Marianne's Favorite Cornbread

Marianne’s Favorite Cornbread

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs

• 1 cup of sour cream

• ½ cup of salad oil

• 1 cup of creamed corn

• 1 cup of regular yellow cornmeal

• 3 tbs of baking powder

• 1½ tsp of salt

• 1 small can of green chilies (optional)

• 1 small jar of pimentos (optional)

Instructions:

1. Beat eggs in a mixing bowl. Stir in the next three ingredients.

2. Mix the dry ingredients, add into the egg mixture.

3. Add green chilies and pimentos, if desired.

4. Bake at 350° for 45-55 minutes in a rectangular, 1½ quart casserole.

My grandmother's cornbread recipe was one of my favorites when I was young. She is southern, and used to make us homemade mac and cheese with cornbread when we went to her home in North Carolina. The majority of ingredients in this recipe are whole foods. A whole food is defined as, “a food that has been processed or refined as little as possible and is free from additives or other artificial substances”. Eggs, baking powder, and salt are all whole ingredients that have been eaten and used by civilizations for thousands of years. Salt and baking powder are chemical compounds derived from natural mineral compounds. Green chilies and pimento peppers are both whole foods that grow in nature as well. Sour cream, when from cows not treated with rBGH, is also a whole food. Whole dairy is directly from a naturally occurring source and is typically unaltered before consuming. Whole grain cornmeal (cornmeal that has not been degermed) is the kind of cornmeal that my grandmother would have used for this recipe, and one that is also a whole food. Salad oil is a term that can apply to many different oils, such as vegetable oil, canola oil, and peanut oil. This is the only ingredient in the recipe that is not a whole food. Many processed foods have a long list of ingredients that include some type of vegetable oil. In addition to the oils being processed, trans fats, a product of this process is also a type of processed food.