Image via WikipediaA population depending on untreated maize as a staple food risks malnourishment, and is more likely to develop deficiency diseases such as pellagra. Maize also is deficient in essential amino acids, which can result in kwashiorkor. Maize cooked with lime provided niacin in this diet. Beans, when consumed with the maize, provided the amino acids required to balance the diet for protein.
Adoption of the nixtamalization process did not accompany the grain to Europe and beyond, perhaps because the Europeans already had more efficient milling processes for hulling grain mechanically. Without alkaline processing, maize is a much less beneficial foodstuff, and malnutrition struck many areas where it became a dominant food crop. In the nineteenth century, pellagra epidemics were recorded in France, Italy, and Egypt, and kwashiorkor hit parts of Africa where maize had become a dietary staple.
That's example of European Iron Curtain.
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Carpenter found in 1951 that niacin in corn is biologically unavailable, and can be released only in very alkaline lime water of pH 11.[8] This process is known as nixtamalization.[9]
^ LAGUNA J, CARPENTER KJ (September 1951). "Raw versus processed corn in niacin-deficient diets". J. Nutr. 45 (1): 21–8. PMID 14880960.
^ "Vitamin B3". University of Maryland Medical Center. 2002-01-04. Retrieved 2008-03-31.
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