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Can I go a day without corn? Well, sure. I did it yesterday—at least I think I did—and it wasn’t even hard. Not sure I’d want to do it for an extended period of time, however, as I’ll explain in a minute.

But first, you may wonder why I did it in the first place. Well, I read about the PBS King Corn Eating Challenge and decided I’d give it a try. The corn allergen list to which PBS linked provided some guidance on avoiding products from this tasty but resource-sucking commodity.

King Corn co-producers Ian Cheney (left) and Curt Ellis taste their harvest in Greene, Iowa. (Photo by Sam Cullman)

Breakfast

So I got up yesterday morning and had my usual breakfast: shredded wheat, raisins, coffee with half-and-half (the real stuff), orange juice. Then I remembered the challenge. I checked other cereal boxes, and let’s just say shredded wheat (ingredients: whole grain wheat) was a good choice. Others, not so good due to presence of modified corn starch in one and corn syrup in another. The other items in the day’s breakfast, like shredded wheat, essentially are whole foods, meaning no corn.

Lunch

Lunch was trickier. To be truthful, lunch is an unknown. I think it was corn-free, but lunch was at a restaurant (WheatFields) so I can’t be sure without asking the cooks, and I figure they have better things to do. I had soup and salad.

The Carrot-Ginger Soup (which had surprising little sweetness for a carrot concoction) seemed likely corn-free, and the salad had no obvious corn components, being of mixed greens, pickled beets, marinated cucumber slices and marinated beans of one kind or another (small pink ones, if I recall).

But what of the vinaigrette? Could it have had any corn oil? Or white (corn-based) vinegar? And could the beets and cucumbers have soaked in corn syrup instead of sugar? And there’s that vinegar question again.

The divine double-chocolate cookie, again, was probably corn-free, but it, too, could have had corn sweetener in there somewhere. I feel confident that the multigrain bread that accompanied the dishes had no corn ingredients, but I didn’t notice whether it had a bit of corn meal from a baker’s peel.

(Today, to make up for yesterday’s lunch uncertainty, I cooked up some pasta and coated it with homemade [frozen] basil pesto, which I had along with an apple and milk from pastured cows. No corn or corn products, thank you, in any of it.)

Snack

No problem here. I had an apple and a rice cake. Rice-cake ingredients: Whole-grain brown rice and salt. Perfect.

Dinner

Yesterday wasn’t such a good day, so I decided to have a cocktail before dinner, and that was a problem. I knew bourbon was out, with its corn mash and all. So I thought I might crack open the bottle of gin a friend gave me last week with which to drown my sorrows. The label revealed it was made from “grain neutral spirit,” also known as grain alcohol and ethanol and usually derived from, yes, corn. Drat. I finally decided to go with Lillet, a fortified wine, as best I can determine.

Anyway, since I wasn’t in the mood to cook, I considered easy meals. I had some yogurt on hand that I’d bought for my houseguests. No good, with its high-fructose corn syrup and modified corn starch. I decided to heck with it, and fried-scrambled a couple of eggs from pastured chickens and ate them with a piece of locally made, non-corn bread. The vegetable course was a couple of carrots, and I had an orange for dessert. Double yum.
Corn-free potential

I concluded that going corn-free wouldn’t be that hard if I did three things:

1. Prepared my own meals from whole foods, which would also mean excluding many commercial condiments and being very careful about others, such as vinegars and alcohols. To be really true to the concept, I’d also have to eschew all meat except, perhaps, pasture-raised beef. Even pastured chickens eat some chicken feed, which may or may not include corn. The same probably applies to pork, too.
2. Gave up my favorite snack, popcorn (and occasionally tortilla chips). I pop popcorn (stovetop) a few times a week. I’d miss it. I like crunchy things.
3. Forgot booze. I probably shouldn’t drink it anyway.

Conclusion

In fact, I probably eat a lot less corn and corn-based products than most Americans. I don’t drink soda pop or eat industrial breads or cookies or buy ketchup. I buy little in the way of prepared foods, save the occasional carton of ice cream. I eat very little meat and in the last year or so have come to focus on grass-fed meat. That probably makes me weird by American standards. It also makes me think, though, that if corn prices continue to soar, other Americans can survive just fine, too, as long as they’re willing to cook. Sadly, that’s a skill and joy many people seem to have forgotten. But that’s another story.