Progressive Wednesday

Corn, from Ascorbates to Zein: Learn

With most issues, progressive or otherwise, people usually realize that a problem exists or at least that improvements can be made. We squabble over whether or not it's worth fixing, how to go about doing that, how important the issue is, what side effects our actions might have, etc. But at least we know that there is a problem. Not so with corn. Here are some of the impacts the over subsidizing and overproduction of corn has on our society, in bullet form for your convenience:

• Corn is the most subsidized crop in our country. From 1995-2005, over 51 billion dollars were given to farmers in the US of A, more than twice that of the next closest crop.
• Cows are ruminants whose stomachs are designed to eat grass, not corn. They are given antibiotics to stave off infection until they go off to slaughter. This promotes antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can be transmitted to humans that eat corn-fed beef.
• Corn strips the soil of more nutrients than any other mainstream crop and therefore requires much more fertilizer and pesticides, and consequently, more gas and oil to produce.
• Hormones and antibiotics given to cows to make them grow faster and bigger end up in our meat, soil, and water.
• Corn acidifies a cow's stomach, providing a haven for bacteria like E. Coli. Most of these animals are raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) where these diseases are easily spread.
• Compared to 1970, farms (which grow corn) today produce 500 more calories per person each day. We pack away an average of 200 of those calories.
• By many formulas, ethanol made from corn burns nearly as much fossil fuel, if not more to produce the crop as it would to just burn it in our car. Ethanol made from other plants such as sugar beets is much more efficient. Making ethanol is good; making it good is better.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is the most common sweetener in the country. It is cheaper and easier to make than sugar from beets or sugar cane. But (there's always a “but– ), it doesn't stimulate the pancreas to make insulin or leptin to let us know when we are satisfied. The result? We crave more, eat more, get fatter, and get sicker. We are literally subsidizing obesity.
• Many scientists are now attributing the latest honeybee die-off to chemical pesticides used in fields of sweet corn.
• Corn is Iowa’s number one crop. Iowa has the earliest Presidential Primary. Need I say more?

E85 – “ The quickest way to energy independence

There are a million things to write about E85, a fuel made from 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. It could even be its own Wednesday topic (spoiler warning: it will be). It's a highly debated environmental issue with many pros and cons, and after being mentioned in the last two State-of-the-Union addresses, E85 has grown in popularity.

We'll discuss the pros and cons in greater depth in the near future, but here are a few. The obvious pros are:

• It's a cleaner burning fuel than gasoline.
• It will lower or eliminate dependency on foreign oil.
• It will create American jobs and help American Farmers.
• It doesn't cost car companies much to make vehicles FlexFuel (E85 or gas) capable.
• Its production can happen quickly and cheaply.

Some less obvious cons:

• It takes nearly as much gas to make the ethanol (from corn) as it does to drive a car.
• It's only about 30% cleaner than regular gas.

Most people who know all the facts regarding ethanol will agree that it is a great alternative to the oil-guzzling status quo, or at least a step in the right direction. If every new car came equipped with a FlexFuel engine, we could spend less time concentrating on making vehicles more efficient and more time on making the fuel more efficiently.

How many cars are FFVs (FlexFuel Vehicles) and how do I know if mine is? Both good questions and we're glad you asked. After all, we're here to help you make progress. FFVs cars have been around since 1992, but have only recently been marked as such. Most people driving around in a FFV don't even know that they are. If you bought a GM vehicle in the last two years, it should have the FlexFuel logo on the back. But with so many others, they don’t even bother to tell you. There is a detailed list here.

Now that you know your car can handle it you need to know where to get it. The difficulty of finding an E85 “top off– differs from state to state, from over 300 in Minnesota (hats off, Gopher State!) to a big, fat bagel in Utah. But fear not: the number of stations is expected to double in the next year, including all stations on the New York State Thruway System. So check your make and model and then “filler up– with E85, and we'll all breath a little easier.

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