Is Animal Feed Corn Meal Fit For Human Consumption?

[jaideeguy]

Not sure weather to post this in the western food forum or here.....I chose here.

The title says it all......is animal feed corn meal fit for human consumption??

looks good enough to eat and price is 10-12 thb/kilo vs store bought [imported?] corn meal @ 10X the price of animal feed.

any chems to worry about??

[WatersEdge]

Eat and enjoy, perfectly fine.

[RedBullHorn]

Are you eating it ? You sure you want to eat it ? why would you want to eat it ?

Edited January 8, 2011 by RedBullHorn

[grimleybob]

Are you eating it ? You sure you want to eat it ? why would you want to eat it ?

Have you heard of pollenta?

[WatersEdge]

Hi RedBullHorn,

Yes, we eat corn meal happily.

I once ran a quick mental list of the comfort foods

because the recent topics were ribs and corned beef.

I was amazed to discover that most of them were originally fit only for poor folks.

Rich folks eat the Pork Chops, Ham

but leave the Ribs for someone else to pick a little meat off the bone.

What do we want today....RIBS!

I don't eat Pigs Feet, but am told that the demand is brisk for pickled pigs feet.

Definitely a poor man's food.

Rich folks eat Steak and Roast,

poor folks eat brisket => corned beef.

What about Chicken Wings...it's a poor man's portion.

What do we want as an appetizer? Buffalo Wings with chili and bleu cheese dressing.

Corn Meal is for people who can't afford Wheat Flour, right?

While I'm all for a Croissant or Bagel, that's rich man's food.

Corn Bread has a certain appeal that none of that fancy stuff can offer.

It's not actually the corn meal, but the other things that make it palatable.

Corn Tortillas are better to me than flour tortillas.

They are poor folks food, as you now might expect.

We have corn chips from deep frying corn tortilla

As for eating cheap, It's still with us.

I've looked from the numbers perspective

at the supposed humanitarian concern claim

that the poor people of the world can't afford to eat well.

In my area a Burmese farm laborer receives B100 / day.

You'd think that would mean the whole family can eat only rice

then come steal my chickens and fish for their protein & fat

But look at the option of Soybeans....at B15/kg that comes to nearly 7kg.

A family cannot possibly eat 7 kg of beans

Yet when I offered my Workers the opportunity to buy my bulk feed beans,

6 kg in lieu of the day's wage

knowing the protein and the oil in them would work wonders for their well rounded diet

They replied only that Soybeans take too long to cook...no one was interested.

As long at Soybeans are available,

the myth of the poor eating poorly must be set aside.

It becomes then a matter of making beans available to the ones smart enough to cook a bit longer.

To me the complaint of cooking time doesn't amount to the disqualification they made it.

It tells me that life is good, they don't need options.

Rice Bran is much richer nutrition than Rice.

12.5% Protein

12% Fat

50% Starch

Phosphorous content 1.7% P

Yet no one that I know of would think of eating it.

It would be insulting to suggest,

I know....because I've suggested it

as the remedy for evident child malnutrition

and people were dismayed at my foreign gall.

If only they knew how expensive and exclusive it is in the US,

where the health food folks pay several dollars a pound for small portions.

I bought it in 60 kg gunny sacks for B6/kg

There are mental blocks that prevent people from eating well.

I read a while back that people have been found starved to death in the house,

while there was animal feed grain left sitting in the barn.

They didn't equate horse oats with winter famine survival

so they went ahead and starved cold.

I think it was during the Irish Famine that it happened.

No Irish jokes please....just keep in mind that adequate survival may be still available.

We now eat oatmeal cookies....a poor man's comfort food originally a horse ration.

[Scully]

Are you eating it ? You sure you want to eat it ? why would you want to eat it ?

I am with you on this one , I personally wouldn't want to eat pollenta. We live in Thailand with the freshest fruit and veg all kinds, numerous differrent dishes and yet someone would choose to eat groung corn?.

Must be some sort of health kick.

[RedBullHorn]

OK~ now i'm educated , always thought ground corn are use for animal feed only. Not so much on the perspective of rich vs poor folks, where i come from, chicken feet, pig's trotters, pig's offals soup like the intestine, liver, kidney, stomach, heart and other organs including its brain but not the eye...are common food and delicacy, yes i still eat them all .... but i wouldn't bring myself to eat animal feed corn meal, i'm guessing cultural different.

Edited January 9, 2011 by RedBullHorn

[fvw53]

Milled of grinded corn so that it becomes meal is of course from the nutritional point of view the same.

However many times the quality can become so degraded that is no longer suitable for human consumption and this explains why in the international trade of several agricultural products there is a big price difference between "human food" and "animal feed" quality.

[jaideeguy]

Call me cheap.....but not crazy. I like to eat a well rounded diet and have always loved corn in food. Last night, Imade some cornbread with the expensive store bought corn flour and that's what got me thinking about alternatives.

The main worry about the animal grade corn is fungicides, pesticides or other additives that are not in store bought corn meal.

and watersedge......Agree with the numbers, but The problem with rice bran is that the oils in it start deteriorating immediately after milling. I use it as a suppliment for my chickens and ducks and buy a large sack directly from the mill and it does smell fresh at first, but after a few days it goes rancid. But, I confess to once using some fresh bought in a loaf of bread and it was good tasting for a day or 2, but started tasting rancid shortly.

Edited January 9, 2011 by jaideeguy

[slapout]

The family use to buy corn meal in 50 pound sacks for corn bread/mush for the human table and it was mixed in with the hog feed (scrapes) also, the latter being the prime use. The flour/cornmeal sacks were used to make dresses and you could buy the product by the pattern on the sack to ensure you could finish the outfit.

I also had a great uncle who had Grey hounds, he would buy donuts and bread from the bakery as day old (maybe two) and we would hit the donuts sacks (old paper flour sack) for two or three days and pig out.

With recent reports of China adding some questionable substances to baby milk as well as animal feeds I think the country of origin may be a factor to look at.

Corn meal, you would think would be sold with no additives with the amount of foreign material the measurement between 'for human or animal' consumption. Shifting prior to use should take care of this. We use to sift folour and cornmeal just to get weevil out prior to use. Cooking killed them and they were a source of protien, so I was told when I would find or imagine one in the cornbread.

[jaideeguy]

"Corn meal, you would think would be sold with no additives with the amount of foreign material the measurement between 'for human or animal' consumption. Shifting prior to use should take care of this. We use to sift folour and cornmeal just to get weevil out prior to use. Cooking killed them and they were a source of protien, so I was told when I would find or imagine one in the cornbread."

It's not the weevils that I'm worried about, but the [possible] pesticides added to prevent the weevils.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

I would suspect fewer pesticides etc are used for animal grade corn because they don't care about the appearance and inclusion of insects as much. The corn you get at the market needs to look good to be sold.

I would probably be more worried about hygienic and degradation issues from lower standards of handling and storage. Inclusion of rocks, insects, parasites, mold and that sort of thing. Probably more variance in quality from lot to lot where commercial products require a more standardized level of quality.

[WatersEdge]

If it looks like good corn meal

If it smells like good corn meal

then it's probably good corn meal.

Enjoy.

Ha, just don't expect RedBullHorn to accept your dinner invitation.

I've had pig parts in curry immediately after slaughtering hogs on the farm.

While my culinary culture is ultra safe corn meal based,

I have to admit that all that "disgusting stuff" was really tasty.

Of course, it has to do with chili, garlic, and MSG.

Were it hog guts alone I probably wouldn't report in.

Now it's time for fusion.....

Are we allowed to cook pig intestines with corn meal on the side?

Alright...it's not even 0600 and I'm already hungry.

Grain bin fumigant sold in Thailand,

manufactured in India

is Aluminum Phosphide.

It is sold in a disk tablet sealed in airtight aluminum tubes,

On moisture contact it release a gas toxic to the insects

remaining in the grain until allowed to disperse

When the grain is removed for processing, it all escapes.

Carbon Dioxide or Nitrogen gas both are good fumigants,

and totally harmless, as they prevent both insect and microbial damage.

The point is to displace Oxygen.

The way the grain is handled has everything to do with maintaining quality of the final product.

The key is minimal handling.

Get it into a nice quiet silo, chilled or dried as quickly as possible, and leave it alone,

free of birds rats insects microbes

Grain Handling out on concrete slabs

with tractors and pickup trucks running back and forth over it,

stirring and spreading, pushing back into a pile overnight,

out the next day for more exposure

is the maximum damage method.

I understand that it's done that way for cost reduction,

but in terms of reduced market value of damaged grain,

it is false economy.