FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Are we (USA) the only ones who eat corn on the cob?

Steve Pope

> wrote:

>On Jul 6, 4:35*pm, Kate Connally > wrote:
>> It seems that way. *I tried googling it this morning.
>My aunt, who grew up in Switzerland, refused to eat corn at first
>because she said corn was fed to the pigs and not for human
>consumption.

When I lived in Italy in the 60's this was still the predominant
opinion in southern Italy.

Corn has in the past associated with nutritional deficiencies,
because Europeans when they started eating it failed to
follow the native American procedure (nixtamalization) which
improved the amino acid profile. So there is some rational, going back,
for not eating corn. Entire areas of Spain, Italy, and the American
south had corn-related nutrition problems, and until the cause (protein
imbalance) was figured out, many people thought the stuff was toxic.

Corn is no longer associated with nutritional deficiencies, but
only because western peoples have otherwise improved their diet.

Steve