Corn (one of many blogs to come)

It has been brought to my attention that I needed to take another look at the nutritional facts of corn. So today I took the 3 different kinds of corn that are in the food bank and put them side-by-side. I will also take a look at fresh corn from the FDA’s website (I’ll put a link to that at the end).

The three styles of corn are TEFAP (or The Emergency Food Assistance Program) Whole Kernel Golden Corn, TEFAP Cream Style Corn, and donated Whole Kernel Sweet Corn. The following are their nutritional information and the ingredients. These are straight off the cans.

TEFAP Whole Kernel Corn:

Serving: ½ C Servings per can: 3.5

Calories: 80 Calories from fat: 10

Total Fat: 1g (2%DV)

Sodium: 310mg (13%DV)

Total Carbohydrate: 17g (6%DV)

Dietary Fiber: 2g

Sugar: 4g

Protein: 2g

Vit C: 6%

Calcium: <2%

Iron: <2%

Ingredients: Corn, Water, Sugar, Salt.

TEFAP Cream Style Corn:

Serving: ½ C Servings per can: 3.5

Calories: 80 Calories from fat: 5

Total Fat: 0.5g (1% DV)

Sodium: 140mg (6% DV)

Potassium: 135mg (4% DV)

Total Carbohydrate: 15g (5% DV)

Dietary Fiber: 1g

Sugars: 6g

Protein: 1g

Vit C: 2%

Ingredients: Corn, Water, Modified Food Starch, Sugar and Salt.

Libby’s Whole Kernel Sweet Corn (Donated to the bank)

Servings ½ C Servings per can: 3.5

Calories: 60 Calories from fat: 15

Total Fat: 1.5 (2%DV)

Sodium: 200mg (8% DV)

Potassium: 160mg (5% DV)

Total Carbohydrates: 9g (3% DV)

Dietary Fiber: 2g

Sugar: 7%

Protein: 2g

Vit C: 6%

Iron: 2%

Ingredients: Corn, Water, Salt.

Fresh Yellow Corn (according to the FDA website here: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5687/2)

Serving ½ C ß The website, the serving is 1 C, so I halved everything for even serving size.

Calories: 303 Calories from fat: 33

Total Fat: 8g (12%DV)

Saturated Fat: .5g (3% DV)

Sodium: 29mg (1%)

Total Carbohydrate: 61.5g (20.5% DV)

Dietary Fiber: 6g

Sugar: .5g

Protein: 8g

Vitamin A: 3.5%

Calcium: .5%

Iron: 12.5%

Ingredients: Corn.

Please note that if there is not a number for something (like cholesterol), it is because there is none reported in the product.

What does this tell us? To me, this says that corn is nothing but empty carbs. It is sugar and fiber. Now I’m going to get a little graphic. So if you don’t want the read the rest of this paragraph, you won’t hurt my feelings. Humans cannot digest corn. That is why when you eat corn, you poop it right out. Our bodies have evolved over time to not be able to digest some types of fiber (plant fiber). So if you really like corn, but don’t want to see it in your poop, chew it up really well. But you’ll still be able to see some of the fiber in your poop. Because we can’t digest it, it’s worthless. We can’t get any of the nutrients from it unless you process it into something like corn syrup, and that’s just sugar. Also, for another though, cows cannot digest it either, yet 60% of all the corn grown in the US goes to feeding cows. This is another rant I’ll get into late about meat in the US.

Ok. Back to not talking about poop.

You can judge for yourself if you think that corn is healthy. But I say that it's a "not a food, food". Corn does not give you anything but stuff in your stomach that won't be digested and calories. So why in the world would you eat it?

I could go into a giant Genetically Modified rant here, but I’ll save that for another blog. So I will leave you with this thought:

Somehow Americans have come up with the idea that if it won’t kill them, it must be healthy. I believe that because corn cannot be digested without processing, it should not be in the human diet. Period. End of story. But getting it out will be the biggest issue. We rely on corn for near everything.

So what’s a girl to do?