Kinda Corny

July 20, 2007

So the price of popcorn is going up, which is bad because already families have to take out a mortgage just to enjoy a night at the movies. And I don’t know about you but I just can’t fully enjoy a movie unless I have some popcorn, even though I usually finish it before the trailers are over. The reason the price of popcorn is going up is because so much corn is being turned into biofuel. It’s a bad trade off: the price of gasoline is, theoretically, going to go down because we’ll be putting corn in our tanks–as if anything could make the price of gas go down–but the price of popcorn will go up. So it’ll be cheaper to drive to the movies but more expensive unless we stick with Jordan almonds. Why don’t they take something no one likes and turn that into biofuel? How about brussels sprouts? And what is it about Belgium that, for such a small country, they’ve managed to produce the most vile vegetable known to man?

But I digress. It’s bad enough that corn, which can actually be pretty tasty, is being turned into something other than food. In fact it’s bad enough that for a long time corn hasn’t even been used as food for cows. Mad cow disease came from cows being fed chopped up cows, and not only was that a spectacularly bad idea but it’s no wonder cows went mad. If I were eating a burrito and someone told me it was made from my Aunt Doris I’d probably go around the bend too.

But I digress. The worst thing is that corn isn’t just being turned into biofuel: it’s being turned into corn syrup. What is corn syrup? It sounds like something you might put on corn like "pancake syrup", which makes it the second-most unappetizing term that starts with "corn". Corn syrup is in everything. It’s in soft drinks, salisbury steak, chicken fingers, and even some foods. I picked up a can of corn and corn syrup was one of the ingredients, down below partially hydrolyzed benthic decarbonathylenizene and red dye number 432. Here’s a wacky idea: stop putting corn syrup in everything and see if it can be used as fuel instead. I know there’s a possibility it might make cars stop running and then we’ll have to walk and we’ll end up with corns on our feet that can then be turned into biofuel.

But I digress. There must be something else that can be used to replace corn syrup. Maybe monosodium glutamate can do it, whatever the heck that stuff’s made from. Probably brussels sprouts.

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