Change is good

As the VT staff began planning this Earth Day issue of the magazine, conversations about the health of the planet naturally turned to the future of our food supply. We wondered: What will people be buying and eating 10 years from now? Will it be a change for the better?

At about the same time, the King Corn DVD landed in my in-box. This indie documentary got me thinking twice about what I'm eating right now. The odyssey of coproducers and college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis begins with an experimental hair analysis and the discovery that, like most Americans, theirs is a corn-based diet. Determined to track America's favorite grain from seed to supermarket shelves and fast-food counters, Cheney and Ellis plant an acre of corn in northern Iowa and follow the crop through the U.S. food-manufacturing system. Their pursuit takes them to a feedlot where corn-fed cattle develop horrific ulcers. It also finds them in their own kitchen in a comic attempt to brew a batch of high-fructose corn syrup, the ubiquitous sweetener that's implicated in America's obesity epidemic. In its thoroughly engaging way, King Corn challenges us to consider the price we're paying for cheap, plentiful processed food.

But what do we do once our awareness is raised? In "Eat for Change" (p. 68), you'll find easy-to-follow advice on some of the most important issues surrounding food, health, and sustainability (the corn onslaught is one of them)--and how your everyday food choices can create real, positive change.

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