SWEETCORN

FRESHLY boiled corn on the cob has excellent levels of potassium (for healthy blood pressure), with around a fifth of your daily amount in a 125g cob. It also contains 14 per cent of your daily magnesium, for healthy nerves and muscles. Deep yellow corn has more lutein and zeaxanthin compared to whiter varieties — these are antioxidants thought to help lower the risk of the common eye condition agerelated macular degeneration. As they are fat-soluble, cooking with a little fat increases the amount of lutein and zeaxanthin you absorb. One cob also counts towards your five-a-day.

TINNED corn is 62 per cent lower in magnesium and 53 per cent lower in potassium than boiled fresh corn. However, the tinned version is nearly twice as high in folate and six times higher in vitamin C than fresh — with nearly 20 per cent of your daily folate and around a quarter your daily vitamin C in a three tablespoon (80g) serving of the kernels. This is because the watersoluble nutrients aren’t leached away to the same extent in canned corn as fresh corn on the cob when it is boiled.

SWEETCORN kernels are frozen directly after harvesting so nutrients get locked in and levels of these may be better than in fresh corn cobs which have been sitting in your vegetable rack for a while. Blanching before freezing raises antioxidant levels in sweetcorn, plus boosts levels of zeaxanthin in paler varieties, which would ordinarily have lower levels of the yellow pigment.