However, “King Corn” is also an entertaining buddy film, about two friends who leave Boston and move to Greene, Iowa. In Iowa, they rent a single acre and plant it to corn.

Then they figure out what happens to the corn – and why.

They discover that their commercial corn crop has become the foundation of the modern fast-food and processed food industry. Corn is in everything.

Cattle are essentially force-fed corn (which curdles their digestive systems and would kill the cows, if they were not slaughtered anyway). The fatty beef that results is everywhere, certainly in every burger.

Corn that is not processed to cattle feed often becomes high-fructose corn sweetener, which is in virtually every processed food, from soda pop to bread to cookies to ketchup.

The problem, they discover in the film, is that these commercial corn products are virtually void in nutritional value and high in fats that result in obesity and diabetes and other health problems. Americans may have access to lots of cheap food, but that cheap food exacts a very heavy price on their health.

And of course, all this cheap corn, they explain in the film, is grown at taxpayer expense. Through direct federal payments to farmers, our tax money props up this system. Without federal price supports, the huge mega-farms could not continue their petroleum and pesticide-based growing system. Corn may be cheap, but that is because we pay for it twice.

This movie is well-worth seeing. A DVD copy is available at the Moscow Public Library.

Bill London edits this newsletter and thanks the Co-op for making it possible to live without the curse of commercial cheap food-like consumables.