Mealie-meal porridge

Mealie-meal porridge is a very basic, nutritious starch to cook but made using the refined grain it is very fattening and devoid of any real value; I wouldn't call it food unless a person was in dire straits. It is maize's version of cake flour.

I like it with butter and milk; the good wife prefers natural-honey and yoghurt. Both ways it makes a delicious, wholesome breakfast.

Mealie-meal porridge

Ingredients

  1. Freshly ground 100% whole mealie-meal
  2. Salt
  3. Boiling water

Go for it

You can see this is whole-grain from the small bits of bran. Weight loss research has shown conclusively that it's refined starches and not fat in the main that make us obese.

Mealie meal and cold water.Make a paste of mealie-meal and cold water.
  • To a cup of mealie-meal in a bowl slowly add warm-water, stirring vigorously, until you have a thin paste.
  • Pour 3 cups of boiling water from a kettle into a heavy-bottomed pot, adding half a teaspoon of coarse salt and, with the lid on, and turn the stove onto high heat until it comes to a rapid boil.
  • Then turn it down to low.
  • Slowly pour the mealie-meal paste into the hot water, stirring continuously and scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon, until it comes back to the boil.
  • Put the lid back on and leave on very low heat, stirring occasionally.
  • This is best done the night before and left on a  wood-stove. No less than half an hour on low heat if you are going to eat it directly.
  • In the morning add a little hot-water and bring it back to the boil on moderate heat, stirring frequently.
Mealie-meal added to boiling water.Add mealie-meal paste to boiling water.

An alternative method

  1. Pour a cup of mealie-meal grain and 1 teaspoon of salt into a large pot.
  2. Add a cup of warm-water and stir until it forms a thin paste.
  3. Add three cups of boiling-water and turn to moderate heat.
  4. Stir continuously until it starts to boil and then turn the heat right down.
  5. Cook for at least half an hour, and preferably longer.

Enjoy

Mealie meal porridge is traditionally enjoyed with a lump of butter, milk or cream, and maas; a thick, fermented-yoghurt made by the Zulu people. They are often lactose intolerant so all dairy products must first be soured before eating. Alternatively today we recommend using kefir, a probiotic that has a much wider range of friendly bacteria, viruses and yeasts.

How to make kefir is very simple; it takes only five minutes.

There is no need for sweetening, but one could add a teaspoon of natural-honey. Certainly do not use sugar.

Retrogradation

All starches particularly if they are made from refined meal, are glycemic; they are digested in the intestine by the enzyme amylase, starting in the mouth. They break down into glucose molecules which are then absorbed in the small-bowel and carried by the portal blood stream to the liver.

Cooling a starch after it has been cooked allows the molecules to retrograde; they curl into a configuration that makes it more difficult for the amylase to do its work. Consequently the sugars are produced more slowly, and there is a smaller effect on blood-glucose; literally, it is less fattening.

Starches that have been cooled and allowed to retrograde are also thus less threatening to diabetics; they do not produce the surge in blood glucose of refined carbs.

Consequently more of the starch passes through the small intestine undigested, reaching the colon where it acts as a prebiotic, providing nutrients for the teeming billions of bugs that turn it into very important short-chain fatty acids.

Mealie-meal porridge, like many foods, also tastes better when allowed to cool and retrograde. For a greater understanding of this complex and important subject, read about the virtues of reheating resistant starch.

Hence we recommend cooking it in the evening for consumption the next-day.

The fat in corn

Corn, or maize as we call it in South Africa, has 2.1 grams of nutritious fat per cup (164g); not a lot. Roughly one-quarter is monounsaturated, and a half is a poly.

About a tenth of that fat is saturated; there is zero-cholesterol.

Enjoyed in whole mealie-meal porridge, or a fresh ear of corn, it makes for a very nutritiously meal, albeit deficient in some important amino acids, notably lysine.

Once extracted from the grain, because of the large proportion of polyunsaturated oils, that fat becomes a highly inflammatory substance if used as a salad-dressing.

To keep the fatty acids in our food in balance we should make sure we are enjoying those that have a high monounsaturated content, notably from the olive and avocado.

In addition, we want to keep the omega-3 fraction high; flaxseeds and cold-water fish are the simplest sources.

Traditionally

Komo Mio mill for grinding mealies.

However, once the kernel is split, and oxygen gets in, the fats will start to go rancid. So traditionally, farmers would grind their maize once a week and use it as soon as possible as a feed both for themselves, their staff and cattle.

Alas to their great detriment, most South Africans eschew the coarse whole grain in our mealie-meal porridge, opting instead for the highly refined option, making us one of the most obese nations in the world.

It's refined grain, and sugar, not fat in the main that has made humans obese in the last few decades.

Obesity in man.

With 100% mealie-meal now simply being unavailable, as with wheat, we have opted to buy a new grinder, the KoMo Mio[2], that will handle corn.

Nutrients

Corn in flower will soon make very fine mealie meal porridge.

Unrefined mealies are a good source of fibre, numerous B vitamins, and many phytonutrients; especially lutein and zeaxanthin that help prevent adult-onset blindness.

Food that is mostly refined carbohydrate and low in dietary fibre is regarded as being of high risk, limiting the production of those important short-chain fatty acids; they protect the lining of the gut from toxic compounds.

One of them, butyrate, not only supplies energy for the epithelial cells lining the colon, but reduces oxidative-stress and inflammation, precursors of neoplastic change. It also inhibits the insulin produced in response to the glucose carried via the portal vein to the liver; it is helpful for diabetics[1].

None of this is true of refined starches though; and the loss of fibre contributes to constipation and a poorly-fed microbiome[3].

Diabetics and in fact all of us, should strictly limit refined-starches from our food.

Obesity

Whilst whole grains have enormous benefits for us, and are not fattening, if you need actually to lose weight you have to get your daily carbohydrate intake below 50g; thus I would not recommend mealie-meal porridge, even this made from 100% meal for the obese.

Or take only a 2 tablespoons to keep the glycemic-load down; 1.6g of carbs per TBSP.

Why whole-grain is better is a question everyone should be able to answer.

Mealie-meal porridge

Mealiemeal porridge is only worth making with freshly-ground whole corn; if you can get it.

World's healthiest foods gives a lot more detail on the virtues of using whole corn in making a mealie-meal porridge, or enjoying it fresh on the cob; but their website is down at the moment.

There is little information on white mealies which is considered animal-feed. Humans are expected to eat sweet corn which personally I am less fond of.

Our green journey has meant a life of experimentation and fun with different foodstuffs and, where possible, trying to grow as much of our own as possible. Having discovered the vast benefits of 100%-wholemeal from wheat, we are now doing the same with corn. A roller mill has been ordered, and the mealies sourced.

But there is another issue at play; this is our first real attempt to find out for ourselves some answers on genetically modified foods. These mealies that are coming are non-GM white maize. We will hopefully have some answers before the end of 2021.

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  • Mill your own flour
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  1. Microbial Degradation of Whole-Grain Complex Carbohydrates and Impact on Short-Chain Fatty Acids
  2. Komo Mio mill
  3. Re-establish the intestinal microbes

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