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AMA Posts Ethanol Alert!

You're right... I don't want to wade into that cesspool as I don't want or expect to change any minds. What I do want to do is share hard data and then allow folks to decide for themselves. I should mention I grew up on a beef farm and sold cash crops like corn, wheat and alfalfa. Someone earlier in this thread quite rightly made the point that the corn used for ethanol is not the same as that used to feed the population. That is correct, the former is referred to as "pig corn" and the latter is "sweet corn". If you've ever bitten into pig corn, you'd swear you're eating bark -- it's awful. There is another argument that pig corn displaces land that can be used to grow sweet corn (or other grains). Well, maybe but I doubt it as our government pays farmers to allow millions of acres of land to remain fallow (yes, it seems crazy but it keeps feedstock prices up by reducing supply).

Kent,

In my area Pig Corn is known as field corn and, yes, it isn't what we know as Corn on the Cob, whole kernel or creamed corn. However, I do believe it's the corn used for making corn meal, flour, hominy, packaged cereals and high fructose corn syrup. Field corn accounts for >95% of the US corn production.

Now, as an aside, have you ever spent much time in Germany and noticed the lack of food with corn? If you ask a German, especially an older West German, they'll factually state "Corn is for feeding Pigs". Any mention of foods like Mush (Polenta) or scrapple (Ponhaus) will prompt them to shudder and recall horror stories that they heard about life in the old DDR (East Germany). It seems the lowest a German could go is............eating corn meal from cattle feed bins.

On that basis, I now understand that my corn eating German ancestors (i.e., PA Dutch (Deutsch)) were probably asked to leave Germany by their neighbors.
 
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Now were getting the "type" right for corn. It should also be said that the stalks are not waste, at least in the throwaway sense of that word. Animals eat them & they benefit the soil by introduction back in.
As to the Germans not eating corn,hmm, I happen to have corn as one of my several an allergies (doesn't keep me from 2 ears of Mirai every night since it came in & same for peaches & cream the few weeks before that:)) & was assured by the doc doing the testing that it is so many food items that it is sort of impossible to escape it getting into your mouth. FWIW, I bought some German museli @ Meijers Super mkt last week and it is made & pkg in Germany! and contains corn flakes. Do they make it for us or them? Not trying to play gottcha, just hard to think corn isn't in their food.
Now back to discussing ethanol without having politics in the mix?Not easy to do?
 
Now were getting the "type" right for corn. It should also be said that the stalks are not waste, at least in the throwaway sense of that word. Animals eat them & they benefit the soil by introduction back in.
As to the Germans not eating corn,hmm, I happen to have corn as one of my several an allergies (doesn't keep me from 2 ears of Mirai every night since it came in & same for peaches & cream the few weeks before that:)) & was assured by the doc doing the testing that it is so many food items that it is sort of impossible to escape it getting into your mouth. FWIW, I bought some German museli @ Meijers Super mkt last week and it is made & pkg in Germany! and contains corn flakes. Do they make it for us or them? Not trying to play gottcha, just hard to think corn isn't in their food.
Now back to discussing ethanol without having politics in the mix?Not easy to do?

You can get Kellogg corn flakes in Germany. However, the corn flake is an American invention, just like Crisco, Crystallized Cottonseed Oil...........which is a soap by-product.
 
You can get Kellogg corn flakes in Germany. However, the corn flake is an American invention, just like Crisco, Crystallized Cottonseed Oil...........which is a soap by-product.

Pre Columbian food source developed in the Mexico region and spread across the Americas and beyond via native trade. Corn never seemed to catch on in Europe like other vegetable crops brought back by early explorers and traders; perhaps due to the land yield ratio and storage issues that were better met by other products in their systems. The US has a mixture of land, research and history with the stuff that makes it abundant and pervasive; resulting it being a major export agricultural product. Europeans may have a cultural bias against the stuff but increasingly are importers/ consumers of the stuff in various forms.
 
Pre Columbian food source developed in the Mexico region and spread across the Americas and beyond via native trade. Corn never seemed to catch on in Europe like other vegetable crops brought back by early explorers and traders; perhaps due to the land yield ratio and storage issues that were better met by other products in their systems. The US has a mixture of land, research and history with the stuff that makes it abundant and pervasive; resulting it being a major export agricultural product. Europeans may have a cultural bias against the stuff but increasingly are importers/ consumers of the stuff in various forms.

It was always confusing to me when I studied the British "Corn Laws" which referred to Wheat, Barley and Oats. However, I had no problem understanding the German Korn
 
It was always confusing to me when I studied the British "Corn Laws" which referred to Wheat, Barley and Oats. However, I had no problem understanding the German Korn

Variation on the Kleenex brand name becoming the common name for paper tissues. IRRC corn in the ÔÇ£English corn lawÔÇØ sense refers to grain or cereal crops in general. The stuff we know as corn was the major cereal crop grown in the new world and rather than adopting or translating native terms for it, it just became referred to corn.
 
I would still be interested to see some research on the effects on vehicle mileage and wear going from 0% ethanol to 10% and from 0% ethanol to 15%. Perhaps our august research firm has some data on these?

Btw, I paid my way through grad school in the mid 1990's hauling fuel in tank trucks. Most fuels even back then had up to 5.7% ethanol blened in at the loading rack to enhance the octane.
 
This is getting better than any oil thread around.... :stick :lurk

That's an interesting thought!

What kind of oil do you use on your corn???

I like to grill mine with a bit of Olive Oil brushed on and sprinkling of garlic salt...:dance

Cheers!
 
That's an interesting thought!

What kind of oil do you use on your corn???

I like to grill mine with a bit of Olive Oil brushed on and sprinkling of garlic salt...:dance

Cheers!

Corn (on the cob or popped) is an organic butter delivery device.

:lurk
 
That's an interesting thought!

What kind of oil do you use on your corn???

I like to grill mine with a bit of Olive Oil brushed on and sprinkling of garlic salt...:dance

Cheers!
The best(only) to protect your sweet corn from ear worms is mineral oil, a few drops in the silk will do...:thumb
 
I use the pure gas site. A 2010 Camery will get about 36 mpg with non alohal will get up to 43mpg, this is not a hypride .
 
I had a VW back in the 70's that would not run on ethanol, it ran like it had water in the gas, the engine has to be engineered to run on the stuff, crap, that may be the damn gas I'm buying and why my bike 1200rt pings once in a while when I start it and has pinged only once when run 60mph, this is real helpful and glad plenty are posting about it, thanks all.
 
That *E* stuff i snot too bad!

Since the turn of the millennium I put ca. 2,400 gallons of the E10 crap into my 1989 airhead. And I am embarrassed to tell you that I had no problem whatsoever of what is discussed here. :dance

/Guenther
 
Resurrecting a 7 year old thread to make a comment that is, at best, tangentially related should be a capital crime! I'll bring the boiling oil. Who's got the feathers and pitchforks???
 
Since the turn of the millennium I put ca. 2,400 gallons of the E10 crap into my 1989 airhead. And I am embarrassed to tell you that I had no problem whatsoever of what is discussed here. :dance

/Guenther

And I have had to replace floats, diaphrams, fuel lines, and K bike fuel pump mounts dissolved in the stuff.
 
And I have had to replace floats, diaphrams, fuel lines, and K bike fuel pump mounts dissolved in the stuff.

I can add to that primer bulbs for outboard engines, fiberglass fuel tanks, fuel hoses and fuel sending units.
additionally I can add carburetor parts for chainsaws and a variety of other lawn equipment for our MTB trail crew...
Ethanol is crap plain and simple. The only reason it is added to fuel is because of the corn bribers in Washington DC, aka lobbyists...
 
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