It’s the season of corn again. This is the time we see them on the streets. Roadside sellers roasting them on a charcoal grill, or boiling them in big pots. Also known as maize (Zea mays), corn is one of the world’s most popular cereal grains. It’s the seed of a plant in the grass family, native to Central America but grown in countless varieties worldwide. Whole-grain corn is as healthy as any cereal grain, as it’s rich in fiber and many vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Corn is typically yellow but comes in a variety of other colors, such as red, orange, purple, blue, white, and black.
According to healthline these are the nutrition facts of corn;
Nutrition facts
Here are the nutrition facts for 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of boiled yellow corn
- Calories: 96
- Water: 73%
- Protein: 3.4 grams
- Carbs: 21 grams
- Sugar: 4.5 grams
- Fiber: 2.4 grams
- Fat: 1.5 grams
NUTRITIONAL COMPONENTS OF CORN
Carbs
Like all cereal grains, corn is primarily composed of carbs.
Starch is its main carb, comprising 28–80% of its dry weight. Corn also provides small amounts of sugar.
Sweet corn, or sugar corn, is a special, low-starch variety with higher sugar content, at 18% of the dry weight. Most of the sugar is sucrose. Despite the sugar in sweet corn, it is not a high-glycemic food, ranking low or medium on the glycemic index (GI).
The GI is a measure of how quickly carbs are digested. Foods that rank high on this index may cause an unhealthy spike in blood sugar.
Fiber
Corn contains a fair amount of fiber. One medium bag (112 grams) of cinema popcorn boasts approximately 16 grams of fiber. This is 42% and 64% of the Daily Value (DV) for men and women, respectively. While the fiber content of different types of corn varies, it’s generally around 9–15% of the dry weight. The predominant fibers in corn are insoluble ones, such as hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin (2).
Protein
Corn is a decent source of protein.
Depending on the variety, the protein content ranges from 10–15%. The most abundant proteins in corn are known as zeins, accounting for 44–79% of the total protein content.
Overall, the protein quality of zeins is poor because they lack some essential amino acids.
Zeins have many industrial applications, as they’re used in the production of adhesives, inks, and coatings for pills, candy, and nuts
So, as you step out to buy yourself some boiled or roasted corn, whatever you’ll have with it, be it African pear or coconut, have at the back of your mind that Corn is mainly composed of carbs and fairly high in fiber. It also packs a decent amount of low-quality protein.
