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In the US, McDonald's and Wendy's along with Burger King are selling essentially the same food.  By comparing Carbon-12 and its radioactive brother Carbon-13 ratios in the food, researchers conclude that the ultimate source of fast food in the US is one single crop called corn.

This may not be a surprising discovery after all.  Beef used in fast food comes from cattle feed on corn; corn oil or its mixture with other oils is used for fried food; and corn syrup is used to sweeten soft drink.  The implication however calls for more attention.  Fast food accounts for a half of the US' commercial food production, and the base of this food industry empire is on a single crop whose plantation is often regarded as unsustainable.

The environmental impact of corn production is mentioned in this blog, as well as reports by SciAm and The Washington Post.  The charges on corn include intensive use of pesticides and fertiliser, consuming land and water resources and eat away a large portion of energy.  Apparently eating fast food not only increases your size but also your ecological/carbon footprint.

Follow-up: biofuel debate

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Biofuels 'crime against humanity'

There is yet another voice to express the concerns behind the large scale adoption of biofuel crops, especially corn.  It has been pointed out by Mr Ziegler that plantation of biofuel crops has already led to decrease of available arable land, and the increase of food price.

This seems to be one thing that market cannot solve satisfyingly.  If we rely solely on price and demand to adjust the production of food and biofuel, it can be expected that farmers will always have incentives to plant corn to produce ethanol before the price of biofuel is the same as fossil fuel.  At the same time food price will also rise and leave more people in hunger.  But farmers will not turn to food production until food price (combined with subsidies, maybe) is high enough to provide revenue as good as fuel.  By then millions would have starved.

A threshold should be determined which states the maximum land and other resources allocated to biofuel production and should be enforced as a law.  If we cannot determine the threshold yet, I think it is another time to apply precaution principle and set a safe limit.  At the same time attempts to reduce fuel consumption and improve fuel efficiency should always be encouraged.

On the other hand, Food and Agriculture Organization in 2005 considered biofuel as a key to fight against hunger, as it reduces the import bill as well as brings investments and jobs.  But that argument seems to miss the resource part, ignoring food production while it examines hunger.

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