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History essays on corn
History of corn research paper
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A good percentage of the food in the supermarket is linked to a specific kind of plant. This vegetable, which has many uses, is corn. Since the beginning of the United States, corn has taken an important role in the development in the nation, meaning that without corn this nation would not be the same. When the Europeans came here, there were no real resources that they could exploit for the benefit of their survival. But then one can ask the question, how did the Native Americans survive before they were killed by the infectious viruses and diseases from the Europeans? Well, as simple as it can be, corn was one of the prime elements for their survival, it was one of their main agricultural products. The Europeans that came to the United States adopted corn as the ‘nations’ vegetable for future generations. As a child, American culture had a great influence in the media in Colombia. When I will watch TV, most shows came from the United States. There was one show which was repeated constantly, this was Peanuts. One of the things that I remember is seeing in many episodes the use of corn in a cultural ways like parties such as thanksgiving, and agricultural ways, but what is interesting is that corn can also be a political symbol of this North American nation. When I visit Pennsylvania or other states around New York, one of the things I see outside restaurants is corn, in this case, dry corn. When I eat around urban areas at small, typical, American restaurants, one of the only vegetables that are being served in the restaurants in great amounts is corn. In other words, corn is like the United States national vegetable. What is interesting is that many nations in the world can be recognized by a vegetable, a fruit or a product... ... middle of paper ... ...tages then it will portrait the idea that he/she are also pride of their nation creating a similarity, connection and bond with people and giving the people more reason to vote for them. Corn influences culturally, economically, and politically. Corn is part of the American culture, at thanksgiving we eat corn, at Christmas we eat corn. Corn is an important part of the gastronomy of the United States. Corn influences economically, because a large part of the daily products in the supermarket contain corn. Without corn and its cheap prices many of these products might would not taste, feel or function the same. Also the cost of the product might increase since there would have to be a substation for corn. And finally corn influence politically, because it can bring people together and create bonds. Corn is an important part of our daily with its many diverse uses.
In “What’s Eating America”, Michael Pollan starts off his article by providing his audience with a background on the history of corn and its production. Additionally, he goes through both the sinister and positive sides in the history of corn, all while building a connection with his audience through his utilization of ‘we’ pronouns and by having direct conversations with his readers inside parentheticals. He continues to develop this connection throughout the text in order to slowly inch the reader towards his argument, which he presents in the final paragraph of the piece as a climax to the slow buildup of facts that previously followed the main argument. In addition, he surprises his readers by drawing grisly connections between corn and Zyklon B, amongst other images, creating a visual in the minds of his readers of corn as a malicious entity. He does this in order to to bolster his argument against the industrialization of food production, placing it in a gory, gruesome frame,
The Columbian Exchange impacted Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in many ways. Some of the major components of this exchange were plants, animals, and diseases. The Native Americans was impacted because they did not have immune systems capable of handling diseases such as; small pox, the plague, and yellow fever. This resulted in the population of Native Americans being cut by at least 90% over the course of a couple hundred years and making it easier for foreigners to come in and take over. The animal that helped the Native Americans was the horse. It helped them expand and explore places other than agricultural plains like mountains. The Europeans brought back tobacco. Tabaco then lead to many deaths because of its health issues involved with the use. They also got introduced to tomatoes which people thought for a long time was not edible. Africans acquired potatoes and maize, which became a main staple in Africa.
Corn subsidies are driven by the major food and gas companies in our country that want to dictate what food we put in our plate and what fuel we put in our cars. The companies can do this because of the artificially low price tag on the items they sell because of the cheap cost to produce corn. The only concern for the major corporations is to please their respective shareholders by delivering high profits. They are certainly not concerned with the health of the consumer or the environment.
Corn soon became the crop of choice to Iowa farmers. They found that it was more resistant to disease than the other crops they were growing, such as barley, oats, wheat, and apples. With this newfound “wonder crop”, Iowans found that farming had become the ideal way of life. Working on the farm involved all of the members of the family, which brought them together and made them stronger through hardships and great opportunities.
...nergy from an acre of Iowa farmland. Unfortunately, for more than fifty years, farm policies is designed to encourage the overproduction of this crop and hardly any other. It simply because the government subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country. While the surgeon general is warning the epidemic of obesity, our government is still signing bills encouraging the river of cheap corn flowing. It is clearly shown that food production in America is partly a mixture of politic, economic and morality.
“As European adventurers traversed the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they initiated the “Columbian Exchange” of plants, animals, and diseases.”(P. 26). The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. The exchange of plants, animals, diseases and more modernized technology, beginning after Columbus landing in the Americas in 1492. It lasted through the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, sheep and pigs were introduced to the Americas. The Americas introduced to Europe many new crops such as potatoes, beans, squash, and maize. In time Native people learned to raise European livestock and European and Africans planted American crops. This was the positive effect of the encounter and it was largely responsible for the doubling of the world’s population in the next three hundred years. There were also many negative effects to the “Columbian Exchange” A major consequence was the spread of disease in the New World. Diseases carried by Europeans and Africans devastated the population of the Americas. As Europeans traveled through the Americas epidemics came with them. Typhus, diphtheria, malaria, influenza, cholera, and smallpox killed many of the native people. One example was
Given the amount of resources that the world as a whole has access to why use corn as a source of fuel? Some would say that countries, such as the United States have an overabundance of food produce. Logically, those countries that have an over surplus of food MUST have enough to put a dent into the rapidly increasing costs of oil and gasoline. Unfortunately, that is a misconception. In order to produce enough corn to fuel the global economy it is important to analyze what that actually means for farmers and the government, not to mention the actual food supply. In order to produce corn ethanol, we must first grow an abundance of corn. Simple right? Wrong, corn is very draining on the soil it is grown, which, in short, means that whomever is growing the corn would have to rotate the corn plantation with something that will restore the nutrients of the soil. Unfortunately, that takes both time and money to do. The task would cal...
Justification of the Corn Laws The Corn Law was a potentially dangerous bill introduced in 1815 after three years of good harvests. It was instigated with the support of Lord Liverpool the current Prime Minister who saw the Corn Laws as a temporary measure to create stability in the agricultural sector in the immediate post-war years. The Corn Laws were potentially disastrous because they, along with the abolishment of Income tax and the creation of the Game laws, were seen as a return by the ultra -Tory's to a single-issue, single class government.
The Pawnee way of life was a big contrast from the other tribes on the Great Plains. While a majority of the tribes in the Great Plains were hunters, the Pawnee were very agricultural. They had set villages where they cultivated crops. The Pawnee’s culture and rituals were based on growing and harvesting corn. The most popular forms of corn grown were blue and white corn. Plants grown were beans, squash, watermelon, and corn. Some crops that grew in the forest were wild cucumbers, wild onions, lambs quarter, Indian potato, wild plums...
Jeffrey Pilcher declares that Mexicans are a people of corn, that “despite centuries of efforts to change them, Mexicans remain a people of corn” (Pilcher, 6). The native and indigenous people of corn formed identity as a society. They made tortillas with corn, and gradually began to add different kinds of meats, vegetables, and spices. Every society creates for themselves a unique set of cuisine to feed and please others. But people’s needs constantly change and the diet that is established for each society is divided through class. Besides this being a harsh reality, this is problematic because of the disparity between the rich and the poor. But even though this was the case, Mexico’s food culture was able to preserve and refine a lot of its cuisine despite evolution and struggles to maintain original forms. Thus, it can be said that the history of food in Mexico is one that is profoundly and intimately tied to the country’s developing national
Corn had a very deep religious significance to the Mayan people. It was believed that the gods created man from corn flour and the blood of the gods, making them literally children of the
The Aztec empire was a complex civilization that practiced agriculture, imposed a hierarchy system, and practiced cultural events involving religion, various gods, and rituals. Agriculture in the Aztec empire was complex, required knowledge of flora, farming techniques, and local environment. The process was “more elaborate than just throwing a few seeds on the ground and waiting for a stalk to sprout up” (Blanton, Kowalewski, Feinman, Finsten, 1993); it was essential to grow enough food to feed an entire population. The most important and common crop grown was maize, also known as corn, which could be manipulated in various ways to yield products of varying tastes and textures; tortillas, tamales, atole, and maize gruel to name a few (Zizumbo-Villarreal, 2010). Maize was an ideal grain to keep around, not only did it provide nutrients to its consumers, it could be eaten raw or stored for months without spoiling.
Upon arrival in the Americas, Europeans set out to make wheat the standard grain in the lands they had discovered; the establishment of wheat was both functional, as it was a staple of the European diet, as well as an attempt to institutionalize European control. While wheat did gain some ground in the Americas, especially among the upper classes, it failed to surmount maize as the “the foundation of indigenous livelihood.” The persistence of maize as a staple of the indigenous way of life is not shocking, as J. Eric Thompson writes: “Maize was a great deal more than the economic basis of Maya civilization: it was the focal point of worship, and to it every Maya who worked the soil built a shrine in his own heart.” The Americas were not
Thanksgiving is an annual national holiday marked by religious observances and a traditional meal including turkey. In Charles Mann’s National Geographic article, America Found and Lost, discussed the first known Thanksgiving holiday dinner in English America. It was celebrated on December 4th, 1619 at Berkely Hundred, a brand new plantation around thirty miles west of James town. During the first Thanksgiving dinner the colonists ate a rather large feast which most likely involved the consumption of turkey meat. This is believed to be true based on the fact that wild turkey was beyond plentiful in the region and a common food source for both English settlers and Native Americans. Back then, turkeys were undomesticated animals who fed off of the natural food sources available to them in nature. That is no longer the case for turkeys and other poultry livestock that are utilized for human consumption. Ever since 1996, farmers in animal agriculture have been feeding genetically modified grains such as corn and oilseeds to their livestock. The multiple processes in which the birds are produced and distributed have also changed dramatically over the years. This has also inevitably led to a significant increase in the consumption levels of poultry products on a global scale. All of these factors have led to the stimulation of many countries’ economies but also caused an increased need of genetically modified animal feed in order to maintain the balance between supply and demand.
Throughout the history of the human race there have been a great number of crops that were discovered, planted, and over time domesticated. Wheat in the Middle East, rice in Asia, and rye in Eastern Europe are all some of today’s staple crops that feed millions every day. Crops like these make up over 50% of the world’s total food supply. However, the third most eaten crop in the world is maize, or corn, which provides 21% of human nutrition. Today maize feeds millions across the world, but its history is different from the others.