Many of the unicorn food trends that you've seen are far from natural. In fact, most of them involve lots of food colouring and plenty of imagination. Glass Gem corn, on the other hand, is all-natural.
Delish reports that the unicorn corn gets is unique colouring from blending together various species. In this case, Pawnee miniature, Osage red flour, and Osage Greyhorse heirloom varietals. These vibrant ears were developed by Oklahoma farmer and "Native American corn expert" Carl Barnes.
In a video, Mother Earth News explains that Barnes started growing colourful corn in 2005. In the four years that followed, he found variation in his crop and decided to experiment. The resulting harvests yielded everything from metallic silver and gold ears to deeper Technicolor versions and pastel rainbows.
Greg Schoen, who interviewed Barnes to learn about the process of developing these fantastical colours, has been handing out kernels to farmers all over the world. To date, Schoen notes that there are rainbow crops sprouting up in Kenya, Mexico, Israel, and India. While they look too good to eat, Barnes' unicorn corn can be eaten off the cob, barbecue-style, if harvested early. After it matures, the corn can be ground into cornmeal or flour and Schoen notes that these varieties have "higher concentrations of proteins and other nutrients." The most common way to consume this corn, however, is by making popcorn. While it does lose its colour in the popping process, there's no denying these colourful kernels are out of this world.
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