Corn.  From high-fructose corn syrup in soda pop to corn-fed beef in hamburgers, most everything in the American diet is derived from this familiar, subsidized crop.  But why corn? 

That's the question that two college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis try to find the answers to in this documentary as they return to the land their grandfathers farmed in northern Iowa.  There, on a single acre of land, they will go through the trials and tribulations of growing their acre of corn while also trying to figure out where their corn will go.  Along the way they discover that farming practices have changed a lot since 80 years ago and the food system they will be selling their corn into is designed to perpetuate the consumption of increasing quantities of corn.

So two college buddies play at being corn farmers for a year and investigate the American food system... you can kind of predict that there will be a lot of finger-pointing and revelations about government policy, food companies, and American obesity.  Yet despite the predictable outcome of the movie, it's important for all of us to better understand the association between our health and where our food comes from.

King Corn is playing in limited release.  Hit the jump for trailers and showtimes. 

» King Corn (official site)