Do We Finally Know How Many Ears Of Corn Are In One Can?

YouTube can offer foodies a wide array of cooking knowledge and interesting kitchen hacks, like how to use your coffee maker to cook dinner. Then there are the weirder corners of the site, where creators who seem to have an inordinate amount of time for wacky experiments and oddball videos share their handiwork. In the case of the YouTube channel Curiosityandbeyond, which makes "videos about space, science and a little bit of everything," figuring out just how many ears of corn are in a standard can led to the creation of a — shall we say, interesting — stop-motion film that allegedly determined that there's about an ear and a half of corn in a can.

Right off the bat, things are a little off. Near the start of the video, the YouTuber puts a metal can of corn with a metal spoon into the microwave. Please don't try this at home. Metal and microwaves don't mix. The convoluted approach to solving the ear-to-can question is also a bit of a head-scratcher. 

The YouTuber began with two corn cobs and then purportedly glued the kernels from a Heinz can (and we're guessing it's a standard 15.25-ounce size) back onto the empty ears. Iowans, who grow the most corn in the United States, would probably look askance at the waste of two perfectly good ears of corn, but it's in the name of science — or something akin to it. In the video, the kernels seem to magically move from the can onto the ears thanks to stop-motion photography, ending with a whole ear and a half of corn.

Of course, there was a much easier way to answer this (not very) burning question. A 15.25-ounce can of corn contains roughly 1½ cups and the average ear of corn has about ¾ cup of kernels, which gives us two ears. But we have to take into account whether we're talking about drained corn or not and the size of the ears we're starting with. So in the end, we can safely say that between one and a half and two ears of corn are in one can. Now that you (maybe, possibly) know the answer to the question no one asked, you might be wondering about the best and worst canned corn around. And surprisingly, Wegmans brand tops the list. And that information might actually be useful.