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Sweet corn is hitting store shelves across the country, and I’m seeing recipes all over Pinterest for different ways to grill it… chili & lime, chipotle & lime, with sweet honey butter and even wrapped with bacon. All this sweet corn yumminess has left wondering though… Does it save me money to buy fresh? Or am I better off buying frozen?
And then my brain REALLY started thinking…
What about GMO’s?
Does fresh corn need to be organic?
Does anyone even sell fresh organic corn?
Why are GMO seed companies sucking all the fun out of the goodness that comes from fresh sweet corn?!
Ok, so that last question is a bit more of a soap box than something to seriously consider when buying corn, but still, the answer isn’t as cut and dry as one would hope. When you take into consideration organic vs. conventional vs. local vs. the likelihood of your corn being GMO… well, it just might make your head spin.
Sorry about that.
So let’s first approach this with baby steps and consider each issue logically. Then we’ll talk numbers.
Is Sweet Corn GMO?
“Unraveling GMO’s“ was a HUGE help in learning about GMO’s, including the ways foods are created to be GMO, the specific foods grown using GMO seeds and which are approved by the government to be sold on store shelves. According to one statistic in the book, as of 2011, 88% of the corn crop in the United States was GMO. That means if you lined up 10 ears of corn, there would only be one that wasn’t genetically modified in some way.
But that’s just for the corn that’s grown for feed, right? I mean, aren’t we all convinced that the corn they’re talking about is the corn they give to cattle, or the corn that’s turned into energy, or the corn that’s used to make high fructose corn syrup, right?
Surely they’re not talking about the sweet corn we eat… are they?
Unfortunately, they are. Monsanto announced in 2011 that they were introducing a breed of corn that would resist their own Roundup herbicide and be able to produce its own insecticide. It was estimated that by 2012, 40% of the sweet corn on store shelves would be GMO. (source)
Then in 2013, advocate group Friends of the Earth, took it upon themselves to actually test the sweet corn on supermarket shelves and see how much of it really was GMO. They bought 71 samples of fresh, frozen and canned sweet corn from all over the country. Out of all those samples, only two came back as positive. Just two! (source)
This means that for now, the chances of the sweet corn on U.S. store shelves being GMO is pretty low. However, we’re not in the clear yet.
The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network did a similar study as the Friends of the Earth group, only they tested fresh, sweet corn grown in Canada. Out of the 43 samples they tested, 15 came back positive. For the math-challenged, that’s roughly 35%. (source)
Those in Canada should definitely be concerned that GMO corn is so prevalent in stores, but the rest of us don’t get off that easy. The odds of a frozen food being imported is high, so non-Canadian countries have the same chances as Canadians when it comes to finding GMO corn in their frozen foods isle. All you have to do is flip over the package to know just how high those chances are.
Should We Buy Organic Corn?
Sweet corn is listed at the very top of the Clean Fifteen, so there’s a really small chance of corn containing residual pesticides once it’s harvested. With the chances being so low, I think your funds are better invested in produce that has a much higher risk of pesticides, and going the conventional route with corn… that is, assuming your corn is non-GMO.
How to Avoid GMO Corn
Despite the dismal statistics, there is great news on the ability to fight against GMO corn. On behalf of the customer, many stores are standing up to Monsanto and their GMO agenda by committing to sourcing their sweet corn from only non-GMO certified sources. So far, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and General Mills (the manufacturer) have all vowed to not carry or use the GE sweet corn. (source)
On the flip side, one of the biggest retailers in the country is NOT taking a stand against GMO’s. As of August 2012, Walmart planned to carry the GMO food on their shelves without labeling it as such. (source)
Buying local is an excellent way to avoid GMO’s, but it’s still important that you talk to the farmer and ask them about their seeds and whether or not they’re GMO. Sometimes they unknowingly use GMO seed, but your chances of avoiding GMO corn are higher when it’s grown by someone who cares for their crop and feeds it to their own family too.
If you aren’t able to talk to a farmer, try using a search engine to get results.
If all else fails, buy organic since certification standards prohibit GMO’s.
Now, for the issue at hand…
What’s Cheaper? Fresh Corn, Frozen Corn or Canned Corn?
Here are the basic measurements:
- one medium ear fresh corn = approximately 1 cup
- one pound of frozen corn = just over 3 cups
- one 15oz can of corn = 1 1/2 cups
When I bought frozen corn, my buy price was $1/lb. That equates to 30¢ per cup.
If I buy canned corn, it’s usually from Costco. Each can costs 78¢, which equates to 52¢ per cup.
When I’m buying fresh corn, my price is no higher than 50¢ per ear, which equates to 50¢ per cup.
The Bottom Line: If you have access to non-GMO corn, stock up when it’s available for 33¢ per ear or less.
If you’re looking for the best way to preserve that fresh corn so you have access to it year round, check out these simple methods by Fresh Bites Daily.
Do you buy conventional or organic corn? What’s your favorite way to enjoy it when it’s fresh?
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. By making a purchase through those links, I will earn commission that helps to keep the lights on in the Crumbs house – with no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crumbs in this way. Read my full disclosure statement here.
I think many people understand GMO to always mean that the plant was modified by playing around with the genetic material or DNA including splicing bits and pieces of DNA from other living things. As I understand it most GMO is done by simple selective breeding which mankind has been doing for at least hundreds of years. Virtually everything we eat that is grown on a farm has gone through the process of selective breeding.
Looks like I am almost three years late to the party, but I just had to tell you how much I love your webpage. Yes, I did get one of those annoying popups to subscribe way to early for me to know if I wanted to subscribe or not, but it was well worded and explained why I might want to.
The rest of the page was cream cheese from that point on. Your approach was sensible, your explanations were well worded, useful and brief for the depth that you went in to. Your care to make sure that everyone knew that you would profit from them purchasing certain items by clicking your links was impressive.
Dang, I just might subscribe after all. 8 )
LOL – I appreciate you leaving this note for me Michael! I’ll look at the pop-up again. I thought I timed it to not be annoying, but that’s a fine line. 😉 I hope you do subscribe! If so, let me know if I get spammy, okay? It’s always my goal to provide helpful and useful info, and never recommend things I don’t use myself in my own real food journey!
GMOs are never a simple subject but here’s the information on the corn that was combined with a “pesticide”, (BT) has been proven harmless to humans for over a century.
http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/bt_history.html
I have a question. What makes GMO bad for us.? We jump on the band wagon of watching for it but don’t really understand why. I’m not linked to any organization for GMO’s but just want to now what all the hype is about.
GMO’s are modified from the seed that God originally created and to be honest, no one knows FOR SURE whether or not GMO foods are truly harmless. Many other countries have banned them, taking a precautionary measure since adequate independent testing hasn’t been done, being safe rather than sorry. The concern is how different a GMO seed is from a non-GMO seed, and how those differences affect our bodies both short term (i.e. ability to digest, assimilate nutrients, etc.) and long term (i.e. illness, disease, etc.). The book “Unraveling GMO’s” is really a great book, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re interesting in learning more!
Tiffany, I just came across your site when looking for homemade almond milk, which of course had a link to this page re: GMOs. Your argument for not eating GMOs is because they’re not what God originally created? Just to state the obvious, but had you done the most basic amount of research on this topic (5 minutes searching on google), you would have found that the corn we eat today has been modified by humans for thousands of years. The corn we eat today is not the corn that God created.
Second, many other nations have banned gay marriage. Does that mean we should agree? Many other nations require women to wear head scarves, does that mean we should agree? Countries ban things based on consumer sentiment. Consumer sentiment does not necessarily need to be scientifically justified. Independent testing has been performed, maybe not as long term as some people would like, but I hesitate to say it’s different than any other testing we perform. If the existing studies aren’t enough (which I highly doubt you’ve actually read since you didn’t cite a single paper in this article or in your response), you must also consider that we’ve been eating GMO food for 20 years now, and there has yet to be one study finding that our long term health has suffered as a result. Are all doctors / researchers / scientists in on the conspiracy? Hah, I doubt that very much.
BTW, a simple search for the book “Unraveling GMOs” doesn’t return any results.
I guess what’s really confusing to me is why you’re chiming in at all on GMOs. How about you stick with your recipes, that’s why people, including me, came to this site in the first place. We don’t need the added stigmatization of the foods we eat, including baseless claims that it’s sub-par or toxic.
My reasoning for not eating GMO’s is that they’ve been clearly altered by man in a lab – they cannot be found naturally in the earth. They have a different DNA, created in a lab, which to me is not real food created by God.
I don’t think that the example of gay marriage has much merit on the issue of GMO, but I do not think it’s okay to ban/approve things based on consumer sentiment and certainly without appropriate testing. I also believe many laws and policies are passed for the benefit of government and related industries rather than the benefit of the people.
Addressing GMO’s is part of addressing concerns about real food, and GMO foods are not real food. I’m glad you came to visit because of my recipes, and I appreciate your comment, but readers want to know how to live healthier, more natural lives without going broke and talking about GMO’s is part of that discussion.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of us who do appreciate the information on GMOs. How about you just skim over that info, confide your anxieties to your psychologist and let us all continue to enjoy Tiffany’s FREE advice and recipes just as she chooses to deliver them?
Canned corn is from the devil. Just sayin’. heh. my kids really like fresh corn, then frozen, and way at the bottom is canned.
LOL, I’m not a huge fan either, but it does make camping a bit easier when fresh isn’t around!
I try to avoid GMO’s so this post is pretty timely. I actually prefer fresh corn. I’m glad it’s the cheapest option! We throw it on the grill when we’re making burgers and it’s super easy to the shuck then.
LOL – me too! Love grilled corn. We had it every night while camping. Butter, salt & pepper… MMM!!
I almost always buy frozen sweet organic corn from Costco. (I first started buying this a few years ago just because its really good but now have other motives as well ; )). I think it runs me just over $1/lb. If I buy fresh corn it is on super sale at Albertson’s or Kroger and it usually says it’s from Colorado or California. I am not sure that means anything at all!! Ugh this is so confusing. Anyway, we always eat sweet corn just boiled with butter but I’m looking to expand with all the recipes on Pinterest!
Ha! Thanks for your sweet corn + GMO explanation. Every time I see beautiful corn, I want to cry because I don’t know if I should eat it!