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> which is not super desirable as human food without significant processing I see this repeated all the time. Is making cornmeal or cornflour really that much

> which is not super desirable as human food without significant processing I see this repeated all the time. Is making cornmeal or cornflour really that much more involved than wheat flour, semolina, or rolled oats?

988747 4y ago
It's really not about that, corn products are simply bad for health - too much sugar, to little more valuable nutrients.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Cornmeal is less than 1% simple sugars, as is cornflour. While it's not great compared to high fiber low gi sources like brown rice or sweet potato, it's not sugary at all. You have to split the polysachharides somehow to make it into sugar. Of course if you spend extra time, money and energy turning your relatively ordinarily healthy grain (which is admittedly a low bar) into sugar you spend more time, money and energy and wind up with sugar. It's no different from wheat in that regard other than you should maybe add a bit more fiber to the meal.
- logifail 4y ago
  > It's really not about that, corn products are simply bad for health - too much sugar, to little more valuable nutrients For the majority, sure. In our immediate family I have to disagree, after many months of (undiagnosed) illness, and after several trips to hospital, my son was recently diagnosed with Coeliac[0]. Now corn products are now a key component of his diet. [0] https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/celiac-disease https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-disea...
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    [deleted]
codefreeordie 4y ago
No, probably not. Mostly it gets said because sweet corn is tasty when prepared simply as a whole food, and it's what most people think of when they see the word "corn".
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I mostly see it as a bad faith argument for why the only possible productive use of x fraction of land is for growing feed and herding cattle and didn't know the 'animal feed corn' and corn as a grain for people are the same crop. If it's basically the same level of involvement as as bleached flour, then the only real relevant issues are how to source a balanced protein so you don't have to eat half a kilo of carbs when you don't need the energy and how distructive other micronutrient sources are.
h2odragon 4y ago
A little bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization Best use of maize, IMO, is fermentation. Let the yeast have it first, take off the volatiles, then feed the mash leftovers to tasty critters.
- finiteseries 4y ago
  Neither cornmeal nor cornflour are nixtamalized, but historically most consumed corn was before the inexperienced European colonizers began using it.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    To have "nixtamalized" maize appears to be what ingredients lists call "processed with lime". Pellagra epidemics have arisen through failure to process with lime. The Mayans got their cooking water from out of cenotes, skylights of limestone cave systems, which might have made it naturally nixtamalizing. Were their grinding stones of limestone? (The grinding platform, the metate, was not.) Don't know what the Navaho did or do.
deleted 4y ago
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littlestymaar 4y ago
It isn't really relevant anymore because the food source is much more diverse than what it used to be, but when some western people started cultivating corn, and feading mostly out of it, they started to suffer from acute lack of tryptophan and vitamin b3, called pellagra, causing millions of death over several centuries. Mesoamerican civilizations built on top of corn had a specific corn processing step called nixtamalization, which avoided the issue altogether, but unfortunately wasn't imported along with corn during the colonizations of the Americas. But as long as you can get enough tryptophan and vitamin b3 otherwise, corn is completely fine as a main source of energy.

988747 4y ago

It's really not about that, corn products are simply bad for health - too much sugar, to little more valuable nutrients.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Cornmeal is less than 1% simple sugars, as is cornflour. While it's not great compared to high fiber low gi sources like brown rice or sweet potato, it's not sugary at all. You have to split the polysachharides somehow to make it into sugar. Of course if you spend extra time, money and energy turning your relatively ordinarily healthy grain (which is admittedly a low bar) into sugar you spend more time, money and energy and wind up with sugar. It's no different from wheat in that regard other than you should maybe add a bit more fiber to the meal.
logifail 4y ago
> It's really not about that, corn products are simply bad for health - too much sugar, to little more valuable nutrients For the majority, sure. In our immediate family I have to disagree, after many months of (undiagnosed) illness, and after several trips to hospital, my son was recently diagnosed with Coeliac[0]. Now corn products are now a key component of his diet. [0] https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/celiac-disease https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-disea...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

codefreeordie 4y ago

No, probably not. Mostly it gets said because sweet corn is tasty when prepared simply as a whole food, and it's what most people think of when they see the word "corn".

Schroedingersat 4y ago
I mostly see it as a bad faith argument for why the only possible productive use of x fraction of land is for growing feed and herding cattle and didn't know the 'animal feed corn' and corn as a grain for people are the same crop. If it's basically the same level of involvement as as bleached flour, then the only real relevant issues are how to source a balanced protein so you don't have to eat half a kilo of carbs when you don't need the energy and how distructive other micronutrient sources are.

h2odragon 4y ago

A little bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization Best use of maize, IMO, is fermentation. Let the yeast have it first, take off the volatiles, then feed the mash leftovers to tasty critters.

finiteseries 4y ago
Neither cornmeal nor cornflour are nixtamalized, but historically most consumed corn was before the inexperienced European colonizers began using it.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  To have "nixtamalized" maize appears to be what ingredients lists call "processed with lime". Pellagra epidemics have arisen through failure to process with lime. The Mayans got their cooking water from out of cenotes, skylights of limestone cave systems, which might have made it naturally nixtamalizing. Were their grinding stones of limestone? (The grinding platform, the metate, was not.) Don't know what the Navaho did or do.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

littlestymaar 4y ago

It isn't really relevant anymore because the food source is much more diverse than what it used to be, but when some western people started cultivating corn, and feading mostly out of it, they started to suffer from acute lack of tryptophan and vitamin b3, called pellagra, causing millions of death over several centuries. Mesoamerican civilizations built on top of corn had a specific corn processing step called nixtamalization, which avoided the issue altogether, but unfortunately wasn't imported along with corn during the colonizations of the Americas. But as long as you can get enough tryptophan and vitamin b3 otherwise, corn is completely fine as a main source of energy.