The airline pretzels contained soybean oil.  And the cookies had soybean oil and soybean flour. Shocking? Not to me really. I’ve been aware of the corn and soybean infiltration into the food system for some time now. But before that? Absolutely not. Before watching Food Inc. for the first time, little more than a year ago, I was happily content to eat my food, buy my produce, and select my meat with little thought process beyond how good it was about to taste. I had no concept of seasonality or locality. As cliché as it may be, Food Inc. really opened my eyes and ears to the issues surrounding and within our food production system. I personally am not sure I agree with having 70% of the products in our grocery store containing corn and/or soybean components. Furthermore, when I personally think of the meat that I’m about to eat, I don’t think of chickens and cows fed unnatural feed shoved into tiny scantily lit dungeon-like warehouses. I’m no impassioned animal activist, honestly raging PETA activists bother me, I just like to enjoy my food. And honestly, how much of what were eating these days is food?

Each time I would tell people where I was going to “study away” on my May Experience, they always looked confused when I said “Iowa, to study on the Farm.” And when I mentioned farm politics, they almost always would reply back with “foreign politics?” Nope, and after some explaining, they stopped asking questions, and yet still looked pretty confused as to why anyone would want to know about all this. I, however, find it endlessly fascinating. From the hog barns down the road, to learning about the differences between the methods of GPS satellite tractor systems, I want to learn about it all. I look forward to the many seasoned experts that live this life and those that study those that do. Farmers and lawyers alike, I yearn to pick their brains and take a peek inside Iowa farm life and all that revolves around it.