Michael pallan describes the way in which corn has taken over America's food supply. He says that for every calorie of oil burned, there are more than a million calories left to be eaten by people around the world. Pallan: We don't have a culture of eating well and we can't rely on fossil fuel-based fertilizers like ammonium nitrate as our main source of nitrogen. The problem with American agriculture is that it hasn't been operated according to basic capitalist principles such as supply and demand.