SWEET CORN HEALTH BENEFITS AND FACTS

Sweet corn is one of the members of grass family Gramineae with wheat, barley and rice. It is inherent to tropical environment of Americas. Sweet corn is the sweet version of maize. Various varieties could be found, some have white kernels whereas others have combination of white and yellow kernels. The sweetness differs in varieties. Yellow sweet corn is the common variety. This cereal has high content of sugar. Sweet corn is an outcome of naturally occurring recessive mutation in genes restrain conversion of sugar to starch inside ENO of corn kernel.

This maize species differs genetically from field maize. The kernels are delicious, tender and consumed as vegetable in cuisines worldwide. Adjacent to traditional field corn, sweet corn crops are harvested when corn ears attain milky stage. Cob is either used immediately or frozen for using later as the sugar content convert into starch quickly. This crop has attained major success as one of the vital commercial cash crops in various tropical and semi-tropical countries including USA.

History

Sweet corn is an instinctive mutation in field corn and was cultivated by several Native American tribes. Sweet corn was given by Iroquois to European settlers in 1779. Then soon it was a popular food in Central and Southern regions of United States. Open pollinated cultivars started to became available widely in United States in 19th century. In 20th century, the production of sweet corn was influenced by various key developments.