Those who go to the toilet a few hours after consuming corn may wonder, “Why is this happening?” when they see the outer coating of the corn kernel in their stools. The reason why corn comes back out of the body in an undigested form is because it has a carbohydrate called cellulose, which is not suitable for the digestive system of humans.
Unfortunately, we encounter such a result because our bodies do not have the appropriate enzymes and intestinal bacteria to digest cellulose. “Well, if we can’t digest corn, is it beneficial or harmful to eat it?” we seem to hear you say. In this article, you will find the answers to these questions.
According to Professor Andrea Watson, who works in this field, even bovine animals such as cattle, which have sufficient metabolic equipment to digest cellulose, cannot digest it fully.
Watson says it takes a high degree of rumination to digest maize, which animals can do a lot. Think about it, cattle like cattle are not able to fully digest the corn, even though they consume immature hard corn, not the softer corn that we eat.
In fact, we can say that the human body has the ability to break down different components of corn, such as fat and protein. As in cattle, if we chew the corn for a long time, we can reach the other components we mentioned by breaking the cellulose walls in the corn. In this respect, it is not the indigestible corn itself, but only cellulose, as we mentioned at the beginning.
If there are 300-500 corn kernels in a corncob, we can only defecate 10-15 of them. The remaining grains disintegrate and mix with the blood. Cellulose that does not mix with the blood or cannot be broken down is the part that is excreted in the feces. In other words, the grains of corn you see in the toilet are actually grains that cannot mix with this blood.
However, since corn contains only 10% cellulose, the remaining 90% contains beneficial components in terms of nutritional value.
So if you’re saying, “Should we stop eating corn,” you don’t need to because the useless part is a small percentage. Corn also has carotenoids (a pigment naturally found in plants) that gives carrots their color. These are known as dietary fiber.
It contains carotenoids, starch and has antioxidant function. According to a study conducted at Tufts University in 2019; Carotenoids in corn are less than those found in green leafy vegetables. In other words, it competes with green vegetables in terms of organicity. In addition, corn contains potassium, calcium, iron, sodium, protein, vitamins such as B6 and B12, so we can say once again that it is quite nutritious.
The way to make corn more digestible is to process it.
For example, to process corn, you can separate the kernels from the cob and then boil them. Did you store the boiled corn in the freezer, the process is complete. Of course, do not put it in the freezer after boiling it directly, run it through a cold water first. The more accurately you do this process, the easier the digestion of corn will be. This application is perfect for breaking down fiber molecules that are difficult to digest.
Most of the corn we eat may actually be preprocessed. After all, we don’t just eat corn off the cob. We can also consume it as chips, popcorn, corn syrup (fructose). Of course, their processing is done in a more fabricated way, by adding artificial additives. However, when consumed in this way, corn loses most of its properties such as being beneficial in terms of fiber and high in nutritional value.
In other words, if you say, “Should we eat corn like this, or should we eat it from the cob?”, we can say that it is healthier to eat from the cob. Because when you eat popcorn or corn chips, you take in more calories than when you eat them in the form of boiled millet. After all, 100 grams of corn on the cob has 96 calories, while 100 grams of popcorn has 525 calories. Even when you enter such a comparison, you do not have difficulty deciding which one is healthier. So let’s ask you, how do you prefer to eat corn? We look forward to your answers in the comments.
- Sources: Live Science, Science Focus
- Image Sources: Medical News Today, Eating Well, Eating Well 2, Real Simple
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