IRAPUATO, Mexico — It's now an established scientific fact: Smut is GOOD for you. Corn smut, that is.
For years, scientists have assumed that huitlacoche (WEET-LA-KO-CHEE) — a gnarly, gray-black corn fungus long-savored in Mexico — had nutritional values similar to those of the corn on which it grew. But test results just published in the journal Food Chemistry reveal that an infection that U.S. farmers and crop scientists have spent millions trying to eradicate, is packed with unique proteins, minerals and other nutritional goodies.
And here's a bonus: agro-economists have found it can sell for more than the corn it ruins.
"We had no idea huitlacoche could actually synthesize significant nutrients that don't even exist in corn," says Octavio Paredes-Lopez, one of Mexico's leading food scientists.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Baltimore Sun.
