- Traditional corn growing, w companion plants, micro-fallowing, integrated system with nitrogen fixing beans, etc., the milpa system (as practiced in Mexico, Central America), similar to Iroquois and other farming Native North Americans, where corn migrated centuries ago. Traditionally never grown as a mono-crop, gives more space between plants in hillocks, to facilitate microfallowing and plant companions, encourages useful weeds, “green compost” – but labor intensive. Modifications for US. Why most people grow it in error.
- Nixtamalization- say 10 times! Great tech screw up of the century: when Spain conquered Mexico it immediately began eating tortillas alongside their bread, but when corn seeds were taken back to Europe and beyond, the technology to prepare it for maximum health (nutritional bioavailability) did not go with it. It was like a shiny new thing with no instruction manual. Negative heath impacts arose from eating corn without putting it thru the process of nixtamalization, cooking it with quick lime (plaster, cal, sodium carbonate) in order to shift the amino acid arrangements and other chemical changes that would make much more of corn’s nutrition available to the human body. They messed up taking the golden seed and forgetting to send the recipe with it. Not all corn eating is the same!
End with stats on how productive, how many places it grows.
Dr. Duncan Earle
