by
Paul
Benhaim9
FOOD
AND
THE
LAND
he history of the West has seen a massive, fundamental
change in how we live together, provide for our material
needs and relate to the world. Our early ancestors and
eastern partners hunted and gathered in forests, dependent on
skills in foraging and the chase. Then came the discovery of basic
agriculture; selecting seeds, propagation, sowing crops and
harvesting. This harnessing of nature's inherent abundance
developed further our own cultural abundance, allowing the time
and energy to develop arts, crafts, science and religions.
Diet chart
Millions of years - coarse, fibrous foods gathered in nature and
consumed raw
Hunter-Gatherer - occurred firstly in northern hemisphere where
flesh became the only source of food in the winter
Agriculture - grains (containing starch) became the world's first
processed food, up to 6000 years ago. They are the only items in
the human diet that cannot be digested in the raw state. 99.99% of
our genes were formed before the development of agriculture
about 10,000 years ago.
Traditional agriculture which removed the wild woods and
replaced them with pasture and arable fields could only work in
the context of small rural communities and a few large cities. It
required physical toil from farm labourers and was not productive