Anyone eating corn for nutrition...be it now or 100 years ago...is "doing nutrition wrong." It's never been a nutrient-dense food as far as vitamins go, though it does have some nutrient quality in the way of carbs and vitamin B. It's a minor, yet noticeable, vitamin A+C contributor to nutrition. Also, the notion that our lines of supersweet corn came from radioactive/mutating experiments is grossly off the mark. Most come from lines of natural selection and breeding by John Laughnan at UI working with a gene most other breeders wouldn't touch. It is a total bastardization of John Laughnan's work (who, unlike what was stated WAS a plant breeder and botanist at U.Illinois) to claim he was by-chance poking around human-mutated "radioactive" corn to make supersweets happen. His work on the sh2 gene is one of the most important breeding pushes in the line of sweet corn. His crossses with Golden Cross Bantam (not to be confused with Golden Bantam which has been around since the early 1900s) for enhanced sweetness are his babies and it was developed with much resistance from his peers because they didn't see the value of the sh2 gene, which usually caused undesirable shrived kernels (because of less starch content and higher sugar content). One of his crosses, Illini Chief, is still sold by Burpee (who developed the initial Golden Bantam, btw), Shumway, and a few other seed sellers over 50 years after it first hit the market. Until his research into this gene it was believed to be a gene that led to inferior product rather than a line worth investigating. When his work led to incorporating the sh2 gene into corn which can produce full/plump kernel cobs, people paid attention. Btw, this was not a 1959 discovery, as stated by the author...he published his initial work on the sh2 gene as a breeding gene worth investigating in 1953 and his work started years earlier. I have no idea where he/she got her information on Dr. Laughnan from, but he/she should check that source again. John Laughnan is a bit of a hero to many in the breeding industry. This kinda pokes me wrong a bit personally to see his name/work trashed like this...and his work cheapened to being some fool who stumbled upon his discovery. It's so off the mark it's insulting. He was far ahead of his time given that supersweets took another 1-2 decades to even become popular in breeding. His work with developing the sh2 gene from a shriveled-kernel "undesirable" gene into a farmer/consumer market changer ranks right up there with Lamborn and Parker's work with the sugar snap pea that led to the "modern" sugar snap we've enjoyed since the 1970s. It was a game changer that went ignored for far too long given the long cultivation history of the plant(s). This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, May 26, 13 at 20:56

"Wildman" Steve Brill has alot of edible plant info on the linked website. He also has a book with more info. He markets with much humor, but I find his info is seriously correct. As you read about wild edibles you will find conflicting info. I trust Steve's. Try wild plants out before an emergency so you can carefully learn IDs and how you react to new foods. Tom Brown has survival books out, also, with good wild edible and survival suggestions. Two older ones are: Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants, and Tom Brown's Guide to Nature and Survival for Children. Don't reject the second one just because it's for "children". I don't agree with some of his philosophy, but I trust his edible plants and medicinal plant expertise. Also be aware that in some emergencies (nuclear fallout, volcanic dust, etc.) outdoor foods might be more contaminated than indoor stored foods and seeds you might sprout indoors. Adjust your plants to match the "emergencies" for which you are preparing. Here is a link that might be useful: Foraging with Wildman

Here's what gets me about the rock powders, and I'll use Azomite as an example -- 89% of what you get with Azomite is silica, alumina, with calcium, magnesium and sodium in whatever salt forms they exist within the aluminosilicate that it is. The amount of other nutrients and "trace elements" in the mix is quite small, and as illustrated in another thread when they are applied as directed the dilution effect means even if they were readily available the amounts you are actually adding are likely to be very small relative to naturally occurring background levels. With more silicate rocks the availability will be further reduced. So unless someone can demonstrate a real, measurable effect from a well controlled study, spending money of rock powders as a means to "mineralize" soils seems to me to be a waste as well as most probably ineffective. All of that is before we consider all the things that can come along with some of the rocks deposits that we don't really want to reinforce in ag soils, and that are often in greater abundance in those rock powders/dusts than the ones we know to be beneficial. The good news is that for the same reasons that they don't make sense to me as meaningful ways to add micronutrients and trace elements, they probably aren't a threat either.

move on down