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Asked by anon-176105 to Ali, Jenny, Mark, Simran on 21 Jun 2018.
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Ali Hill answered on 21 Jun 2018:
It made me laugh when you asked me this today because it reminded me of a time when I was a kid and didnt like sweetcorn so I gave mine to my baby brother. The next day his nappy was pretty much just sweetcorn. I didn’t know you didn’t break it down in your body and I thought I’d broken him…. 🤣 nowadays I LOVE sweetcorn and I definitely wouldn’t be foolish enough to give it away! Hmmm…. perhaps I shouldn’t have told you that story. It might give you ideas…. 🤔😉
Anyway, back to your question. It’s because the outside of the kernel is mostly made of something called cellulose which is really really tough and you can’t break it down. The inside of it you digest (break down) really easily. So if you looked more closely at your poop (which I REALLY don’t suggest you do. Even Mark doesn’t do that (I know as I asked him)) you’d see it was just the outside of the corn kernel that comes out the other end.
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Mark Kirkwood answered on 22 Jun 2018:
haha thanks Ali!
It makes a lot of sense, when you think about it, because the sweetcorn you eat is the kernel, or seed, of the corn plant.
All seeds have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, to be eaten, stay in one piece through the gut of whatever ate it, and pop out the other side to begin growing into a plant, using the yummy fertiliser (POO) that it was dropped in.
A lot of things in science makes sense when you really think about them, especially when it comes to evolution!
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