You probably have a bag of frozen corn in your freezer, or have chowed down on a buttery ear of corn at a cookout. But not only did it take thousands of years for humans to domesticate teosinte to corral it into what we now know as corn, but there’s a whole bunch of reasons that it never should have reached staple crop status in our diets. It took a few thousand years of random coincidences for us to end up with that tasty side dish, and avoid getting nasty diseases like pellagra on the way.
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Sources:
http://www.ask-force.org/web/Bt/Mangelsdorf-Origin-Maize-1986.pdf
http://users.clas.ufl.edu//dcgrove/mexarchreadings/corn.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065211308604915
https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1541-4337.12192
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24966237
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405421/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/371884/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224418305958
https://nerdfighteria.info/v/LrJ3poBaNaQ/
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.052125199
https://www.news.iastate.edu/media/2022/02/TYNJ-472.jpg
https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/166/1/1/6052795?login=false
https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/teosinte
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/377664
https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/evolution/corn/
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=104207
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5386864/pdf/1157.pdf
https://www.maizegenetics.net/copy-of-hybrid-vigor-1
http://www.ask-force.org/web/TraditionalKnowledge/Fedoroff-Prehistoric-Corn-2003.pdf
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https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2018/2/recycle_ash/
https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/what-is-nixtamal-article
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/niacin-healthprofessional/#en4
Images:
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/7/1646
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Prolificacy-phenotypes-A-Segment-of-a-teosinte-lateral-branch-showing-a-cluster-of_fig13_245029474
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Perennial_Teosinte_ear_%28Zea_diploperennis%29_-_Detail.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maize-teosinte.jpg
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237715
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3%ADa_-_MA%C3%8DZ.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aztecs_storing_maize.jpg
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/6/556
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Secado_tradicional_del_ma%C3%ADz.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nixtamalized_Corn_maize_El_Salvador_recipe.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hominy_(maize).JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tortilleras_Nebel.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niacin-3D-balls.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uno_de_los_primeros_imagines_europeos_de_maiz.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blowing_on_maize.jpg
41 Comments
I love internet corn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does it make up the nutrition of 80% of the population if it doesnt have enough nutrients to sustain human life?
Corn is great because when you eat it with beans you get complete proteins and thus don't need to eat meat.
Hmmm‽ genetic engineering from long ago
What are you even talking about? Every grain that makes the backbone of our diets started out as near inedible grass seeds…
Corn syrup and corn starch are why Americans are so fat and unhealthy.
Prolly first eaten as "pop corn" and prolly not intentionally popped
In 1966, I asked an agronomist how long it would take to recreate maize from its closest wild relative, and he replied "about 100 years". In Hawaii, where this conversation took place, that would mean 200 generations. This was long before genetic engineering, so just with selective breeding.
People keep saying “the Americas” and not give Mexico’s credit.
Eating Doritos while watching this 🤣😂 ( Doritos is A tortilla corn chips )
Corn is something of a conspiracy as to how and why we stick it in everything, and it is not in our best interest.
0:26 One of the top ten staple crops? Wheat, rice, corn, soy. One of the top four.
What a way to put "If you eat corn only for the rest of your life, you'll be nutrient difficient." …
I'm sure if humanity disappears our man made corn
will be spread by animals, maybe it could survive and then into wild corn.
Life, ..uh, finds a way…
I’m eating corn
Country girls make due.
It's corn. It's a big lump with knobs.
All respects to the brilliant and talented people of the Americas over the centuries for their hard work. 🌽🌽🌽
20% is a bit misleading.
What a misleading title.
Very cool episode. ❤
Thanking Mexico. Cornflour in my soup. Tortias and popcorn
As a mexican, I really love corn but I prefer it on a cup, literally "Elote en Vaso". It's so delicious and easier to eat.
Also, I know that a lot of people love the yellow corn or "sweet corn" it's ok. But as far as I know, it's illegal here in Mexico cuz it is a GMO.
Our current government is trying to protect our native crops away from the new syrup or ethanol producers from (mostly) USA.
So, if you ever travel to Mexico, it's most likely that you will find a white and less sweet corn in most of our gastronomy.
Oh! And we have a lot of native variants, from red, blue, green orange or even multicolor corn.
It's a comon slur to call a mexican a "b3@n3r" (and we don't really care) because people think we eat a lot of beans, when actually corn is in every single one of our meals. We are truly a corn loving country<3
Being a Pahadi we can't live without Makki ki Roti and Sarson ka saag.
This video was sooo corny
Some pozole, handmade tortillas from Mexico, and tamales [de elote] are sounding appetizing rn.
Corn used to grow in India long before what you know about, dried and sand roasted cereal is thousands years old culture, and corn used to be one of the roasted cereal.
Corn really is "a-maize-ing".
I absolutely love talking about how AMAZING the Indigenous New World peoples were at domesticating crazy and seemingly terrible plants – they turned a poisonous tiny root into basically the king if all single foods – the potato!
Their ingenuity was incredible, while the mesoamericans made corn (and more I'm sure!) the Andes were full of incredible potatoes and other plants on terraces – multigenerational projects designed to gradually adapt crops to different altitudes.
Then we have water and irrigation system of the Huari/Wari too!
Thank Victor Bourlag
Now explain how ancient Americans figured out how and why to process corn that way.
Did they have ancient chemistry labs to show it was possible?
Did they know about niacin?
Did they they know about B3?
That chemical they were using to process the corn, you completely left out where that came from, how they got it, and how they knew to process corn that way. There is no way they came to that by accident.
Is this your evidence for ancient aliens visiting Earth?
Here's Hank for more…
Because you always have Hank do the truly absurd.
Nixtimalisation turns corn from being anti-nutritious to being a super food and it's how the native Americans taught us to eat it.
But no, were to stupid and we'd rather get low grade-chronic pellagra.
I can't remember the last time I've eaten corn.
Wow. Fascinating
HUZZAH!
Hero's Journey with a picture of corn feels like a ai generated thumbnail
Thous mexicans!
Keeping all the things mentioned aside, how ironical this is to even think about, people before medieval only thought there were civilizations only in three continents. The inhabitants of America even before getting known to the then 'modern' world had so much knowledge. Even the Europeans borrowed knowledge from them.
why did he used in some parts of the world are named as far as I know north America calls it like that in Europe for example call it maize
GMO 🤯
I don’t know why but this video almost seems to dismiss the domestication of the corn plant by mesoamericana with language like “it shouldn’t have happened” “there’s no way it should have worked.” When you can literally say that about any domesticated plant. You know it’s kinda implied it only worked because Humans intervened? It’s giving, social-Darwinism. Do better Sci-fi Show!