Ontario Grain Farmer November 2024

30 Good in Every Grain www.GoodinEveryGrain.ca CORN HARVEST AND MISCONCEPTIONS When asking students or consumers what grain they recognize, the first is almost always corn. But there are a lot of misconceptions Good in Every Grain hears about Ontario’s biggest crop. GRAIN CORN, POPCORN AND SWEET CORN ARE THE SAME THING This is the most common misconception about Ontario’s corn crops. Many people when asked what their favourite food made from corn is will say sweet corn or popcorn. Both are tasty food options but are not the same thing as the food items made from grain corn— taco shells, corn chips, cereal or corn bread. We often get asked about the differences between these three types of corn, how much of each is grown in Ontario and how we can identify the three types when they are growing in the field. CORN HAS MANY NAMES We often hear people describe grain corn with many names. Good in Every Grain has heard cattle corn, field corn, feeder corn and even gas corn to name a few! Luckily when we hear these different variations of grain corn, it leads to meaningful conversations about how the corn is used to make many products including animal feed and ethanol. GRAIN CORN ISN’T USED TO FEED HUMANS, ONLY FARM ANIMALS Sometimes our conversations start off with consumers not realizing that many of their favourite food items can be made from the grain corn that can also feed farm animals. Often times we hear that people don’t know or don’t realize that grain corn can be processed into things like flour, starch, or meal to be the ingredient in many recipes or food products at the grocery store. We often take these conversations and questions and use them to create content for the Good in Every Grain blog and for our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. You might notice that at certain times of the year our content on these digital platforms becomes saturated with a certain topic— and that is often due to the questions we receive from consumers around that time or what is going on in the fields.•

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