Experience Assignment

Is there enough food to go around? How does our reliance on corn products affect our health, our diet, and even our environment? For two days, try not to eat, work with, or support any product that contains corn, corn derivatives or eat any meat from corn-fed animals

For this paper, we shall be discussing the purpose and objective of understanding and comprehending the impact of corn products in our diet. Corn is considered one of the most important and staple diets in many instances, where people belonging to different cultures and races depend upon corn supply and consumption. However, the unit has been mixed versions of favor and critics whether to use or disregard off one's diet.

Corn Masa Flour Fortification in the United States

Some countries, such as Mexico and several countries in Central America (e.g., Costa Rica), have voluntary or mandatory fortification of corn masa flour and related products (e.g., corn tortillas) with folic acid. Although implementation has been successful in these countries, there are currently no population-based data to extrapolate the possible effects that fortification of corn masa flour would have on Hispanic women in the United States. For example, Costa Rica has seen a reduction of NTDs at birth since fortification of both wheat and corn flour, but the data on Costa Rica do not show the independent effect of corn flour fortification alone (Alderman, 79).

Researchers excerpt that non-Hispanic White women of childbearing age (15--44 years) were more likely to report consuming a supplement containing folic acid than were both Mexican American women and non-Hispanic Black women. More than a quarter (28%) of women of childbearing age (15--44 years) reported consuming corn masa flour on day 1 or day 2 of the survey. More Mexican American women (60%) reported consuming corn masa flour compared to non-Hispanic White women (23%) or non-Hispanic Black women (27%), confirming that corn masa flour constituted a more significant part of the daily diet for Mexican American women in this study population than for women of other races/ethnicities (Alderman, 79).

The analysis found that corn masa flour fortification in the United States would increase the intake of total usual daily folic acid in Mexican American women of childbearing age ( 15--44 years) by approximately 20%, compared with approximately 4% to 5% in the other two groups. In this model, Mexican American women would have median usual daily intakes much closer to those reported by non-Hispanic White women, despite the higher percentage of supplement use among non-Hispanic White women. In addition, an estimated 7% more Mexican American women would consume 400 micrograms of folic acid per day. This analysis predicted that the median usual daily folic acid intake for Mexican American women in the United States would still be below the recommended intake of 400 micrograms per day, but fewer Mexican American women would be below the daily recommended intake. According to this model, the fortification of corn masa flour would successfully target Mexican American women and would likely decrease the incidence of NTDs in this ...