Corn Shouldn't Be Food, But It Is

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. Hosted by: Stefan Chin (he/him) ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Matt Curls, Alisa Sherbow, Dr. Melvin Sanicas, Harrison Mills, Adam Brainard, Chris Peters, charles george, Piya Shedden, Alex Hackman, Christopher R, Boucher, Jeffrey Mckishen, Ash, Silas Emrys, Eric Jensen, Kevin Bealer, Jason A Saslow, Tom Mosner, Tomás Lagos González, Jacob, Christoph Schwanke, Sam Lutfi, Bryan Cloer ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? SciShow Tangents Podcast: https://scishow-tangents.simplecast.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scishow Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishowFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow #SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly ---------- 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.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25creature.html 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 https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/tex-mexplainer-nixtamalization-is-the-3500-year-old-secret-to-great-tortillas/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924224418305958 https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2018/2/recycle_ash/ https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/what-is-nixtamal-article https://www.cimmyt.org/news/what-is-nixtamalization/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/niacin-healthprofessional/#en4 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/niacin-vitamin-b3/ 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