5 ms·

Aren't ethanol, animal feed, and human food corn all separate, non-interchangeable species? Usually ethanol stuff and animal feed stock are completely inedible,

Aren't ethanol, animal feed, and human food corn all separate, non-interchangeable species? Usually ethanol stuff and animal feed stock are completely inedible, at least in my EU country.

tomatotomato37 3y ago
That's mostly inedible for direct consumption, like corn on the cob. Processing into something like cornmeal though is open to much more species, including the original maize that all corn was essentially bred from.
stevehawk 3y ago
might be separate, non-interchangeable species (I don't know) but they require the same farmers, equipment, logistics, etc, to be in place and as everyone learned the last few years those things don't just scale up and down like latest cloud tech here.
cnntth 3y ago
The land is interchangeable, and 'human food corn' encompasses a lot more than just corn eaten directly by humans. Almost every processed food in the US uses some corn derived product; and animal feed is still part of the supply chain for human food.
dividedbyzero 3y ago
I'm not sure how that works with corn, but quite a few things that aren't fit for human consumption in times of plenty are quite edible in a famine, or can be made so.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I don't think it's that but that most human digestive systems will catastrophically fail trying to digest ethanol-corn or animal feed-corn.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    You can eat field corn just fine. You shouldn't eat it raw at maturity because of the high starch content, but the solution to that is simply to harvest a bit earlier before all the starch is formed. It's not very sweet, but it's perfectly edible.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
  - ironSkillet 3y ago
    There are two primary types of corn: field corn and sweet corn. Only sweet corn can be eaten raw or lightly cooked, but field corn can be turned into edible products (e.g. cereal) with some standard processing.
jandrese 3y ago
Yes, but the farm equipment that plants and harvests it is the same. Planting different seeds is easy, buying new equipment is not. Also, as the transportation sector transitions to electric vehicles the demand for corn ethanol should drop off so if we need to produce more edible corn there should be excess capacity available.

Aren't ethanol, animal feed, and human food corn all separate, non-interchangeable species? Usually ethanol stuff and animal feed stock are completely inedible, at least in my EU country.

tomatotomato37 3y ago

That's mostly inedible for direct consumption, like corn on the cob. Processing into something like cornmeal though is open to much more species, including the original maize that all corn was essentially bred from.

stevehawk 3y ago

might be separate, non-interchangeable species (I don't know) but they require the same farmers, equipment, logistics, etc, to be in place and as everyone learned the last few years those things don't just scale up and down like latest cloud tech here.

cnntth 3y ago

The land is interchangeable, and 'human food corn' encompasses a lot more than just corn eaten directly by humans. Almost every processed food in the US uses some corn derived product; and animal feed is still part of the supply chain for human food.

dividedbyzero 3y ago

I'm not sure how that works with corn, but quite a few things that aren't fit for human consumption in times of plenty are quite edible in a famine, or can be made so.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
I don't think it's that but that most human digestive systems will catastrophically fail trying to digest ethanol-corn or animal feed-corn.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  You can eat field corn just fine. You shouldn't eat it raw at maturity because of the high starch content, but the solution to that is simply to harvest a bit earlier before all the starch is formed. It's not very sweet, but it's perfectly edible.
- pixl97 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
- ironSkillet 3y ago
  There are two primary types of corn: field corn and sweet corn. Only sweet corn can be eaten raw or lightly cooked, but field corn can be turned into edible products (e.g. cereal) with some standard processing.

jandrese 3y ago

Yes, but the farm equipment that plants and harvests it is the same. Planting different seeds is easy, buying new equipment is not. Also, as the transportation sector transitions to electric vehicles the demand for corn ethanol should drop off so if we need to produce more edible corn there should be excess capacity available.