Comments on: Corporate Food News: McDonald’s Goes Belly Up In Bolivia

By: holmes

holmes — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:57:17 +0000

I’ll have some fries with that double cheeseburger. Nothing looks better than McDonald’s after coming home from Bolivia. Make that two double cheeseburgers please.

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By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:10:02 +0000

At one time, it was thought that the only member of the genus Zea was Zea mays, and that it might have arisen from a cross of a teosinte and a tripsacum, or even an andropogon or sorghum. The trend now is to place all the teosintes in the genus Zea, and to postulate that domestic corn is an amalgum of several teosintes, with any of which it can still interbreed. The genus Sorghum is circumglobal, and the resemblance between an ear of pod corn (the most primitive living kind) and a fruiting culm of sorghum is unmistakable. Until the two grains begin to produce culms (a single hermaphrodite grainhead in Sorghum, a terminal tassel and axillary ear in Zea) it’s almost impossible to tell the plants apart visually. Furthermore, some of the old races of corn can produce branching axillary ears, and most corn sometimes produces tassels with assorted unsheathed kernels. A cross-polination has set seeds, but those lacked viable embryos.

Sugar sorghum not only produces a rich and delicious syrup from its canes, but grain sorghum can be milled into a flour very like corn, and there is even a kind you can make a little popcorn tree from by dipping the intact ripe grainhead into hot oil. Because, unlike most grains, sorghum is circumtropical and easy to grow, it’s likely the first grain our ancestors ate on any regular basis. It’s heat resistant and a suckering short-lived perrenial in Zone 9 south, can be easily grown in home gardens and vacant lots, and thus can supply many needs while sparing farmland for the crops that really need them. And…it’s beautiful.

Sincerely, Sorgha the Geek.

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By: A Walkaway

A Walkaway — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:38:34 +0000

I run into that sort of confusion all the time. It really gets weird sometimes because “Corn” is an old word meaning “grain”, and I encounter journal articles that talk about “Corn” in a prehistoric European/Mideastern/Northern Africa context.

Maize was introduced in many areas around the world a long time ago, and is now a staple in many parts of Africa. In fact, I’ve read of cultures where more ecologically appropriate foods are not eaten because they’re no longer considered “food”… because the people have been eating maize for so long.

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By: Shiva (Moderator)

Shiva (Moderator) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:39:58 +0000

just smelling the food in the parking lot should be enough to turn anyone away from McDonald’s. My God those places stink

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By: SinghX

SinghX — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:14:32 +0000

I have said it, pontificated, preached it since my high school days that the only way to get rid of anything that is bad for you is to make it “unpopular”.

I discovered that any time I ate McD’s with my HS friends, I gained weight, wasn’t up for track (or whatever sport I was playing) and got zits…I connected the dots and refused to give them my hard-earned $$ from my summer job. I know, very sophomoric, but true. If I connected the dots at 16, then why can’t others? After all the debates on unhealthy food, “Super Size Me”, etc., people still walk right in the door and order garbage instead of nutrition.

Americans are driven by whatever is popular; take away the status, the popularity, all the marketing that makes it “cool” and you won’t see many McD’s around very long.

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