Nutritionally Enhanced Orange Corn: A Natural Domestic Source of Antioxidant Carotenoids for Improved Poultry and Consumer Well-Being

This project seeks to demonstrate that NutraMaize's nutritionally enhanced Orange Corn has thepotential to transform the United States' largest animal feed crop - corn - into a vehicle fordelivering more health-benefitting antioxidant carotenoids to both poultry and consumers.Orange Corn gets its color from significantly enhanced levels of carotenoids potent antioxidantsand anti-inflammatory agents that provide a variety of benefits to both humans and animals. Theuse of Orange Corn to enhance the levels of these beneficial antioxidants in poultry feed has thepotential to significantly improve animal well-being as measured by animal welfare andproduction metrics which would in turn improve producer profitability by reducing lossesassociated with poor animal health. This approach also has the potential to significantly enhancethe levels of health-benefitting antioxidant carotenoids in eggs an important protein source forAmericans.There are three primary objectives of this project: (1) demonstrate that Orange Corn can produceeconomically relevant health benefits for poultry (2) demonstrate that Orange Corn can enhancethe nutritional and functional quality of the animal products produced from birds fed OrangeCorn and (3) demonstrate that Orange Corn can meet the needs of the poultry industry by beingproduced efficiently and affordably. If successful this project will position NutraMaize OrangeCorn to make a meaningful impact on the well-being of both poultry and American consumersby increasing the amount of health-benefitting antioxidant carotenoids in their diets.