FOOD

 FOOD

Food is a physical necessity. In human society, it is a cultural force as well. Early humans were hunters and gatherers, entailing cooperation and a division of labor. perhaps between male hunters and female gatherers. Our ancestors learned to make food preparation tools of increasing sophistication. Their diet was high in energy, about one-third of their calories coming from fats, one-third from proteins, and one-third from carbohydrates. The act of cook ing and sharing a meal reinforced family and community bonds.

WORLD'S TOP CROPS

SUGARCANE

MAIZE

WHEAT

RICE

POTATOES

SUGAR BEETS

SOYBEAN

OIL PALM FRUIT

BARLEY

TOMATOES

 Between 10,000 B.C. and 3000 B.C., peoples in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and other regions of Asia, Af rica, and Europe underwent the first great revolution in human culture: the development of agriculture. They learned to domesticate sheep, pigs, and cattle and to grow crops, such as

wheat, barley, rice, oats, millet, and flax. Farmers produced surpluses. People began to gather in villages, towns, and city-states, dividing into specialized occupations and forming social hierarchies based on wealth. Their diet diversified as different groups eagerly traded foods.

Christopher Columbus and the other great travelers of the age of ex- ploration inaugurated the next great transformation in food: the transfer of foods from the New World to the Old, and vice versa. Items such as tomatoes, potatoes, pineapples, and peanuts were brought to Europe, Asia, and Africa from the Americas; wheat, oats, sugarcane, and animals such as horses and sheep cameo t: the Americas from Europe. Europe- ans learned to love hot chocolate and to smoke tobacco; Americans began to drink coffee and rum, made from sugar harvested on plantations in the West Indies.

By the 20th century, mechanized agriculture and especially the "green revolution"-the huge increase in

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production of high-yield grains in de veloping countries-had created an abundance of food, though unequally distributed.

Free-flowing food trade has be gun to erase boundaries, with people around the world increasingly sharing a diet high in processed sugars, salt, dairy products, and meat.