Dreams and Innuendos

To my recollection, I’ve never before dreamed about corn, but I dreamt about corn last night. I don’t know if it’s just that once you deny someone something, it pops up around them everywhere, but that’s what I’m feeling like right now. First, the dream. It was nothing particularly specific, like most of my dreams, but I distinctly remember going around a buffet table and ladling myself some sort of cold corn salad (that looked an awful lot like the corn salad at the Whole Foods Buffet…) before remembering that I couldn’t eat corn. Now, it’s not that I eat corn three times a day and am desperately craving it so it’s showing up in my dreams. I don’t think that’s it at all. I mean, I do honestly really like corn. I have a pretty serious sweet tooth (I say as I chow down a Tofutti Cutie mid-afternoon) and corn is definitely very sweet, so I always feel like I’m cheating a little bit when I have corn with dinner since it almost tastes like dessert. I did a bit of research and I found out that when comparing equal amounts of sweet white corn and green peas, corn has double the fat and (bare with me, I’m not so good with the math) about 62% more carbohydrates. No wonder I like the stuff so much.I also have fond memories of the stuff—having my dad cut it off the cob for me back home when I was little so I wouldn’t get it stuck in all my teeth if I bit it off the cob, barbecuing corn on the grill out back in hot St. Louis summers.

Despite all the fond memories and sweet dreams, I’m not at all regretting giving up the stuff. Just given what I know from The Omnivore’s Dilemma and other cursory internet research is enough to know that corn is everywhere in what we eat and that is a problem. Case in point, an email that popped up (no pun intended) in my email box today. Being so busy with school, I usually delete everything unrelated to school, family, or friend unread from my inbox, but the title “Dangers of Microwave Popcorn” caught my eye and saved this particular email from the trash. Here is an excerpt from that email:

“A report from the FDA indicates that a chemical coating used in microwave popcorn bags breaks down when heated into a substance called perfluorooctanoic (PFOA). The Environmental Protection Agency has identified PFOA as a “likely carcinogen.” Another study has found an acid that can be extracted from the chemical causes cancer in animals and is “likely to cause cancer in humans.”

A second potential danger in microwave popcorn is diacetyl, an FDA-approved chemical found in the fake butter flavoring. There’s even a debilitating respiratory disease called “popcorn workers lung,” (the medical name of the condition is bronchiolitis obliterans) suffered by microwave popcorn factory workers caused by extended inhalation of the chemical’s fumes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, (NIOSH) concluded that diacetyl needs further study so that workers in the flavorings and snack industry are no longer at risk.” (Article)

Despite the fact that I would be the first to complain that the media over saturates the news with “good” foods and “bad” foods of the moment, I cannot help but be a bit distraught that I found no other news of these discoveries and would not have even known about them myself if I didn’t subscribe to this one website’s alerts. The rationalist in me is reminding myself that there are studies all the time and new scientific discoveries of what could hurt us every day, so (a) this isn’t really news to most people and (b) it might still be in the very early stages of study and not have enough evidence for widespread discussion. However, the paranoid freak in me can’t help but wonder what other pertinent information about the foods we eat isn’t making the front page.