The Change Of The World

The cultivation of rice has had an enormous impact on the natural biome. Rice has affected the natural biome that it is grown in, in a devastating way. It has caused the natural biomes to deteriorate and caused the natural way of life to collapse leaving no place for the native animals and plants. But what would happen if the cultivation of rice stopped and the natural biomes returned to their former glory? What would happen to all those people depending on rice for the next meal? Those who depend on rice to pay for and keep their families alive? This report looks at the where, effects, who and how of rice cultivation.

They became as important as wheat and rice. After they were settled down, people could not imagine their lives without those accustomed crops. Because of no necessity in cultivated soil, potato and corn grew well almost everywhere. Those crops saved lives of huge numbers of European poor people. Pigs and cattle were feed, which led to the increase of meat on the markets. The population of Europe and Asia grew tremendously since potato and maize were first introduced to the people. “Between 1650 and 1750, the population of Europe, including Asiatic Russia, increased from 103 million to 144; the population of Asia, excluding Russia, increased from 327 million to 475 million” (Stearns et al.

Illnesses such as smallpox killed the majority of Native American populations significantly weakening the Naive Americans allowing for Europeans to more easily conquer them. The transfer of crops from the Americas to Europe allowed for a more population growth and shaped their cuisine to this day. Potatoes and native to the Americas yet they are and were a staple of European diets, most notably the Irish. European discovery of resources in the Americas led to millions of African slaves being shipped to the Americas to work in mines or plantations. This widespread slave trade has influences race relations to this day.

Food is one thing that has been around for many years, because people need it in order to survive. Over time it has caused a big change in the way Americans eat contributing to many other factors such as time and money. For instance, my mother has been trying to lose weight for many years, and she has tried many diets seen on television and diets friends have told her about. All the programs she has tried have not worked out for her, well trying these diets she has lost time and money. The amount of money to join

What many people only know about Christopher Columbus’s expedition is that he found the Americas. While this is true, he did find a completely new frontier that was unknown to the Old World, his findings re-shaped global consumption patterns from the seventeenth century. He found a New World filled with resources that the old world hasn’t seen before. When he found the new world he brought with him European plants and animal species that were foreign to the citizens of the New World. The Columbian Exchange introduced many foods that are still essential to consumption in today’s world along with the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The potato is a prime example of how the Columbian Exchange changed global consumption patterns because it was nutritious and had an abundant amount of calories in it and caused a mass population increase in areas where the potato was available. The use of slaves also increased exponentially when sugar cane was introduced. This was a very cheap, productive way to produce a large amount of sugar and it was used by many Old World countries. The findings of these new world products created a rise in global consumption and production because products were introduced to the both the New World and the Old World and there instantly became a large spike in the availability of products. Along with this, the old world decided to go out and get themselves involved in the New World because they saw an opportunity

In the text, An Edible History of Humanity, Tom Standage provides his take on how the past was so deeply affected by food throughout the generations. The book approaches history in a different way altogether: as a sequence of changes caused, influenced or enabled by food. Standage explains that throughout history, food has not only provided sustenance but has also acted as the catalyst of societal organization, social change, economic expansion, military conflict, geopolitical competition and industrial development. As Tom Standage explains, since the time of prehistory to present,

Along with the introduction of livestock, rice and sugar were also brought to the New World from the Old world. Rice and sugar created a better food supply similar to the livestock. The sugar and rice added a variety to the food already in the New world. The introduction of rice in the New World enabled many farmers to grow it in the New World and transport it back to the Old World, creating a great profit.

After the Spanish settled in America, many new foods and species of plants were introduced to the people of Eurasia, none of which they had said before. Although most of the exchange of food was from the New World to the Old World, Eurasia also introduced the America’s to wheat and grapes, two very important foods for mass. Potatoes and corn were a major part of the Columbian Exchange as they provided a lot of nutrition and were very easy to grow. They could grow in soil that was previously useless for agriculture. Other foods that spread across Europe were tomatoes, peppers, chocolate, beans, pineapples, avocados and blueberries. This exchange of food was the main reason that the worlds population doubled from 545,000,000 in 1600 to 1,128,000,000 in 1850 and historians often describe this massive increase in the nutritional value and variety of

The trades made during the Columbian Exchange have changed the lives of many nations. The traded goods between the old world to the new world have benefited the survival of both sides. According to APWH Teachers Conference, the new world traded goods such as corn, potatoes and metal which eventually fed lots of nations. In exchange, the old world traded good such as wheat, horses, pigs, and cows. (Doc 8) According to Lauren Rees, the trade in foods between the old world and the new world have solved multiple issues within many nations. The introduction to potatoes changed history as it fed more people, was easily grown, hidden when armies invaded a farm, and were healthier so they gave more

He enormously increased the number of kinds of foods and quantities of food by both plant and animal sources. New food crops have enabled people to live in places where they previously had only slim means of feeding themselves. Each new cargo brought new changes to the European diet, helping to improve eating and strengthening national identities with cultural foods. Some of the exotic new crops had humble beginnings; before the tomato made its way into European diets, it was a weed in the Aztec maize fields. The potatoes which hung on to Spanish ships wasn't welcomed at first either; Europeans found it unappetizing. But packing more calories per acre than any European grain, the potato eventually became the dominant food of northern Europe's working class.

Crops were another thing which greatly affected the environment of the America and Europe. One major crop found in America was Tobacco, which intoxicated the Europeans from then to now. Tomatoes,Corn,potatoes,peanuts, squash, cacao (the plant used for Chocolate), pumpkins, pineapples, and more came from America. Most of the plants adapted well to Europe, but others had to genetically alter themselves. Tomatoes came a big part of the Italian diet and potatoes to the Irish. In fact when there was a potato crop failure in 1881 it caused the Great Famine and a mass migration so that they would not starve to

Food has had a major social and political influence on the world due to the trading of crops and ideas which have been seen in chapters five and seven of Standage’s novel. You can see this trade when middle-eastern botanists shared different stories of origins during the spread of cinnamon to make others not know how to harvest cinnamon, as well as the trading of potatoes from England and Ireland down to other parts of Europe. Botanists were very important for trade in Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia because they let people acquire spices from all across the world and they made their home civilizations richer because of it. In chapter 7, Columbus brought back maize and sugar from the New World over to Spain which then spread to England and all across the world “So rapid was the spread of maize around the world that its origins became obscured almost immediately” (Kindle Locations 1592-1593). The trading of maize became so important because it can grow almost anywhere, and it served as a very nutritious, popular, ad plentiful

There, many items and ideas were traded, good and bad, such as diseases, plants, livestock, and technology. European countries flourished from the exchange at the new world and even experienced a population boom. Many good were successful and became popular in Europe such as tobacco, corn, and potatoes. These foods changed many diets and cuisines across Europe and Asia. For example, capsicum peppers from the Americas transformed South and Southeastern Asian cuisine.

During the first week of class, four readings were assigned. One of the readings, “Food and Eating: Some Persisting Questions,” by Sidney Mintz, discusses the paradoxes of food. Although food seems like a straightforward concept, it is actually extremely complicated. According to Mintz, there are five paradoxes, including: the importance of food to one’s survival, yet we take it for granted, how people stick to their foodways, but are willing to change, whether the government should allow people to freely choose food or if they should protect the people through regulations, the difference in food meanings according to gender, and the morality of eating certain foods. All of these paradoxes give people questions to think about, making this an extremely philosophical look at food studies. It also mentions that food must be viewed through the cultural context that it is in, which became important in “The Old and New World Exchange”, by Mintz, and “Maize as a Culinary Mystery”, by Stanley Brandes. These discuss the diffusion of foods after 1492 in different ways. The Mintz reading gives an overview of all of the foods spread from the Americas to the Old World, and vice-a-versa, but does not go terribly in depth on the social changes and effects of specific foods. Brandes focuses on the cultural impact of specifically maize on the European diet, noticing that most Western Europeans shunned it. He studies the cultural implications of this, concluding that maize was not accepted

Food can teach how cultures developed their cuisine. Sometimes poverty forces people to utilize strange ingredients. Sometimes certain crops are more abundant than others, thus the brunt of their food composes of that crop. Necessity forces people to improvise their cuisine; in the earliest times, people cooked food to survive, not to entertain their taste buds. People can also learn how each culture savors its food. For example, the French eat their food quickly. People can also learn about the community through food, how families, schools, and religious institutions eat. Food is essential as it is “where culture and ecology intersect”, and the act of eating teaches people humanity. Someone can refer to this source’s many points on what food teaches to build an argument on how food is cultural