Baby corn comes from the same seed that sweetcorn or fresh corn is grown from.
It is just picked a lot sooner- soon after the husk sprouts from the leaves.
Baby corn is harvested after the corn silks emerge and when the stalks are around 8cm – 10cm in length.
I can’t find any information that tells me how long it takes to get to this stage.
It seems that most of the world’s baby corn is grown in Asia and particularly Thailand.
Here it is also known as candle corn.
And there is a real irony here because the US is one of the biggest producers of corn in the world but fresh baby corn is a rare sight in US grocery stores!
Can dogs have baby corn?
Baby corn is an excellent food to consider giving to your dog to eat.
It is packed full of nutrients, high in fiber and with very few calories and so next time you are in your local grocery store, pick some up.
If you are living in the US, you are much more likely to buy baby corn in cans rather than getting it fresh.
And, if this is the case then you just need to buy the no added salt version, if you can.
To start with, I want to look at how nutritious baby corn is.
What are the nutritional values of baby corn?
Before I start this section properly I want to give you a fun fact.
I’m based in the UK and here the baby corn that we buy tends to be fresh.
So naturally as I’m beginning to do a little bit of research for this article I just assumed that the same was true in the US.
But by all accounts, most of you get your baby corn in cans and it is very difficult to buy it fresh.
Nutrition wise, baby corn has a lot to offer your dog.
I have created a table to make the information easier to understand.
| Calories | 23 |
| Fat | 0 g |
| Sodium | 273 mg |
| Carbs | 4.6 |
| Fiber | 2.7 g |
| Protein | 0.9 g |
| Vitamins |
All the figures below come from a 100 G serving of baby corn.
It is remarkably low in calories and has zero fat
Another advantage is that it has 2.7 g of fibre.
Fibre plays an important role keeping a dog’s digestion system very healthy.
But not only that.
Fibre also helps a food to digest more slowly and is said to reduce hunger pangs!
Or at least that’s what the science suggests as far as humans are concerned and let’s hope it’s the same for our dogs!
But there’s more.
Baby corn is also rich in vitamins A and vitamin C and the mineral iron.
Both vitamins A and C will help to boost your dog’s immune system.
And even though dogs produce their own vitamin C, giving them a little extra now and then won’t do them any harm at all.
Iron plays an important role in maintaining healthy red blood cells which are crucial in terms of transporting oxygen around your dog’s body.
Too much salt is bad for your dog…
A value that is quite concerning from the table above is sodium.
Adding salt to canned goods helps to preserve them.
Unfortunately it does little to help the health of a dog or a person.
The main effect of having too much salt in a diet is that it raises blood pressure.
If you can only buy your baby called in cans then try and buy a variety which has no added salt.
If you can’t make sure that you rinse the baby corn thoroughly before you give it to your dog.
Fresh baby corn if you can get hold of it doesn’t have any sodium in it.
I have included a screenshot for the nutritional information of fresh baby corn below and it clearly shows that it contains only a minute amount of sodium.
Having looked in quite a lot of detail about the nutrition in baby corn in the next section I want to compare it to it’s Big Brother, corn on the cob.
How does baby corn differ from sweetcorn?
Here goes another of my charts.
| 100 g | Baby | Sweetcorn |
| Calories | 23 | 106 |
| Fat | 0 g | 1.2 g |
| Sodium | 273 mg | 0 g |
| Carbs | 4.6 g | 22 g |
| Fiber | 2.7 g | 2.4 g |
| Protein | 0.9 g | 3.5 g |
| Vitamins |
I’m quite amazed by the differences actually.
Particularly as far as the amount of calories are concerned and the number of carbs.
Sweet corn has 5 times the amount of calories and five times the amount of carbs.
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here when I say that baby corn is a healthy option then it’s a big brother sweet corn.
Can a dog choke on baby corn?
The traditional advice about feeding your dog corn on the cob as opposed to sweetcorn is to avoid doing it in case your dog chokes on the husk.
So what are the risks of your dog choking on baby corn?
I think that baby corn is a far safer food to feed your dog for two reasons.
Firstly it’s a size thing. Baby corn is far smaller than corn on the cob.
And secondly the husks on a baby corn half are softer and tender.
They are easier to chew and far less likely to get stuck in a dog’s throat or somewhere within their intestines once they’ve been swallowed!
But at the end of the day it all just depends on the individual dog.
I had a lovely moment this morning when I shared an apple between my two dogs.
The older one wolfed it down as if she hadn’t seen food for weeks whereas our baby dog took tiny bites out of it as if it was a serving of dog caviar!
As I said it depends on your dog!
In the next section I want to talk about something disgusting that we all may have noticed if our dog ever eats sweet corn.
And that is how easy it is for our dogs to digest baby corn.
Can dogs digest baby corn?
Both humans and dogs struggle to digest sweetcorn completely which is why it very often ends up in our stool.
And this is not something that you need to panic about.
It doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with your dog’s digestion or that the sweetcorn harms your dog in any way.
It just goes to show that sweetcorn had a lot of fibre in it.
The good news as far as baby corn is concerned is that the husk or cob is much softer than its big brother and so the corn and the husk should be digested completely.
Wonderful stuff!
How should I prepare baby corn for my dog?
If your baby corn comes from a can which contains lots of added salt, just make sure that you rinse the corn first.
This won’t get rid of all of the added salt but it will get rid of some.
And that should be enough.
Baby corn should be soft enough to be fed to your dog raw and if they come from a can they will have been partially cooked anyway.
If you are more comfortable cooking them just place them in a steamer for 5 minutes.
This will help to soften them up which will make them easier to digest.
And by heating them up their aromas will have been unlocked making them even more irresistible to your dog.
How much baby corn should I feed to my dog?
Our dogs should be on a complete and balanced diet regardless of whether we want to add baby corn into their diet.
This means that anything else that we give our dogs should be considered a bonus and kept to a minimum.
Don’t go crazy when it comes to baby corn.
Small breed dogs should maybe have the equivalent of one a day and larger breed dogs should be given four or five.
And don’t get caught up in the moment and consider feeding your dog baby corn for ever more because they are so healthy.
Variety is important to a healthy diet and there is a long list of veg that you can choose from to add into your dog’s diet.
