The Corn Invasion

Don’t worry about aliens or foreigners.  The real invaders are already here.  Corn products.  They’re everywhere!  Hiding, maybe even hurting.

I didn’t realize this until a few months ago when I ate two yummy cobs of corn.  Almost immediately the roof of my mouth felt bumpy and my tongue hurt.  After an hour or two it went away, but it left me wondering if I was allergic to corn.  Sure enough, a consultation with a Naturopath revealed that I was highly intolerant to corn (as well as a few other things).

It was easy to avoid corn on the cob, cornflakes, and cornbread, but when I started paying closer attention to the ingredients in packaged items, I realized it was a lot harder than that.  Corn is in everything!  Well, not quite everything, but a lot.

There’s corn flour, corn starch, modified corn starch, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, and dextrose (which is sugar usually made from corn) to name a few.  It’s in canned soup, taco seasoning, and breakfast cereal (including oat and rice varieties).  I even checked the ingredients on a bag of sticky rice the other day:  rice, corn syrup.  I couldn’t believe it!

When we use too much of something (even good things) we can develop intolerances to it.  I wonder if we’re headed that way with corn products.

Lots of people are out to make the big bucks.  This often means sacrificing quality for quantity.  Why not use cheap fillers, like corn, especially when they can be passed off as natural foods? 

It’s one more reason to try harder to do what we should be doing anyway:  eating a variety of foods as close to their natural state as possible.  Good for the waistline, good for the wallet.

Choose the Right

Remembrance Day approaches and once again we take time to show our appreciation for those who fought the evil regimes which threatened to destroy our freedom.  We won!  We’re free!  And we’re grateful.

At least we should be.  The freedom they purchased with their lives enables us to make choices.  Every day.  We’re free to vote, free to complain, free to go to school, free to choose our employment, free to attend church, free to write things that anger others.

As we’re reminded often, we all have the right to make our own choices.  But the bigger question is:  Are we making the right choices?  What are we doing with the freedom we’ve been given?

What constitutes a “right choice” will depend on the person making the choice and his or her circumstances, but we would do well to remember this time-honoured truth:  Every choice has a consequence.

Consequences can be good or bad, immediate or delayed, minor or catastrophic.  They can affect one person or millions.  They can be easily foreseen or a surprise.  But while we are free to make choices, we are not free to choose the consequences of those choices.  I can choose to stay up ‘til 1:00 a.m. reading, but I can’t escape the possible consequence of being tired the next morning.

Thus, instead of telling each other repeatedly that we have the “right to choose”, wouldn’t it be better to help each other “choose the right”?

How can we know what is a right choice?  We read.  We think.  We pray.  We discuss our options with those who care about us.  We make pros and cons lists.  We study history and the experiences of others.  Then we weigh the information carefully and follow our hearts and consciences.

And we remember that, like those who chose to fight for our freedom, the best choices aren’t always the easy ones.