Teosinte Research Paper

"By about 6,000 years ago, people in Mexico had domesticated a tropical grass called teosinte, beginning a process that would radically alter the plant, turning into maize, responsible for feeding people across the world today" (Zorich, 2015). As we know food today is much different than thousands of years ago in the lives of our ancestors. There have been many changes to our food that we consume today, especially in regards to corn. Everyone loves a sweet, tender "corn on the cob" in the summer time. Although this piece of food is delicious, it has been through numerous mutations to get to what is in modern society. By the 1400s, corn was a staple in the diet of those in Mexico and the Americas according to Jo Robinson' article (Robinson). The corn in the early days was to be known as Teosinte. It contained, little, sugar, a lot of starch and protein compared to the corn we see today, which is of a white, yellow color. The corn today lacks the nutrients, much of what teosinte contained.
Teosinte, a wild ancestor of maize, was eaten for the sugar in the stalk. The natural and human selection in corn had a goal
Teosinte had numerous amounts of protein and starch, which is very beneficial health wise. Corn has gone through endless amounts of mutations, which has made it very sugary today and also has a light, yellow color. Corn like Teosinte, with rough kernels and multiple colors, is used today mostly as decorations. Also mentioned in an article by Blaustein, "There is a tremendous amount of things we can do with genomics and diversity, and I believe the public really needs to start asking what kind of agriculture we want and what trade-offs we are interested in,"says Buckler. The genomics of corn helps to understand the origins of it and how it became domesticated, known as Teosinte, which was mentioned in the article. With genomics, more varieties of maize are out there (Blaustein,