HEART BEAT: As Corny as It Sounds

By Felicia Mitchell

I ate six ears of corn on Sunday, thanks to my neighbor’s garden.  It was so fresh that it reminded me of the first time I had fresh corn straight from my Uncle Joe Belton’s garden.  It also made me wonder if I should try to make a corn pudding with the rest of the corn that arrived Saturday afternoon like several yellow rays of sunshine.

I had corn pudding at the Patrick Henry band potluck a few weeks ago.  This pudding was a delicious treat made by one of the band mothers, and it went fast.  When I got home, I pulled out my old “Joy of Cooking,” which includes a recipe that calls for canned corn. 

Reading the recipe, I wondered if the cans called for were the kind I find in the store or the kind people who put food up this time of year make.  My “Joy of Cooking” is quite old.  When did commercial cans start to appear on the market?  Well, that was a long time ago.  Canning began in the early nineteenth century.

The corn I have been eating lately is nothing like canned corn or the corn being grown to fuel car engines, although it is a distant relative.  I have to say that as much as I like putting fresh corn into my mouth, I dislike putting corn-based ethanol in my car’s gasoline tank.

People who know more than I do can talk about the problems with diverting corn to ethanol production when there are other alternatives such as switch grass to be explored.  They can talk about the hidden costs to the environment of growing corn for fuel.  I can say one thing.

I can say that I have had to buy ethanol-laced gasoline a few times when I was running on empty.  The last time, I drove to four gas stations off the interstate in South Carolina while trying to find ethanol-free gas before a big storm hit.  Maybe I should have tried harder, or maybe I was feeling kind of silly using the dregs of gasoline to find some more.  I needed gas.

My car, which can get up to 38 MPG or more, depending on the terrain, just doesn’t perform as well on corn.  In fact, I’ve done the math.  I actually need more gasoline to get where I’m going if I use ethanol-based gas because the tank empties more quickly as I am driving along. 

Any corn that I buy when I’ve run out of the bounty that summer gives me provides a full disclaimer.  I can read a label and see if sugar has been added, or salt.  I can tell if the corn is organic or not.

That’s not the case with gas tanks. Some say that the gasoline contains ethanol.  Some say that it may.  If I hedge my bets, I know as soon as I set my gauge if MPG is dropping.  Wouldn’t it be nice if fuel tanks provided full disclosure?