Jun. 9, 2007 - Corn in cookies...
Dell left a comment in reference to me saying that most cookies have corn in them. I thought I'd take a quick minute to explain that. I have found it simply amazing to discover how much our food supply is invaded by corn. It is absolutely no wonder that corn allergy is on the rise when you begin to look around a bit. It is everywhere, more than soy I think. It seems we have a huge surplus of corn and the governments answer to that is to find more and more uses for it. Everything from foods, to packaging, adhesives on envelopes and bandaids, even toilet paper contains corn in some form or fashion...usually in the form of a hard to remember (and sometimes hard to pronounce) derivative. I used to have no idea and really didn't concern myself with trying to figure out the potential sources of corn in everything. Until we discovered that at least two (the others haven't been tested yet) of our five children are corn allergic. We had no idea the frequent vomiting, horrible excema, belly aches and general feeling ill were mostly due to corn. Still seems funny to me considering we very rarely ate corn in it's most natural form. Anyways, I do have a point and it is this...if you use traditional ingredients to make cookies, than even your homemade cookies likely contain corn and if you buy storebought, well I think it's safe to say there isn't a corn free cookie to be found in your local supermarket (though there are a few out there in specialty markets). If you use iodized table salt in your cookies, a quick look at the label will show it contains dextrose...that's a corn derivative. If you use baking powder in your cookies, a quick look at that label will show it contains corn starch as an anti-caking agent. Powdered sugar contains cornstarch, most vanilla contains corn syrup, I've also read corn derivatives are used in the bleaching process of flour and sugar, but I don't know much about that. Some flours contain ascorbic acid (Vit. C) and if it's not imported than it is not natural vitamin C but rather a synthetic form that is derived from corn. So, if a friend comes over for dinner and happens to be corn allergic don't think that just avoiding popcorn, corn on the cob and corn chips will be safe...it's much more difficult than that!
Comments
Jun. 10, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Dell
We grind all our own flour here, and avoid refined sugar, etc (we do it for other reasons--the corn thing is new news to me!), so our homemade cookies would be corn free, but wow! I knew it was in some vanilla extract (because of my mom's alergies), but I don't think she even knew about the flour and sugar! Maybe I can get her hooked on milling her own flour and getting rid of refined sugar too. *grin*
I think I'll link my mom to your blog article!
Pretty sneaky, that corn stuff!
Thanks, Kelly!
