[ScienceD] New insights into origins of agriculture could help shape future of food

[Science Daily]

New insights into origins of agriculture could help shape future of food

Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research. Scientists, looking at why the first arable farmers chose to domesticate some cereal crops and not others, studied those that originated in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/science...162459.htm

[Bacon_Puffs]

I wonder if there's no real "reason". Just was the most abundant and easiest crops to grow?

Anyways, this stuff just fascinates me. Thinking about how far we've come. And where will we go. It hurts my brain to think about it for too long.

[WuddaWaste]

It is fascinating.

In recent years it's been pretty widely accepted that the American diet as taught to us by the government with "The Food Pyramid" and "The Four Food Groups" was not based strictly on bodily nutrition needs, but rather what foods could be produced in great abundance.

Fast foward many years, and we're finding out that simply eating what's cheap-and-easy to produce actually creates a host of avoidable health problems.

Now we're back to some fundamental questions of:
1. What should we be eating?
2. How much/often of those things should we eat?
3. How do we produce/distribute enough of those things without sacrificing their quality?