'An Edible History of Humanity': How What We Eat Has Changed the World

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Maria Armoudian

'An Edible History of Humanity': How What We Eat Has Changed the World
Author Tom Standage explains how food has been a weapon of war, an offering for peace, a force of development and imperialism and an organizer of societies.

May 21, 2010 |


Throughout history, food has played many roles in changing the world: It has been a weapon of war, an offering for peace, a force of development and imperialism and an organizer of societies. In many cases, food and its production have had some of the most profound effects on humanity and indeed on the earth itself. Food has affected social status, social roles, empires and the outcome of wars. The roles that food has played in shaping society and the planet itself are captured in a new book by Tom Standage, titled An Edible History of Humanity.

Maria Armoudian: Let's start with how food production has altered the planet. What is the impact of food on the earth?

Tom Standage: Farming has made the biggest difference to the environment on earth. You could call it the biggest environmental disaster in history. We use 40 percent of the earth's surface for agriculture. If farming was invented today, environmentalists would never allow it, because it has led to huge ecosystem disruption. I'm in Britain now, and the natural state of Britain is not beautiful fields with sheep and the odd tree. It is, in fact, forests of oak with wild boar running around. So when we look at an agricultural landscape we think it's natural. We think it's beautiful, but in fact it's just as man-made as the Manhattan skyline.

....(snip)....

MA: What about the role of spices in building empires and imperialism?

TS: In my book I look at lots of ways in which food has affected history, and there are different foods that do different things. But probably the group of foods that made the most difference after the basic agricultural staples, which led to settlement and civilization are spices. Spices are these incredibly highly valued goods that were transported all over the Old World from Europe, to China and vice versa depending on what was going in which direction, and they were used to connect up different civilizations.

In fact, frankincense reached China from Arabia, and spices like nutmeg and cloves which come from the South Seas made it all the way into Europe shortly after the Roman period. These were the things that were traded over the longest distances. They were very valuable, although they were nutritionally completely useless. It's just that they showed how rich you were if you could afford to have them. It was the spices that inspired Columbus to go west. He was looking for gold and spices. In his accounts of the journey, he said he thought that he would be able to get to the Indies if he sailed west. Of course, instead, he found the Americas. He then spent the whole time looking for spices and had no idea what the spices looked like when they were growing. And of course none of the spices he was looking for were actually in the Americas. He was looking for black pepper and things like that. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/146929/%27an_edible_history_of_humanity%27%3A_how_what_we_eat_has_changed_the_world/

[zipplewrath]

1. Where is Sherwood Forest?

I've walked in alot of England. Heck, I've walked ACROSS England. I'd wager that there's no place on that island nation that constitutes more than 5 acres of "natural" habitat. It came to me one day when someone asked "where is Sherwood forest"? They cut it ALL down. For ships, for fire wood, for farming, they cut it all down. Truth is, what we know today as the "Black Forest" of Germany used to stretch well into France.

Mr Standage is correct, farming would be considered, today, to be one large "industrial hazard". By the time we figured out what we were doing, huge portions of the earth had been "converted" to agricultural land. Smaller areas had been nearly permanently damaged from practices like irrigation with brackish water, over tilling, or excessive irrigation up stream.

Hydro electric dams could probably be shown to be less "damaging", because although it creates an "artificial" habitat in one sense, at least it is creating A habitat. Farming just "consumes" the land without creating anything except one single crop. Heck, some crops need bees brought in because they won't arrive on their own. We can do better, and some day we'll NEED to do better. That day may be closer than one thinks.

[daggahead]

2. I think that day has already arrived in some parts of the world. n/t