Sweet, Beautiful Corn

Dad loved Sunday family drives in the country even though his rambunctious three sons whined and fidgeted in the back seat of our ’55 Pontiac. As we cruised, between cow-counting, we were mesmerized by unending fields of corn. Like windshield wipers in a downpour, in unison, our heads whipped back and forth as our young eyes, at 50 MPH, struggled to fix on each linear row.

Corn is native to the Americas; grown by Native Americans thousands of years before Columbus arrived to the New World. Current World Archeology reports new evidence the earliest domestication of corn was in Mexico 8,700 years ago. Domesticated maize reached Panama by 5,600 BC and northern South America by 4,000 BC. Over millennia, Native Americans transformed maize through special cultivation methods. Maize, developed from a wild grass (Teosinte), originally grew in southern Mexico 7,000 years ago. The ancestral kernels of Teosinte looked different from modern corn. The kernels were small and not fused together.

Early settlers may have perished if the Red Skins hadn't turned them on to corn.  Settlers learned to grow it by planting kernels in small holes fertilized with small fish. Wise Native Americans celebrated corn’s health mojo.  A one cup serving of sweet yellow corn contains 356 IU vitamin A and 108 mcg of beta-carotene along with lutein and zeaxanthin, powerful antioxidants to help combat harmful free radical activity and prevent various degenerative diseases.

The average ear of corn has 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows with one piece of silk for each kernel. One bushel contains about 27,000 kernels. Each tassel on a corn plant releases as many as 5 million grains of pollen. In the 1930s, before machinery was available, a family farmer could harvest 100 bushels of corn by hand in a nine-hour day.

Corn’s an ingredient in more than 3,000 grocery products.  Pick up a can of cat or dog (carnivores) food and read the first ingredient; corn, used as filler to increase corporate profits. Poor critters. The real bummer; almost all grocery corn today is GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) which has not been adequately analyzed by the USDA for future environmental and socio-health and economic impacts of grafting God’s sacred design. We are the unwitting experiment. The problem of GMO crops birthed an angry tsunami following the U.S. Supreme Court's ill-fated decision in 1980 to allow corporations to patent life.  God's word cautions against adulterating seed, or defiling produce.  Deuteronomy 22:9-11 asserts fields should not be sown with diverse seeds. Man in infantile false hubris shouldn’t bully the hand of our perfect Creator.

Raw and fresh, popped, grilled, or boiled, just eat it. Sorry, Corn Dogs don’t count. But first educate yourself on real foods, and then seek community sources and Farmer’s Markets close to home with a grower who has a faithful moral obedience towards our magnanimous Creator’s directives. Just Say ‘NO’ to unholy GMO’s.  About 80% of grocery produce is GMO. When a German court ordered Monsanto to make public a controversial rat study in 2005, the data upheld claims by prominent scientists who said animals fed GMO corn developed extensive negative health effects in the blood, kidneys and liver and humans eating the corn might be at risk.

The Universe is the author of life and it’s all His—it’s His corn and His wine, His wool and His flax. Though we’re permitted to use them, the ownership remains His and should be used for His service, not Big Ag.

Karma is impending for GMO Jerkonians for forsaking and not obeying His word. Sermon over, so someone please offer up an Amen and pass the garlic- basil butter.