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Nutritionally speaking, corn is an excellent source of energy. In many parts of the Earth, e.g. in Europe, maize a.k.a. corn and wheat are much cheaper energy

Nutritionally speaking, corn is an excellent source of energy. In many parts of the Earth, e.g. in Europe, maize a.k.a. corn and wheat are much cheaper energy sources than anything else and wheat and corn are about as cheap. Wheat may be preferable to corn only because it has a double amount of proteins, so it can also be used to provide a big part of the daily intake in proteins, if it is supplemented with at least another source of proteins that is rich in lysine. However, wheat is more suspicious from the point of view of its health effects, so when the absolute minimum cost for the daily food is not the target, corn might be the best energy source in food. The bulk of the food that is needed daily is required for providing energy and corn can do that at a minimal cost and it can be cooked into tasty food. The rest of the food must provide proteins, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, but much less amounts are needed for that. So corn is perfect nutritionally for its right purpose. Obviously it cannot be the only kind of food that is eaten. Except for energy (i.e. starch), most cereals do not contain anything in sufficient amounts to be an adequate source of it. Wheat is an exception by having a useful amount of protein, which is however harder to digest than most other proteins and the undigested fragments may have undesirable effects. Only oats has a higher protein content than wheat, but oats is much more expensive, so it is not really competitive from this point of view. Therefore it makes no sense to claim that corn is worse nutritionally than other cereals, because it is better than most (except possibly rice, which cannot be cultivated in the places where corn is grown) at the only thing for which cereals are really good: providing energy.

fuzztester 2y ago
dang (pun intended), this sounds like the tone of an llm, including hallucinations, which are just an euphemism for factual errors, so I'll send it to another llm to verify, before I reply. :) did you see what I did there? :)
- adrian_b 2y ago
  If you dispute anything that I have said, present your arguments and point to the hallucinations. Vague ad hominem accusations are useless. The only factual error is what you have written "it sucks as a cereal, nutritionally speaking".
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Why should I, when you talk utter crap? Anyway, I did that (replied) already, once. See my other reply to you, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41967220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41967220
fuzztester 2y ago
Wow. Whether you pasted LLM content or your own, so much is wrong about what you said (in such a confident tone), including logical, English usage, and scientific / factual errors, that I do not want to argue more, except to leave you with this link to peruse, and another sentence or two below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957679 That link was of a reply by me to another comment(er) in this same overall thread. Make sure to see my own reply to my own comment, at the link below the link given, and in particular, the Wikipedia links given there, about the nutritional value of various food items discussed here. Now, that sentence or two that I mentioned above: Factual error: near the top of your comment, you say that wheat has about twice the protein of corn (maize). Wheat actually has more than three times the protein of maize - as a ratio. It also has a lot of other nutritional value. See the relevant Wikipedia articles that I linked. And in an absolute sense, it makes even more of a difference, because maize is below 3.5 grams, and wheat is above 12.5 grams in protein. So wheat has 9 grams more protein per 100 grams, than corn / maize. That makes a hell of a lot of difference to poor people, or others, who cannot afford or do not want to eat meat, for religious, cultural, ethical or other reasons. And there are an increasing number of people in the west or in "developed" countries who are becoming vegetarian for ethical or climate reasons. The founder of Y Combinator, and of this site, Hacker News, Paul Graham, also became vegetarian some time ago. When asked why, by someone, he replied, "I was grossed out by factory farming". See his reply here, 17 years ago, via this search: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=pg%20grossed%20out%20factory%20farming&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58051 "It wasn't a deliberate choice. I just got grossed out by factory farming." Factual error, or almost: in your last paragraph, you say that corn is an excellent source of energy. Much less than wheat: Corn / maize: less than 17 grams carbs per 100 grams. Wheat: more than 71 grams carbs per 100 grams. Again, see the same relevant, linked, Wikipedia articles about maize and wheat for proof. My calculator tells me that 71/17 is over 4x. Fat content in both is so low as to not matter. And carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram, while fats have 9 calories per gram. So should we all just eat fats only, for energy? Of course not. There is much more to nutrition than just energy or protein or fat or whatever.
- 2y ago

fuzztester 2y ago

dang (pun intended), this sounds like the tone of an llm, including hallucinations, which are just an euphemism for factual errors, so I'll send it to another llm to verify, before I reply. :) did you see what I did there? :)

adrian_b 2y ago
If you dispute anything that I have said, present your arguments and point to the hallucinations. Vague ad hominem accusations are useless. The only factual error is what you have written "it sucks as a cereal, nutritionally speaking".
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Why should I, when you talk utter crap? Anyway, I did that (replied) already, once. See my other reply to you, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41967220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41967220

fuzztester 2y ago

Wow. Whether you pasted LLM content or your own, so much is wrong about what you said (in such a confident tone), including logical, English usage, and scientific / factual errors, that I do not want to argue more, except to leave you with this link to peruse, and another sentence or two below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957679 That link was of a reply by me to another comment(er) in this same overall thread. Make sure to see my own reply to my own comment, at the link below the link given, and in particular, the Wikipedia links given there, about the nutritional value of various food items discussed here. Now, that sentence or two that I mentioned above: Factual error: near the top of your comment, you say that wheat has about twice the protein of corn (maize). Wheat actually has more than three times the protein of maize - as a ratio. It also has a lot of other nutritional value. See the relevant Wikipedia articles that I linked. And in an absolute sense, it makes even more of a difference, because maize is below 3.5 grams, and wheat is above 12.5 grams in protein. So wheat has 9 grams more protein per 100 grams, than corn / maize. That makes a hell of a lot of difference to poor people, or others, who cannot afford or do not want to eat meat, for religious, cultural, ethical or other reasons. And there are an increasing number of people in the west or in "developed" countries who are becoming vegetarian for ethical or climate reasons. The founder of Y Combinator, and of this site, Hacker News, Paul Graham, also became vegetarian some time ago. When asked why, by someone, he replied, "I was grossed out by factory farming". See his reply here, 17 years ago, via this search: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=pg%20grossed%20out%20factory%20farming&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58051 "It wasn't a deliberate choice. I just got grossed out by factory farming." Factual error, or almost: in your last paragraph, you say that corn is an excellent source of energy. Much less than wheat: Corn / maize: less than 17 grams carbs per 100 grams. Wheat: more than 71 grams carbs per 100 grams. Again, see the same relevant, linked, Wikipedia articles about maize and wheat for proof. My calculator tells me that 71/17 is over 4x. Fat content in both is so low as to not matter. And carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram, while fats have 9 calories per gram. So should we all just eat fats only, for energy? Of course not. There is much more to nutrition than just energy or protein or fat or whatever.

2y ago