Corn week at BigBarn

Sweet corn is here and like asparagus best eaten within minutes of picking! This means growing your own or tracking down some brilliant British grown corn from your local farm shop using our local food map!

Not only can it be found almost everywhere at the moment but it’s much more versatile than people give it credit for too! You don’t just need to have corn on the cob with butter and pepper, you can enjoy it with almost anything! If you’re BBQ-ing, why not pop one on the BBQ with paprika. If you’re feeling slightly more adventurous, why not try your hand at drying it and turn it into some of your very own posh popcorn on the cob.

This week’s facts – check out these 10 a-maize-ing facts:

1. Corn is a cereal crop that is part of the grass family.

2. An ear or cob of corn is actually part of the flower and an individual kernel is a seed.

3. On average an ear of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows

Delicious and nutritious

4. Corn will always have an even number of rows on each cob.

5. A bushel is a unit of measure for volumes of dry commodities such as shelled corn kernels. 1 Bushel of corn is equal to 8 gallons.

6. With the exception of Antarctica, corn is produced on every continent in the world.

7. There are over 3,500 tracked different uses for corn products.

8. As well as being eaten by the cob, corn is also processed and used as a major component in many food items like cereals, peanut butter, potato chips, soups, marshmallows, ice cream, baby food, cooking oil, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and chewing gum.

9. Juices and soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain corn sweeteners. A bushel of corn can sweeten 400 cans of soft drink.

10. Corn and its by products are also found in many non-food items such as fireworks, rust preventatives, glue, paint, dyes, laundry detergent, soap, aspirin, antibiotics, paint, shoe polish, ink, cosmetics, the manufacturing of photographic film, and in the production of plastics.

Buy fresh, ‘picked today’ from your local farm shop

11. Thousands of acres of corn are grown in this country to feed bio-digesters that produce electricity.

For the best sweetcorn you really want the fresh corn with leaves providing natural packaging. Not the de-skinned, 4 day old, plastic packed, supermarket offering.

Corn also has some good health benefits, include reducing the risk of digestive issues such as constipation. It provides necessary minerals like phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron and copper, and helps alleviate anaemia with its B12 and folic acid content. It also helps with the beauty aspect, not that any of our readers need any help of course. But, corn is found in many cosmetic products and can aid in alleviating rashes or irritations of the skin.

So don’t delay use our local food map to find your local farm shop and ask when the corn was picked. You will probably find, like many other products, that it is cheaper than the supermarket, fresher and by buying locally you will be boosting your local economy. Or grow your own at home or schools to share with friends or sell through our Crop for the Shop scheme

If you’d like to be the next famous chef, then why not share your favourite recipe? For the chance to win a prize, please video your recipe and add it to KIS (Keep it Simple) Cookery. Please have a look at existing videos here and try and keep your video less than 2 minutes long.