The high yield corn isn’t edible. You have to do food science to it or feed it to livestock.

This is not true.

It isn't sweet corn, which is essentially a mutation variety from hundreds of years ago eaten like a vegetable instead of a grain.

All field corn (dent corn, lots of names) is perfectly edible. There are varieties with different characteristics like protein, oil, or starch content, or varieties grown to grind up and feed the whole plant to animals.

Regulation approves only certain genetics and grain millers will have certain approved varieties that mill well, and in general lots of extra care must be taken for human food corn. Ultimately though, it is extremely similar to all other corn.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think this misconception arises from people not realizing that a lot of corn is actually intended to become flour, not to be eaten off of the cob like sweet corn. So yes, these corns aren't edible when rolled in butter at a barbecue, but they do grind into flour just fine to become other things.

I think the parent meant ‘not palatable’ instead of ‘not edible’, it’s an understandable mistake for someone who’s rarely, or never, experienced edible but not palatable food.

> feed it to livestock

So, it's edible?