Diet Plans: How Safe Is Your Corn?

Although it may seem that corn is a good food to add to your diet, there are some good reasons why it would not work well in diet plans.

It's hard to imagine watching a good movie without some buttered pop corn or a great barbeque without corn on the cob, but it may be time to rethink these popular choices.


This question seems to be coming up more and more often...

Does corn have a place in diet plans?

Although it has been estimated that about 60% of crops are genetically modified, this is only a conservative figure and the numbers are much more likely to be higher. The practice was implemented to produce a bigger crop so farmers and national revenues from the agricultural sector were higher. Genetically modified corn could now kill insects that had become resistant to pesticides.

Sweet corn has also been genetically modified (now called Bt-corn) so that it produces a poison which kills harmful insects. This means the farmer no longer needs to fight insects with insecticides.

Now although some of these may sound like a good thing (especially if you're a farmer!), we need to consider how GMO foods respond in our bodies and what kind of long term effects they can have on our health.

Since the long term effects of GMO (genetically modified organism) foods are not known, we are all part of a massive experiments, unwitting guinea pigs. In fact, what little research that has been done on GMO has resulted in some disturbing news. In April 2007, Arpad Pusztai, a researcher from Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, UK, noted that rats fed on genetically engineered potatoes had intestinal problems.

This actually doesn't surprise me. It's amazing to me how many more people now complain of things like irritable bowel syndrome and other nagging digestive problems. I'm not saying that eating GMO foods is the only cause for these conditions but I'm sure it's a significant contributor (along with processed foods, but that's a story for a different day).

Assuming that you can get your hands on non-GMO foods, then does corn fit into good diet plans?

How Carbohydrates Affect Weight Loss



First, your body reads corn as a grain, NOT a vegetable so if you are to include it into your meals, this will be the grain (carbohydrate) for your meal. So having corn and brown rice would be having 2 grains in one meal. This is not necessarily off limits and not "bad" in any way, just consider if you are someone who is sensitive to grains, you will lose weight faster by greatly reducing the number of grains you eat each day. You may want to take 2 - 3 weeks and follow the "no grain" meal plans in the Diet Solution manual and see if that helps break through any weight loss plateaus and/or helps your digestion.

How does microwave popcorn help or hinder a healthy diet?

Well even the organic varieties contain preservatives (of course to keep them in the bag) and have been shown to contain the same chemical coating in the bag that is used on non-stick cookware (double YIKES!). I would stay away from this stuff.

What about air popped popcorn?

This is the better choice when it comes to pop corn. However, you have to only enjoy this snack occasionally because your body will not lose weight if you consume too much carbohydrates.

I hope this information helps you to make a more informed decision at your next barbeque and at your next movie night with making food choices that fit in with your diet plans. Remember, corn is not off limits by any means, just remember you're looking for the non-GMO varieties and including it as a grain and not a vegetable into your diet plans.

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