery. For years kinesiology professors, physical therapists and athletic-shoe designers have been puzzling over the same paradox: if running shoe protection and cushioning have improved, why haven’t injuries among joggers
decreased?

“The technological advancements over the past 30 years have been amazing,” said Dr. Irene Davis, the director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware. “We’ve seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don’t seem to defeat the ailments.”

Since the running boom of the 70’s, giants like Nike, Adidas and New Balance have rivaled Silicon Valley for speed of R. & D. rollout, releasing improved products nearly every six months. One shoe, the Adidas 1, even has microprocessors that analyze foot impact and adjust cushioning with each stride. New Balance has a motion-control shoe so finely engineered it costs $199.99. Still, 65 percent to 80 percent of all runners - joggers and elite marathoners alike - are injured in an average year, according to Dr. Davis. Aching Achilles tendons, sore knees, inflamed arches and hobbling plantar fascia pain are as common today as they were when boot camp grunts were jogging in canvas Converse “Chuckies.”

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