# Flour vs Cornmeal



## GlenArden (Feb 8, 2011)

Being from the south I am itchin' to know....why do most preppers focus on storing flour instead of cornmeal?


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

I don't store either. I store whole unground wheat and whole unground corn. Grind as needed.


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## Pink_Carnation (Apr 21, 2006)

I use a whole lot more flour than cornmeal so I have more flour on hand rather than cornmeal. The only thing I use cornmeal for is cornbread and that uses the same amount of flour as cornmeal.


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## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

Because they use more flour than cornbread. Seems like common sense to me. Store what you eat, eat what you store.


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## goatlady (May 31, 2002)

Cannot make beaten biscuits, angle food cake and Italian breads with corn meal, guy. corn meal is specialized, wheat flour is all purpose! Every had fried chicken rolled in corn meal? YUK.


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## GlenArden (Feb 8, 2011)

Thanks all. I'm a gal, but very new to food storage and not much of a cook using some of the food storage items. I'm learning though!


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

hard to make biscuits from corn meal, even pancakes take a bit of flour.

gluten the key I think, a bit of corn meal can be incorporated in any flour recipe, though straight corm meal not so much,that is except for corn bread or breading. 

that is unless you want to clue me in?

I crack my own corn end up with the whole thing though the "flour" I get I credit to starch. not the same by any means.


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

There is a lot of oil in corn, it'll get rancid quicker than flour after it's ground.


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

We didn't use either when we first started. But felt we should know how to use both, just in case we run out of one and all we can find is the other.
So now we know how to make both white and whole wheat bread, corn bread, polenta, corn meal mush, corn pancakes, tortillas, flat bread, bagels ect.
We buy both whole grain and ground products to use. Including bags of masa flour.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

Because I use very little corn meal.

I don't store wheat in any form. I don't use wheat.

So I guess I actually do store more cornmeal than flour, because I've got a couple of cups of ancient cornmeal and absolutely no flour.


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

SquashNut said:


> We didn't use either when we first started. But felt we should know how to use both, just in case we run out of one and all we can find is the other.
> So now we know how to make both white and whole wheat bread, corn bread, polenta, corn meal mush, corn pancakes, tortillas, flat bread, bagels ect.
> We buy both whole grain and ground products to use. Including bags of masa flour.


Same here. And as you said, knowing how to use them is key, if only for preventing food boredom. So, for example, while we don't eat corn tortillas every day, I have the ingredients and the skill to make them.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2011)

Pink_Carnation said:


> I use a whole lot more flour than cornmeal so I have more flour on hand rather than cornmeal. The only thing I use cornmeal for is cornbread and that uses the same amount of flour as cornmeal.


Ditto.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I have about the same, corn to wheat. I sprout wheat for breads and to grind for flour. Cornmeal for cornbread, corn muffins, chili, etc. 1/2 and 1/2 for coating fish, zuchinni, onion rings. Stored and I grind myself....James


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

We store a lot of wheat and corn, since they are both grown locally and can be had cheap. We grind as needed for home use, or animal feed. 

Animal feed typically has a lot of corn in it, because it is the cheapest for the nutrient value ATM. People could probably benefit from using more corn in their diet like our ancestors in the US. Corn was easier to grow and store for pioneers, and took few tools to accomplish. We may find the same thing makes sense in the future for the homesteader, since cutting and threshing wheat is a more of a problem for the smallholder. 

For these reasons, we have worked in that direction, accumulating OP seed for popcorn and both yellow and white varieties of field corn. I have restored a small crank type corn sheller and have a bigger box model to restore. We already had a big burr mill that we have used for years to make whole wheat flour, corn meal, and animal feed. We are working more corn into our diet, and finding we like it!


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## belladulcinea (Jun 21, 2006)

I store more flour and wheat than corn meal. But I find both equally versatile.


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## NewGround (Dec 19, 2010)

Look into a lot of old recipes for more to be done with corn. Not sure if I remember right but it seems I saw an old recipe that noted pancakes were originally made with corn meal and later adapted to wheat flour... 

Also note how you can use "bean" flour as well. Rice flour is a (wheat) flour substitute for those intolerant of wheat flour... Even your lowly acorns can be ground and added with flour into recipes... Some "weeds" the roots are ground into flour... Don't get stuck in a commercial rut, start thinking like the pioneers...


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Cookies made of cornmeal don't turn out very well. Did it by accident once. What a waste of eggs and butter. 

I like cornmeal breading on fried foods but lately the only cornmeal I can find is nasty stuff. I'm hoping to get enough dent corn to grind my own this year.


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## NewGround (Dec 19, 2010)

Danaus29 said:


> Cookies made of cornmeal don't turn out very well. Did it by accident once. What a waste of eggs and butter.
> 
> I like cornmeal breading on fried foods but lately the only cornmeal I can find is nasty stuff. I'm hoping to get enough dent corn to grind my own this year.


So there's nothing other than breading or corn bread for corn meal? I think I need to expand my horizons...


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2011)

Danaus29 said:


> Cookies made of cornmeal don't turn out very well. Did it by accident once. What a waste of eggs and butter.


I once made cornmeal cookies using a recipe called Cornmeal Cookies. They weren't very good.


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## NewGround (Dec 19, 2010)

Anyone got some good cornmeal recipes? I like sweet cornbread sometimes, that's almost as good as a cookie... What else has anyone made for the sweet tooth?


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## SquashNut (Sep 25, 2005)

If I had to grow some thing, I think I might be able to grow some dent corn. But wheat wouldn't produce enough to count in my small garden.


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## belladulcinea (Jun 21, 2006)

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/golden-sweet-cornbread/detail.aspx

This is our favorite cornbread recipe. It makes awesome cornbread salad!


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## GlenArden (Feb 8, 2011)

My skinny husband eats pancake syrup over leftover cornbread. Indian pudding is made using cornmeal and flour. Not bad.


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## FourDeuce (Jun 27, 2002)

Check out something from Italy known as polenta. Lots of variations on those recipes.

This is one of the potential problems with a corn-based diet:
The nutritional disease pellagra, which is caused by a deficiency in niacin, is associated with maize-based diets in the Americas and Africa. While niacin is readily available in corn, it exists in a bound form (niacytin) that is not biologically available to monogastric (single-stomach) animals. Furthermore, In the early twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of people in the southern United States suffered from pellagra, a serious disease that affects people whose diet does not include enough niacin. Pellagra occurs in cultures that depend on corn as a dietary staple, because the niacin in corn is difficult to digest and is often removed during processing. [Photograph by Ed Bohon. Corbis. Reproduced by permission.] most of the niacin in the kernel (63%) occurs in the outermost layer of the endosperm. This layer is often removed with the pericarp during dehulling. In Mexico, Guatemala, and other countries, maize is treated with an alkaline solution of lime, which releases the niacin and helps prevent pellagra. Furthermore, pellagra seldom occurs among people in Latin America, since they eat tortillas&#8212;tortilla preparation greatly increases the bioavailability of the niacin in maize.

Persons suffering from pellagra usually appear to be poorly nourished, and they are often weak and underweight. They also exhibit dermatitis, diarrhea, and dementia. If untreated, pellagra can result in death. Niacin supplements are available to aid in the treatment of the disease. There are also several methods of increasing niacin content in maize-based diets, including:
&#8226;Complementing maize-based diets with nuts and fish, which are rich in niacin.
&#8226;Preparing maize in a way that retains the outer layer of the endosperm, contributing more niacin to the diet.
&#8226;Cooking maize in alkaline solution to increase niacin availability, a procedure commonly used in Latin America in the preparation of tortillas.


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2011)

GlenArden said:


> Being from the south I am itchin' to know....why do most preppers focus on storing flour instead of cornmeal?





GlenArden said:


> Thanks all. I'm a gal, but very new to food storage and not much of a cook using some of the food storage items. I'm learning though!


 It's all a matter of what you prefer to eat and even most Southerners use vastly more wheat flour than corn meal.

FWIW, if you're not already accustomed to using it and know that your family likes and will eat it then do not put it into your food storage. Better to have a smaller selection of foods you know they will eat than to have a lot of stuff they may rebel at consuming or worse still discover that they have an intolerance for that food after you've put a lot of it away. 



FourDeuce said:


> This is one of the potential problems with a corn-based diet:
> The nutritional disease pellagra, which is caused by a deficiency in niacin, is associated with maize-based diets in the Americas and Africa. While niacin is readily available in corn, it exists in a bound form (niacytin) that is not biologically available to monogastric (single-stomach) animals. Furthermore, In the early twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of people in the southern United States suffered from pellagra, a serious disease that affects people whose diet does not include enough niacin. Pellagra occurs in cultures that depend on corn as a dietary staple, because the niacin in corn is difficult to digest and is often removed during processing. [Photograph by Ed Bohon. Corbis. Reproduced by permission.] most of the niacin in the kernel (63%) occurs in the outermost layer of the endosperm. This layer is often removed with the pericarp during dehulling. In Mexico, Guatemala, and other countries, maize is treated with an alkaline solution of lime, which releases the niacin and helps prevent pellagra. Furthermore, pellagra seldom occurs among people in Latin America, since they eat tortillasâtortilla preparation greatly increases the bioavailability of the niacin in maize.
> 
> Persons suffering from pellagra usually appear to be poorly nourished, and they are often weak and underweight. They also exhibit dermatitis, diarrhea, and dementia. If untreated, pellagra can result in death. Niacin supplements are available to aid in the treatment of the disease. There are also several methods of increasing niacin content in maize-based diets, including:
> ...


 For pellagra to be a concern you have to be consuming a diet where the vast majority of the calories come only from non-alkali processed corn. It does happen in some parts of the world even today and was common enough across a fair part of the U.S. way back when. But then we had little knowledge of how the disease came about and little knowledge of nutrition in the first place. It's not nearly the concern now that it once was unless you're living in a part of the world as desperately poor as some parts of Africa are today.

No one with a lick of sense should ever build a food storage program with any one single food providing such a large portion of the calories as one would have to do to make corn pellagra a genuine concern.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

SquashNut said:


> If I had to grow some thing, I think I might be able to grow some dent corn. But wheat wouldn't produce enough to count in my small garden.


You got your folks who do storage, and other folks that are raising their grain, from year to year. In the deep South, wheat isn't grown widely, whereas corn has always loved the hot and humid.... To a dirt poor farmer, corn in the south is hands down favorite... growing wheat is more difficult... harvesting more difficult... threshing more difficult...


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## FourDeuce (Jun 27, 2002)

"No one with a lick of sense should ever build a food storage program with any one single food providing such a large portion of the calories as one would have to do to make corn pellagra a genuine concern."

I'd bet if the supermarkets ever shut down we'd see a lot of "old" diseases make a comeback. Ricketts, scurvy, and all the other vitamin deficiency diseases would probably be seen a lot more.


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2011)

FourDeuce said:


> "No one with a lick of sense should ever build a food storage program with any one single food providing such a large portion of the calories as one would have to do to make corn pellagra a genuine concern."
> 
> I'd bet if the supermarkets ever shut down we'd see a lot of "old" diseases make a comeback. Ricketts, scurvy, and all the other vitamin deficiency diseases would probably be seen a lot more.


If the supermarkets ever shut down, we'd see people starve to death before they had time to develop nutritional diseases.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Besides the storage issues. I never even had cornmeal until my 40's-and that was like eating Beach sand with a slight taste of something unknown. The second time-was Johnny cake,made with white cornmeal (and sugar) now that was OK. Cornmeal goes on the underside of Pizza- that's it. Sure I could manage to wing up some recipes in a shtf situation, but then alot of folks would relish eating bugs, Beach Sand would still be secondary.


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## NoClue (Jan 22, 2007)

7thswan said:


> Besides the storage issues. I never even had cornmeal until my 40's-and that was like eating Beach sand with a slight taste of something unknown. The second time-was Johnny cake,made with white cornmeal (and sugar) now that was OK. Cornmeal goes on the underside of Pizza- that's it. Sure I could manage to wing up some recipes in a shtf situation, but then alot of folks would relish eating bugs, Beach Sand would still be secondary.


I have two big uses for corn meal:

1. Polenta, a great way to bulk up a meal, can be simple or jazzed up with pretty much any herbs at hand

2. tamales, filled with whatever's at hand


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## FourDeuce (Jun 27, 2002)

ladycat said:


> If the supermarkets ever shut down, we'd see people starve to death before they had time to develop nutritional diseases.


Yes, we'd see a lot of people starve to death, but the survivors would probably end up with all kinds of diseases that haven't been seen much in the US for years. If people had to eat only what they could produce or find in their local area, diets would be much more monotonous than we are used to.


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

I don't store flour or cornmeal. I store wheat berries and whole corn. Grind as needed to have fresh ingredients with full nutrition benefit.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

7thswan said:


> Besides the storage issues. I never even had cornmeal until my 40's-and that was like eating Beach sand with a slight taste of something unknown. The second time-was Johnny cake,made with white cornmeal (and sugar) now that was OK. Cornmeal goes on the underside of Pizza- that's it. Sure I could manage to wing up some recipes in a shtf situation, but then alot of folks would relish eating bugs, Beach Sand would still be secondary.


I think your supposed to 'cook' cornmeal in stuff... eating raw flour is also a strange experience...

Tons of cornmeal are used just for frying up catfish.

Growing up, twas rare there wasn't one variety or another of cornbread (hot water cornbread, corn fritters, cornbread) on the table... at ours or any other table you sat down at. Wheat bread products were luxuries, to be had when high company came, or on special occasions.


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