This Is Your Brain On Smut

Impactlab
Wait, that's not right. This is not your brain on smut -- this is smut! Corn smut, a fungal parasite on maize, and something that is rapidly becoming a food delicacy in the Napa Valley.

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. _Source

Corn smut is packed with lysine -- an essential amino acid that corn cannot supply in adequate quantities. Smut unpacks the latent nutrition in corn, supplementing it with rich fungal nutrition.

Steve Sando runs a specialty food company in Northern California. He led an expedition to Xochimilco -- on Mexico City's south side -- looking for the corn smut, huitlacoche (the name means sleeping shit in the indigenous tongue). They hit paydirt, finding basketloads full of the stuff, as well as chili-stuffed smut tamales.

An ear of huitlacoche costs about 41 cents to produce and sells for about $1.20. By comparison, an ear of sweet corn costs about less than a dime, with profits of just a few cents per ear.

Sando has few competitors in the fresh market, even though gourmet chefs pay $20 or more per pound for a chance to add the delicacy to their menus. But there are several Hispanic food companies, including San Marcos and Del Fuerte, who sell canned huitlacoche in the U.S. _Source