On Food and Cooking

The Scarcity of Meat in Agricultural
Societies Around the time that our ancestors
domesticated animals, they also began to
cultivate a number of grasses, plants that grow
in extensive stands and produce large numbers
of nutritious seeds. This was the beginning of
agriculture. With the arrival of domesticated
barley and wheat, rice and maize, nomadic
peoples settled down to farm the land and
produce food, populations boomed — and
most people ate very little meat. Grain crops
are simply a far more efficient form of
nourishment than animals grazing on the same
land, so meat became relatively expensive, a
luxury reserved for the rulers. From the
prehistoric invention of agriculture to the
Industrial Revolution, the great majority of
people on the planet lived on cereal gruels and
breads. Beginning with Europe and the
Americas in the 19th century,
industrialization has generally made meat less
expensive and more widely available thanks