King Korn

Jonathan K Knutson

SOCI 1310-03

Film Review: King Corn

For this assignment, I decided to watch the documentary King Corn, directed by Aaron Woolf and released in 2007. The theme for King Corn is to take a step-by-step look at the process of where our food comes. In this documentary, two best friends from college, move to the Midwest to learn where their food comes from. They decide to grow and acre of corn and follow it through the process of being planted to where it goes and how it is processed after it is harvested. They chose corn, because of how, in some way, it is found in almost everything we consume. I agree with the director’s view of how we should regulate the funding farmers get for growing corn in order to help produce healthier alternatives.

In 2004, Ian Cheney and Kurt Ellis, best friends from college, have samples of their hair analyzed at the University of Virginia. They are surprised to find out that the carbon found in their hair originated from corn. After a trip to the local grocery store the find out, “most packaged foods in America contain some derivative of corn, whether it comes in the form of corn oil, the infamous and ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup or the mysterious xanthan gum.”  So, they move back to their roots to plant an acre to show how the whole process works. They rent some land from a local farmer and seek the help of the people in the community to find out everything there is to know about farming. Before planting, the two friends find out about government programs and how they fund farmers. They realize that there is no profit in growing corn unless you are funded by the gov’t. The government’s funding allows for the industrialization of the modern farm, which, in-turn, causes the over production of corn.

I think it is very interesting how corn literally is in everything we eat. I liked this documentary and how it makes you aware of how this happens and why corn is not such a good thing. In 1973, Earl L Butz,...