Healthy Surprise is going corn free!

At Healthy Surprise we’re always trying to improve our snack box. The most important role of a snackologist is determining which ingredients pass muster – we are constantly reading the ingredients of new snacks. One ingredient has been coming up repeatedly in both our internal discussions and feedback from snackers: corn.

Therefore we’ve decided to not include any snacks in Healthy Surprise which have corn. Here’s why:

• Corn is an allergen. We get many requests from people allergic to corn to have it omitted.
• Corn is a major GMO crop!! Second only to soy! It’s almost impossible to ensure non-GMO corn. There are two types of corn, field corn and sweet corn. Sweet corn is the one you eat on the cobb and have the option to choose to buy organic. Field corn, on the other hand, is almost always genetically modified and used in everything except when marked as sweet corn.
• Corn is a grain that include anti-nutrients lectins and phytates. These anti-nutrients stop your body from absorbing the important nutrients that it needs.

• Corn is heavily subsidized by the American government to the tune of 4 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR. These subsidies are a big part of the reason it’s so ‘expensive to eat healthy’. By subsidizing corn and it’s by-products (like high-fructose corn syrup), that drives the price of those products down artificially. Then you are evaluating organic mangoes vs subsidizied snicker bars, the snicker bars are always much less expensive.
• Corn is grown in monocultures which are bad for farming and American agriculture. When Healthy Surprise purchases pallets of products including corn, we are voting with our dollars for the monoculture system.
• Corn is the most popularly grown crop in the US, and it’s cheap. This overabundance in corn has prompted farmers and scientists alike to find new ways to use this corn, like feeding it to farmed salmon. Most of those uses are not earth or human friendly.

Here are the reasons we’ve come up with to include corn:

• It’s tasty.
• It’s cheap.

While those are good reasons, they don’t overcome the negatives. There are plenty of tasty snacks out there, and we select the best, not the cheapest products for you. We’re laser-focused on providing you the best snack box each month.

We’re always trying to learn. Please post in the comments any thoughts, resources or links you have regarding this food!

← Previous Post Next Post →