Blue corn meal has a nutty, slightly sweet taste. I find it to be more dense and filling than it’s yellow or white equivalents. It also has a deeper “corn” flavor as opposed to yellow or white which are mostly just sweet.
Blue corn meal is milled from blue corn on the cob. Yellow corn has very often been highly genetically modified to produce sweeter and sweeter kernels (thus, “supersweet corn”) but blue corn has remained largely untouched. As such, often blue corn is organic and thus, non-GMO (although not always – check your labels). On this relentless quest for sweeter and sweeter corn, we have bred out a lot of the nutrients that made corn healthy- some of which remain more intact in blue corn.
One specific example are anthocyanins, an antioxidant responsible for the blue pigment. In Jo Robinson’s book, Eating on the Wild Side (a book that I plug all the time), she says that blue corn has as much as 30 times the anthocyanin as its white counterpart. Another study shows that a greater amount of polyphenols existed in blue corn meal, another compound with antioxidant properties. Further, these compounds may have anticancer properties! So load up on blue corn.
The closer you are to the American Southwest the easier it may be to find blue corn and blue corn meal. It will be in stock in many Hispanic markets and some large grocery stores. You may also be able to find it in health food stores- in Denver, Natural Grocers has begun carrying it in their refrigerated section with the other flours. Pictured here, I have Bow & Arrow – an excellent brand and they have a variety of colors!
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