The+Food+we+Eat

= Which Foods to Eat =

**The Paleo Problem** Our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wide variety of wild plants, tubors, seeds and animals depending on what they could find. When these wild food sources dwindled, they needed to grow their own food and raise their own animals.

**The Neo Solution** They settled down and began farming. They mainly grew one or two different cereal crops from wild seed in their area: barley & wheat in Mesopotamia, rice in Asia & corn & potatoes in South America. These crops weren't too difficult to grow, gave them lots of energy from carbohydrates and could be stored.

**MP4U** Today, we continue to grow most of the same staple crops as the first farmers did. They grow well, provide lots of energy and can be stored. We have developed all kinds of technologies to grow cereals, beans and potatoes in massive quantities really efficiently. We can feed the earth's billions and store extra to cover our needs during times when our harvests fail. We can even feed large quantities of our cereal grains to animals that we farm for meat and milk. These crops are the basis for many of the different delicious foods we love to eat each day.

**Did you know 90% of the world's food comes from only 15 plant & 8 animal species?** See: ten crops that feed the world Look for these staple crops in this slideshow on what the world eats.


 * Why do we rely on such a limited variety of foods? How are our choices on our plates controlling what farmers grow? How are food and agricultural businesses controlling what we eat? Is it healthy and sustainable? **
 * **Some people say we aren't meant to eat the way farming is making us eat**. We are eating a small variety of foods based mainly on staple crops like corn, wheat and rice. What are the dangers of eating a diet that is very different from what we were adapted to eat over hundreds of thousands of years as hunter gatherers? Some experts are warning that eating a lot of staple crops is bad for our health: Possible problems with the wheat we eat.
 * ==== Others warn that we are relying on a very small number of major crops to feed the world. We often grow one main variety (monoculture). What if the one we rely on fails? See 'Fewer crops' now feeding the world http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26382067. Given examples like the Irish Potato Famine that we saw in [|Botany of Desire - Potato-The Desire for Control], is it smart for us to be depending on monoculture (growing mostly one kind of crop) to feed our world? Should we be growing more variety? ====

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 * Possible Innovations: **
 * Some people are trying to start a movement to get us to change the foods we eat: **
 * Some suggest we return to a more varied [|diet like what our hunter-gatherer ancestor's ate]
 * Activists like Jamie Oliver are calling for a Food Revolution!
 * Some specialty farmers are trying to grow a wider variety of heirloom crops as part of a democratic movement to protect our rights to grow diverse crops! See [|Seed Freedom] and the work of Indian environmentalist [|activist Vandana Shiva]

====Other documentary videos that will challenge you to think more about the foods we eat: __Food Inc__ & __The Botany of Desire: Potato__. ==== See this Webquest about Organic Farming & GMOs