Fiber-Rich Corn Offers Digestive, Uh, Benefit

Corn is an American staple—it helped the earliest settlers survive and has provided us with bread and meal ever since. Recently, though, corn has been portrayed in a more unfavorable light, whether as the source of high-fructose corn syrup or the recipient of ethanol subsidies. From a nutritional perspective, corn still deserves a place on your plate, writes Jennifer LaRue Huget for the Washington Post.

Corn is a whole grain composed of soluble and insoluble fiber, both of which offer nutritional benefits. Soluble fiber ushers cholesterol out of the body, while insoluble fiber "scrapes the sludge out of our gastrointestinal tracts," LaRue Huget writes. "Those big kernels are like snowplows, scooping stuff up as they move through your intestines. When the kernels leave your body, so does a lot of material your body doesn't need." (More corn stories.)