It became part of may cultures which allowed societies to grow and flourish because it lessened the effects of food scarcity. Corn became a hardy plant through its adaptations and became adopted into numerous diets around the world because it could mass produced for relatively cheap. One large cob provides humans with 123 calories, 5 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber, 27 grams of carbohydrates and it high in folate (19.5 milligrams), potassium (158 milligrams), magnesium (18.3 milligrams) (United States Department of Agriculture, 2016). However, populations that have relied to heavily on corn have encountered dietary issues such as pellagra. A widespread problem of malnutrition arose where maize was introduced as a staple food. Research suggest that the relationship between heavily relying on corn and little animal based products such as meat, eggs or diary products is that pellagra occurs due to a dietary a deficiency of niacin (Crook, 2014). Pellagra symptoms include mental confusion, diarrhea and inflamed mucus membranes (Crook, 2014). By analyzing the nutritional components of corn it becomes apparent that corn has a very limited amount of niacin. Corn consumption can be seen through the consumption of foods that are made from corn because corn on the cob does not make up a large portion of the global diet (Levine, …show more content…
United States consumes the most corn syrup of the Americas which may be the reason why their obesity rates are the highest in North America followed by Mexico then Canada (CIA, 2008). By analyzing Figure 1, if we compare two countries such as Egypt that consumes 1.36 kg and Australia consuming 0.35 kg of high fructose corn syrup.
Further by relating the amount of HFCS with obesity rates globally Egypt according to the Central Intelligence Agency is ranked 13 while Australia is ranked 44 (CIA, 2008). This can be seen as emphasising the relationship between high amount of HFCS and obesity. Furthermore, by analyzing Figure 2 it becomes apparent that many nations around the world consume