[Sca-cooks] Recipe: Shrimp & Grits. OOP

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Maybe. I imagine, though, that in areas where corn is native, the
> people evolved to the point where they could manufacture the
> necessary chemicals (mostly niacin derivatives). In places where the
> local diet was based on some other grain, but later changed to corn
> to the exclusion of a lot of other foods, These people were
> essentially unable to cope metabolically. Perhaps someone else can
> explain this more clearly. Phlip? Avraham?

The problem with pellagra, which is a niacin deficiency, was, as James said,
in part, due to the method of preparation of corn. The corn that the
Southerners and Europeans were eating had been degerminated, thus removing
the niaciun from it- the method that the Indians and other native peoples
had used, soaking in alkali, does, in fact, make the niacin that it contains
more accessible to the human body.

A good part of the difficulty with pellagra was that it was endemic among
poor people, as well as instututionalized people (orphans, mentally
impaired) because they were on a very limited diet- corn, fat back, and
molasses- which provided plenty of calories, but lacked essential nutrients.
Since pellagra ran in families and geographic areas, it took quite a while
to figure out the problem, in determining whether it was hereditary or a
disease, and if a disease, what its vector might be.

Just found a good article on the history of pellagra- it has most of what
I've just told you in it, and is a good read.

http://www.jmcgowan.com/pellagra.pdf

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....