Growing up corn used to be one of my favorite vegetables; I liked it boiled, raw, on the BBQ, and even canned. As soon as it came in season I would insist my parents buy some and they would never object as the taste was so good and the price was right. The sad reality nowadays, however, is that corn is one of the cheapest and easiest foods to grow in North America. It can survive drastic changes in weather and is generally resistant to bugs as well. For that reason it is being used in a growing list of products that have absolutely nothing to do with corn such as batteries, anti-wrinkle creams (seriously), soft drinks, gum, oil, with 49% being used as food for livestock; the latter making the least sense. As a result, I have grown less and less fond of corn and don't even appreciate it on the rare occasions that I do eat it.
Right now 90% of corn in the United States is genetically modified and its ugly cousin high fructose corn syrup has mostly replaced sucrose/table sugar as a sweetener in the food industry. Along with corn, other genetically modified crops on the market include: Soy, sugar from sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, cottonseed, some zucchini, canola (oil), and crookneck squash. A disturbing study conducted in France last year concluded that rats fed GM corn for 4-7 months developed large tumors, organ damage, and died prematurely. Of course Monsanto has conducted other "expert" studies since then in an attempt to disprove or discredit the French study but I am not convinced. Considering that corn and/or high fructose corn syrup can be found in nearly every item in a grocery store (and remains consistently cheap) it's getting harder to avoid them in our diets.
To read a slightly disturbing article: Eating this Could Turn your Gut into a Living Pesticide Factory or more on the study linking GM corn to tumors: Food Matters
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