The Truth About Corn

We’ve been getting questions on the truth about corn lately and if it was OK to have it and still lose weight as many of us just love the stuff, especially that yummy buttered and barbecued corn on the cob!

Corn sure is fine to have from time to time, it is a healthy food but you may want to be aware of some truth about corn first:

Up to 85 % of corn and sweet corn in United States is genetically engineered with studies discovering that these modifications can cause serious damage to humans, animals, environment and nature as a whole.

This is all part of the effort, in a way, to help the farmers easily attack and control bugs and insects without giving harm to their crop and hence they can easily grow a lot more crop than normal.

Genetic modification in sweet corn is particularly interesting, as it is programmed to automatically generate a kind of pesticide, making farmers’ job really easy in that sense.

While this is great for farmers and crop efficiency, I am more interested in what genetic engineering of food can do to my body in the short and long run, bearing in mind that this is all quite new and we are being used as lab rats in a major research.

In a study carried out by the Institute for Responsible Technology, rats were given genetically modified potatoes, which then created possibly cancerous cell growth in their intestines that slowed the development of various vital internal organs, also doing harm to their immune systems. I doubt very much this will be any different in humans, with the number of people that talk about various digestive system problems these days, possibly caused by refined and genetically modified foods.

Let’s assume that you can find corn that is not genetically engineered, although this is pretty hard as you won’t see it on labels, how should you have corn in a healthy weight loss diet?

Most people on diet believe that corn is a vegetable and they can easily have it with their rice and pasta, when corn is actually regarded as a grain by your body with which you end up having two grains in one meal. Of course this is perfectly fine under normal circumstances but if your body is not able to handle too many grains this may easily hinder your weight loss progress, so you are better off trying to reduce the amount of grains in your diet by having less corn.

Then there is the popcorn that many of us like. Do they have a place in a healthy diet?

Well as long as you have the air popped corn once in a while and they are not covered in grease and salt, there is no harm. And I would steer clear from the microwave popcorn, even if organic as they still contain nasty chemicals.

So keep in mind that you are fine with having corn or foods made from corn occasionally, as long as you try and find the not genetically modified ones and be aware that it is not a kind of vegetable but a grain.

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