Just to start off our thinking this morning... Here is a map of where corn is grown in the United States. The darkest green is over 150,000 acres per county. In perspective one acre is about 43,560 feet.



(Map found at http://soulforyourfood.blogspot.com/2009/03/were-not-even-going-to-call-it-junk.html in an interesting article.. go read it!)

Nearly all of this corn is not edible right off the plant. Instead it becomes feed for livestock and turned into high fructose corn syrup.

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

Snapple Peach Tea

Lets start with something that doesn't have too many ingredients.. Snapple Peach Tea. Here it is in a nutshell.. much more research could be done, but here is a start

Ingredients: Filtered Water, Sugar, Citric Acid, Tea, Natural Flavors
Packaging: small bottles are glass and caps are made from tinplate

Sugar: Is either Cane Sugar: Typically grown in countries including Australia, Mexico, China, India, Thailand, Brazil, Colombia, Hawaii, United States. Beat Sugar: Typically grown in countries including: European Union, United States, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Japan, and China. I have not been able to find where Snapple gets its cane sugar but it is possibly from one of the countries above. (Sugar, 2012)

Citric Acid: Collected from a species of fungus that turns sugar into citric acid (Hendrickson, 2011)

Tea: Come from Chile, China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and South Africa (Snapple, 2010)

Snapple is owned by Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. This company make other well known products including   A&W Root beer, Dry Canada, 7Up, Clmato, Country Time, Crush Orange, Deep Blue, Motts Apple Juice, Margaritaville, and Rose's. (Snapple, 2010; Dr. Pepper, 2012)

Sources:
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Last modified 2012. 
          http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/.


Hendrickson, Kirstin. Livestrong, "How is Citric Acid Made and Where Does it Come From?." Last modified June 23, 2011. http://www.livestrong.com/article/477815-how-is-citric-acid-made-where-does-it-come-from/.


Snapple, "Frequently Asked Questions." Last modified 2010. 
          http://www.snapple.com/.

Sugar Industry Biotech Council, "Frequently Asked Questions."
          http://www.sugarindustrybiotechcouncil.org/sugar-beet-faq/.  


The New York Times, "Buisness." Last modified 2012. 
         htto://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/dr-pepper-snapple-group-inc/index.html.

What about my Food?

The idea behind this blog is to see where our favorite foods (and some not so favorites) come from. Were is everything grown and what are all those chemicals? I am here to find out!

Why you may ask? In a nutshell... I have taken some geography classes on topics about countries and the complex issues around food and politics. This is a massive web of interlacing relationships and influences. Long story short, my interest is peaked about issues surrounding food. More specifically why the US has so much processed food and where we get those ingredients. This research will shock and surprise us and perhaps some of us will become more aware of what we are putting into our bodies.

Have a food that you would like me to research? Send me a message and make a request!