FOOD INTOLERANCE: STAPLE CROPS

All this happened in the Middle East, about 12,000-10,000 years ago, when the earliest forms of wheat and barley were domesticated. The same sort of events occurred quite independently in the Far East between about 9,000 and 7,000 years ago, and in Central America over 7,000 years ago. Grass-derived crops, which we now call cereals, were important in both areas. In the Far East, rice became the main crop (or staple), while in the Americas it was maize, also known as corn. In Africa, domestication probably took place rather later, and the main cereal crops were millet and sorghum. South-east Asian farmers differed in relying on a root-crop, the yam, as their staple, and root-crops were also important in other parts of the world where grasses did not grow well. The potato became the main crop of the high Andes, and in tropical Africa another type of yam was grown.

With the growing of these staple crops, foods such as grass seeds and roots, that had previously been eaten in fairly small amounts, became the mainstay of the diet. Some people believe that this was a bad thing for human health because we were not adapted to eat large quantities of starch, but that is a debatable point. What may be more important is the fact that we are eating large quantities of the particular chemical ‘armaments’ found in these crops. Selection and plant breeding have reduced the amounts of these armaments substantially, of course, which is why our crop plants lack the bitterness of their wild equivalents, such as crab-apples or sloes. But it is possible that some chemicals with more insidious effects may remain, and that relying so heavily on a staple crop may expose us to excessive amounts of those chemicals.

*22\180\8*

Related Posts:

• APPENDIX VII: BOTTLED WATER
• STAGE 3 – RIGOROUS ELIMINATION DIET: THE EXCLUSION PHASE
• PREVENTING FOOD SENSITIVITY: BREAST-FEEDING
• FOOD PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN: DIARRHOEA IN BABIES AND CHILDREN

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