Part 1: You can almost hear the voice of Gomer Pyle: “Surprise,” “Surprise,” “Surprise”! Of course, the big surprise may be on all of us. The documentary “King Corn” reveals the often unseen, and unreflected world of industrial food manufacturing, in this case, as it relates to the use and production of corn. The surprise is how much corn is a part of our daily diet of common foods that we eat, particularly the use of the sweetener additive, “high fructose corn syrup”.

Since the early 1970’s we have been adding this cheap ingredient to thousands of food products, sweetening the American diet. Do we really know what we are doing? Do we know enough about the potential health consequences to ourselves and our children of a sweeter diet? Has there been a public debate over the issue of industrial agriculture and the extreme use of corn, and corn products throughout our food supply? In Part 1 of our conversation with Curt Ellis, we learn more about corn, and the manufacture of high fructose corn syrup, and their common uses in foods.

Further reading about corn: “When Corn Is King” by Michael Pollan; Sweet but Not So Innocent?: High-Fructose Corn Syrup May Act More Like Fat Than Sugar in the Body; and HFCS: The Facts About High Fructose Corn Syrup, an alternate view from the Corn Refiners Association.