When a marketing flack offered to send me a review copy of “King Corn,” which comes out on DVD today, I promised “to take a look at it.” I never thought I’d enjoy it. After all, it’s a documentary about corn.

Boy, was I wrong. Part “Supersize Me” and part “Fast Food Nation,” “King Corn” is a fascinating and eye-opening look at our nation’s increasing reliance on corn — and its effect on our health.

The feature follows two friends, Ian Chaney and Curt Ellis (pictured above), who move from the East Coast to Iowa for a year to grow one acre — just one — of corn and follow it into our food supply.

Along their often-irreverent odyssey, they unearth a bumper crop of fascinating information about farming, subsidies, our food supply and our national diet, including:

Average amount of high-fructose corn syrup consumed by an American in 1970: 0.6 pounds.

Average consumed in 2000: 73.5 pounds.

Wow! If Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me” made you think twice about going to McDonald’s, “King Corn” will have you re-evaluating everything you eat.

“King Corn” was screened at last month’s Phoenix Film Festival. If you didn’t catch it there, put it in your Netflix queue today.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under TV/Radio/Movies/Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.