Children who eat corn regularly can benefit their intelligence development

Years of research by many American universities and research institutions have shown that children under the age of three who eat corn porridge for breakfast have significantly better academic performance than other children when they grow up. The institutions conducting the research include the International Food Policy Research Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlebury College.

Researchers in Guatemala between 1969 and 1977 fed children corn porridge mixed with skimmed milk powder and sugar for breakfast, while other children drank traditional British oatmeal. From 2002 to

In 2004, the researchers returned to Guatemala to collect information from school test scores. The results showed that children who ate corn porridge as children scored higher on reading comprehension and non-verbal cognition tests.

Corn contains a large amount of nutritional and health-care substances. In addition to carbohydrates, protein, fat, carotene, it also contains riboflavin, etc. Compared with staple foods such as rice and wheat, the vitamin content in corn is 5 to 10 times that of rice and wheat. Every 100 grams of corn can provide nearly 300 mg of calcium, which is almost the same as the calcium contained in dairy products (calcium foods).

Li Huiming, professor of the Department of Nutrition at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, pointed out that corn contains high levels of glutamate, which can promote brain cell metabolism and has certain brain-enhancing functions. Corn fat also contains a lot of vitamins, which is beneficial for preventing cell oxidation and aging, and is also beneficial to intelligence. In addition, the fatty acids in corn fat are mainly unsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic acid and oleic acid, which are also nutrients beneficial to intellectual development.

For teenagers, eating fresh corn regularly is very beneficial to their intellectual development, but it is not convenient for young children to eat corn, so it is more suitable for them to drink corn porridge.

The study also confirmed that the first three years after birth is a "window of opportunity" during which nutritional plans for children will have a greater effect on their intellectual development.

Ma Guansheng, deputy director of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed out that academic performance is affected by many factors. Whether or not to eat breakfast and whether the breakfast is nutritious enough will affect children's memory and academic performance. Currently, the biggest problem with children and adolescents' breakfast is monotony. A rich breakfast should include four types of food: cereal foods such as steamed bread, noodles, and bread, meat foods, milk and dairy products, as well as vegetables (vegetable foods) and fruits (fruit foods).

For children who have been eating bread and milk for breakfast for a long time, it is okay to replace milk with corn porridge appropriately, but parents need to consider carefully that in addition to corn porridge and milk, they should also give their children more rich breakfast choices.