wombat
Ya know, Trapper, I'm with you on that one...I'm always amazed at the endless variety of cheap carbs there is to fatten up the masses..
Corn is another story. The hybridized sweet corn that we have today is a far cry from the original(s)
This is from "In the Devil's Garden - A Sinful History of Forbidden Food" by Stewart Lee Allen.
"...Corn based cuisines of the Southwest survived only to have the Europeans make the plant itself almost inedible. Scientists in the area now believe that the high -
Sugar corn hybrids introduced in the 1950s have helped cause a massive outbreak in diabetes and other disease because the Native American,s digestive system has trouble breaking down sugqr. Prior to 1950 diabetes was UNKNOWN!!! among native populations of the American Southwest. It now has the HIGHEST RATES IN THE WORLD!!!" (emphasis mine)
GAWD that pisses me off!!!
and there was a problem with pellagra (niacin deficiency) with non-Indians eating Indian corn.
"Indians always soaked the kernels overnoght in a bath made of water and lime or wood ashes before grinding it into a meal. The European invaders had assumed this was merely to make the maize easier to grind and had taken it as an example of
"Indian laziness". It turned out that the step of soaking the grain with ash, called nixtamalization, was what released the niacin "bound up" inside the corn and turned the plant into a kind of universal superfood that met almost all nutritional requirements."
Chief Sitting Bull- "We are an island in a sea of white men"...
Sorry to ramble on but this stuff just pisses me off. We are living in an illusory world. They've sucked the life out of everything.