The Neolithic Revolution: The Fast Food Industry

All throughout history, humans have come up with innovations that have brought both positive and negative changes to the way people live. This all started around 10,000 BCE, when people developed agriculture. The first nomads started off by moving from place to place, hunting and gathering food… but as people developed agriculture, they saved a lot more time. After agriculture developed, the humans learned many things such as farming and taming wild animals for their own use. This time in history was called the Neolithic Revolution… which lasted about 6,000 years, until 4,000 BCE. The big change in the way people got their food and how they lived, resulted to positive and negative changes of human innovations of the Neolithic Revolution. So,

The start of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution led directly to the beginning of civilization. The Neolithic Revolution, which happened 10,000 years ago, was the shift from hunter-gathers to a food-producing culture meaning humans started to farm and domesticate animals. This was the catalyst to help create civilizations. We know now how to distinguish groups of humans from actual civilization if those groups have certain characteristics. Those characteristics are complex institutions, record keeping, advanced cities, specialized workers, and advanced technology. A result of the Neolithic Revolution is that more people were able to thrive since there was a surplus of food. These early civilizations were able to take advantage of the rivers and create irrigation systems to water their crops.

Political, economic, and social conditions have often led to turning points that have changed the course of history for nations and people. The Paleolithic Era and Neolithic Revolution was a turning point that changed the orbit of history for mankind. In Documents 1, 2, and 4, they explain life before the Neolithic Revolution and what changed during the period and provide an analysis of results of the revolution. They introduce food supply and settlement, and civilization and trade.

In order to change the way the United States food system is operating at the moment, a change needs to be made in the education that people are receiving about the way their food is produced, manufactured, distributed and consumed. The U.S. food system has become increasingly reliant on mass production factories and multinational retail corporations while local farms and family owned food markets diminish. Economies of scale and opportunity costs represent barriers to change of the current food system because of the many different paths available, each creating different outcomes for consumers, sellers, large corporations and small farms, determining their profit, prices, capital and value. Educating the American people about the benefits of local food production and the downsides of large scale food production, such as nutritional value, disease and safety concerns, and economic advantages, will help to move our food system from “point A” to “point B”.

There is little information to support claims regarding individuals in the Neolithic period, but it is only safe to assume that by looking at certain artifacts and cultures that followed them one is probable to come across important information. Agricultural cultures were a more advanced version of the Neolithic man, as they emerged during the last years of the era. Most tribes used to focus primarily on fields like hunting, gathering, and herding before experiencing reform and starting to concentrate on agriculture. While earlier cultures were Apollonian in character, later communities were Dionysian.

By canning, freezing, and dehydrating techniques used to process food destroy most of its flavor.” (120). The International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) company (which is a huge company that manufactures different types of flavors and fragrances through the process of coalescing chemicals. The IFF corporation has branches that vary all over the nation, they are accountable for the different types of flavors of so many foods, drinks, and many personal hygienic products like gum, soap, toothpaste, perfume and body wash.” The basic science behind the scent of your shaving cream is the same as that governing the flavor of your TV dinner.” (122) It is very outrageous that the flavors of the food we consume are created by the mixing of chemicals that the IFF undertakes. Consuming foods that have been chemically fabricated is not a substance our bodies would benefit from. Consumption of chemicals shouldn’t ever be acceptable. Fast food industries have lowered their standards, they prioritize the act of making money in any means possible over the evident facts on why chemicals should not be administered into our

Life today in 2014 is vastly different to the period 1500-1800 as described by Blainey (2000). Survival no longer hinges on hunting and gathering food. In fact many people today give little or no thought to food production. Instead, we drive to a supermarket and buy whatever we want to eat. We have access to many restaurants and fast food outlets, so we not only have ample food at our fingertips, we don’t even have to prepare it if we choose not to. Advancements in production and using machines in place of humans (Henslin, Possamai and Possamai-Inesedy 2011, p. 139) mean food is now farmed and produced on a much larger scale (Macionis and

Today's advancements have really brought humans far, but which one is the greatest? Is it the Liquid Biopsy, Supercharged Photosynthesis, or perhaps Practical Quantum Computers? All of these are major advancements in today’s world, but today’s advancements have all stemmed from one very important revolution in the beginning of civilization. At the beginning of civilization we were hunters and gatherers, who spent all their time hunting and searching for food. We never had time for anything else besides survival, and we never would have if it hadn’t been for the Neolithic Revolution. Agricultural advancements brought forth a whole new age. The Neolithic Revolution is the most important human advancement in history and has allowed humans to advance tremendously in many ways.

The Neolithic Revolution was basically when people went from hunters and gatherers, to farmers.This happened in the region of a place that is now called the Fertile Crescent about what we think happened in the time period 11,000-8,000 B.C.E.The Fertile Crescent wasn’t necessarily the place where the Neolithic Revolution began (even though it was) it was just the place where soil was really good and animals and plants were abundant. During the Neolithic Revolution hunters and gatherers would find place like the Fertile Crescent( or any other place) and find animals there. Now they have two options stay a for a while and let the animals reproduce or do what they usually do and just kill them and move on. So they looked around and probably thought

According to Robert Kenner, creator of documentary Food inc., the agriculture business produces food that is unhealthy to the environment, along with non domesticated animals. Environmentalist and author Wendell Berry states in his paper From The Pleasures of Eating, “When food, in the minds of eater, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous.” Today, humans find the most effortless food options to go about their daily lives, hence all the processed, microwaveable foods. Unless consumers take a larger part and responsibility in the economy of food, the “cultural amnesia” will continue to mislead and be dangerous.

Since the beginning of time, food has had an enormous effect on our lives. Although this is true, the ways in which we obtain our food has changed greatly from the past to the present. Before all the supermarkets and fast food restaurants began popping up rapidly in past years, people would have to hunt their own food. Back then you would know exactly where you’re food was coming from because you were the one who obtained it. Today though, most people have no idea where their food came from. The object of food itself, is seen as yet another opportunity to make money to these companies instead of a simple necessity to human life. People have the right to know how their food is being processed and and being prepared. The methods of the food industry can clearly be seen as enigmatic, unacceptable, and immoral.

According to history, The Neolithic Revolution is so named because it took place during the Neolithic era, or New Stone Age, around 11,500 to 5,000 years ago. This dramatic change is sometimes called the Agricultural Revolution because it rests on a knowledge of plant and animal husbandry. As a result of the growth of agriculture, human civilizations began to give up the nomadic life of foragers for a more sedentary lifestyle. Cities began to develop, and the residents of these cities were able to build up surplus resources. These surpluses allowed some members of society to forgo farming for other activities, leading to a division of labor and specialization. By exploring specialized professions, people could become experts at their trades,

During the Paleolithic Era, many humans around the world lived as part of hunter-gatherer societies. An important aspect of these foraging societies was obtaining food. As the dawn of agriculture came about in the globe, many of the earlier aspects of these societies had changed. In “An Edible History of Humanity” the invention of agriculture led many societies to develop new settlement patterns, religious beliefs, and ideas of social stratification all based on food production during the Neolithic Revolution. As more hunter-gatherer societies started using agriculture, many of their settlement patterns had changed.

The crops and animals that were developed or domesticated during the Neolithic Revolution include wheat, barley, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, sorghum, yams, okra, black-eyed peas, rice, millet, soybeans, chicken, water buffaloes, taro, yams, coconut, breadfruit, bananas, citrus fruit, maize, beans, peppers, squashes, tomatoes, manioc, sweet potatoes, llamas, alpacas, mammoths, mastodons, and horses.Farmers spent most of their time dedicated to cultivating the plants. This was an adjustment because hunter-gathering roughly only took four hours out of their day. Men began to domesticate animals instead of hunting, while women cultivated plants. They also began to to track the patterns of the weather and when the different seasons to place which

The dominance of the market-economy worldwide, along with the subsequent rise of the Green Revolution, eventually led to the mass-shipment and globalization of food. In today’s interconnected society, the third- world produces for consumers within western Europe and the United States.(Guptill, Food Access) This market-driven desire to indulge in out-of-season crops fuels demand towards an industrial agricultural system that focuses on cash-crop monoculture (Guptill et al.,Global Food, 125-130).