Sweet Corn By Prakriti Developer

Sweet Corn is a special maize variety in which its tender, delicious kernels eaten as a vegetable. In contrast to traditional field corn, sugar corn varieties are harvested when the ears just reached milk stage and used fresh since the sugars in the kernel quickly convert to starch. Corn is native to Central American region, which later introduced to the rest of the world by Spanish explorers. Genetically, it differs from the field corn by mutation at the sugary (su) locus. The crop has achieved success as one of the important commercial cash crops in many tropical and semi-tropical countries. Scientific name: Zea mays var. saccharata. Corn grows to about 7-10 feet in height. It grows quickly under sunny, fertile, and well-drained soil supplemented with good moisture conditions. Each plant bears about 2-6, long husked ears filled with rows of tooth like seeds surrounding a central woody core (cob). Optimum pollination is essential for full kernel development. At 86 calories per 100 g, sugar corn kernels are moderately high in calories on comparison to other vegetables. However, fresh kernels have been much lower in calories than field corn and other cereals like wheat, rice, etc. Their calorie mainly comes from simpler carbohydrates like glucose, sucrose than complex sugars like amylose and amylopectin as in cereals.

Sweet corn is gluten-free cereal and may be used safely much like rice, quinoa, etc., in celiac disease individuals.