“There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn.” (p.19).
The sheer amount of corn used in American products reflects the industrial monoculture that has devoured the Plains. I guess “variety” means different things to different people. Such a dependence on one crop, usually grown to have few genetic variations, makes the extensive use of harmful chemicals almost unavoidable. If a disease untreatable by current technology developed in the Plains, what would come of those 11,250 corn-containing items in the average American supermarket? The environmental implications of using a single crop for so many products are enormous. In order to grow enough corn on a limited amount of land, high-density industrial farming is essential to maintain such a staggering output. The presence of this single crop in areas not natural to it can disrupt ecosystems by displacing native plants.
And how many of these corn uses are actually needed? Take, for instance, wax on cucumbers or the shine on a magazine (p. 19). Neither of these are essential, in fact both are plain wasteful when it comes to increasing the demand for such an overused crop. One of corn's main uses, high fructose corn syrup, have been linked to diabetes in humans. The irony is that often times the American capitalist system prides itself on its varieties, when in fact many of the products available are small variations on the same theme and contain one ingredient in common with most other products already available: corn.