With the exception of salt and a handful of synthetic chemical food additives, almost every item in the supermarket is a link in a food chain that begins with a plant, animal, or sea creature. In the produce aisle, and even in the meat and fish department, it’s easy to trace the genesis of foods presented for purchase.

Not so with processed foods. The industrial food chain that now feeds most of us most of the time, whether in a supermarket or a restaurant, inevitably leads to the American Corn Belt.

It all boils down to the facts of the food chain: the actual elements that comprise the industrial food chain that supplies our fast-paced world. Corn is grown on 80 million acres of American land and has replaced wheat as one of the main government subsidies for American farmers. The reason we grow so much corn? Due to the multiple ways it can be processed into our foods.

For example, the corn now feeds the steer that eventually becomes his steak. Therefore, eggs, milk, cheese, and yogurt are now related to corn. It also feeds the pig, the turkey, the lamb. Incredible as it may seem, fish, natural carnivores, are being re-engineered to tolerate corn in fish farms.

Processed foods provide more manifestations of corn. Consider a chicken nugget: the chicken was corn-fed; modified corn starch holds the nugget together; cornmeal is in the dough; and fried in corn oil.

The beverage most often served at fast food restaurants is soda, packed with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), a highly processed corn sweetener.

Consider the following list of food additives and you will see that corn is everywhere: in modified or unmodified starch; in glucose syrup, maltodextrin, crystalline fructose and ascorbic acid; in lecithin, dextrose, lactic acid and lysine; in MSG maltose and polyols, caramel color and xanthan gum.

Therefore, corn is found in soups, snacks, relishes, frozen yogurt, coffee clarifiers, salad dressings, even vitamins! And you’ll also find corn non-food items, from toothpaste and cosmetics to garbage bags and disposable diapers.

It is important to note that corn is not a vegetable. It is a grain, or a carbohydrate and, as such, corn is very high in sugar. For starters, the Standard American Diet (SAD) is too high in carbohydrates/sugar, and corn is a major contributor to the growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes.

It is difficult to escape from ‘The King of Corn’. If you eat fast or processed food, rest assured you are eating corn in one of its many forms.

And it’s no accident that when Native American Indians were introduced to corn, switching from a hunting diet to a corn-based diet, their bones, teeth, and joints began to deteriorate.

The negative aspects of the dominance of corn in the Standard American Diet approach a litany. It’s also important to understand that corn is second only to soybeans as the most genetically modified (GM) crop in the US.

GM foods, foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs), were introduced in 1995, and unfortunately there have yet to be any human studies to show what happens when these types of foods are consumed over time.

You can’t go wrong when you eat food that actually looks like food. Avoid both processed foods and fast foods. Eat minimally. If you eat meat, look for grass-fed animals and always avoid farmed fish. Get in the habit of reading food labels well. With a little diligence you can avoid being subject to the Corn King.

For more information (both fascinating and terrifying) about the food chains that sustain us, and a clear picture of the way Americans eat, from source to plate to wrapper to Big Gulp, Michael Pollan’s The omnivore’s dilemma it’s a great read