- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
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Rice requires hours just to filter out all the stones from it.
The number of people who have no clue how much processing goes into making rice edible is hilarious.
I am not old but even I remember my mom spending hours filtering all the stone from rice.
Or just to grow it. Rice is stupid hard compared to wheat.
As well as regional factors. They both grow in totally different environments.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X1930082X
I remember reading about this concept and how rice growing cultures differ from wheat growing. Our agricultural past has had long lasting impacts.
Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting read.
We are genetically built by the decisions our ancestors made. As far as I know everybody can eat cereal grain, that was a massive challenge for our ancestors who until then we’re meat eaters. I can eat dairy products, a lot of people from other areas cannot, like my wife who is from Asia.
Off topic, but I find it fascinating, animals create their own vitamin c but humans don’t. I read it’s from an evolutionary mutation where our genes for vit c got turned off.
Be hooman, eat much seed. Seed good. Wheat like seed. Wheat good. Rock smash seed, easy eat seed.
Rain make smash seed taste funny. Fire make rain smash seed tastey. Society.
It’s actually been theorized that beer was a driving factor for humanity discovering agriculture.
There’s also a theory (maybe the same as you mentioned) that says man settled down because they had to stay in one place for the whole brewing process.
Historical giggling intensifies.
One guy can grow and harvest a wheat field large enough to feed his family, but rice requires a lot of community organization to grow.
There’s an interesting hypothesis called the Rice Hypothesis that theorizes that the different styles of farming rice vs wheat shaped our societies in ways that are still prevalent today. Farming rice led to strong collectivism in society, while farming wheat led to strong individualism in society. Perhaps this is what has led to our differences in ideologies and governing systems.
All grass based crops encouraged group cooperation. Plants like potatoes remain safe in the ground until you need them. But all cereal crops require harvesting at a specific time. You can’t just harvest enough wheat as you need it. This means you inevitably have to have a stockpile of grain to get through the year. And a stockpile of already harvested and prepared grain makes you an instant target for raids by opposing groups.
Cereal crops of all forms necessitate cooperation.
I mean, everything in life requires cooperation, but that’s not the point. Rice took twice as many labor hours as wheat and required more irrigation. According to Shenshi Nongshu, “if one is short of labor, it is best to grow wheat”. Also studies have shown that in China people in historically rice farming areas behave more collectively than those in wheat regions. Not all grasses behave the same way and need the same things, especially with how much we’ve bred them to our needs.
I also like the one where western people are good at stuff like telescopes and magnifying lenses because they drink wine, which is a pretty color, where as the Chinese drank clear alcohol so they didn’t get as good with glasswork
Oh interesting, I haven’t heard of that. I’ll have too look into it, thanks!
Also in regards to lenses and pretty things, because pottery and paper were already so massive industries in China, they didn’t see use for glass as much as Europe which needed it for windows and whatnot.
So then Europe had the advantage in glassworking and thus got some scientific instruments (such as beakers and lenses) first.
How much of that was of because wine, I couldn’t say. But I would like to mention that a gene for naturally being (much more) intolerant to alcohol is more common in Asia than in Europe. But how long it’s been more common is a question I couldn’t answer, as it might be more of a consequence than a cause, with how fast evolution works. (ie Europe has had strong liquor for centuries and you can see from places which only recently got liquor how much more prevalent alcoholism is — it gets filtered out pretty fast as if you’re dependant on alcohol and sauced all the time you prolly might not procreate, unless you’re not that intolerant to it and manage to function.)
Fascinating theory. I’ll have to go down that rabbit hole tomorrow.
Also, a very different climate and soil.
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It’s pretty simple, really. Rice doesn’t grow everywhere.
Can confirm. I’m currently at Tim Horton’s and there’s no rice growing.
Is the Tragically Hip song Wheat Kings playing though?
But there is bread available, isn’t there? I rest my case.
We have tried to grind, dry, ferment, bake, broil, boil, and fry everything on the face of the earth. Countless times. Humans have had the same brainpower for ages, just not the same knowledge base.
wheat makes beer
beer yeast and wheat makes bread
wheat made pasta
wheat grows well in colder climates.
Wheat is a bit of a weed so it’s grown on more marginal land while more profitable (finicky) plants are grown in the better land.
This weirdly makes wheat more vulnerable to climate change.
This phenomenon is even stronger with (most types of) Maize (excluding sweet corn). It requires heavy processing to be turned into glucose sirup or anything resembling edible food. By default, the grains are extremely durable and very difficult to digest.
But this is essentially what protects it from insects and fungus. Because the grains are so hard to digest by default, they can only be eaten by humans who have the tools to heavily process them before eating; for everyone else it’s essentially uninteresting as a food source and that prevents mold and insects.
What type of corn are you referring to? I’m not familiar with the history of corn, but what you’re saying doesn’t match my experiences with any variety
Dent corn is used as livestock feed, and is generally considered the less edible version. Sweet corn can be eaten by humans raw. Basically every variety I’ve ever seen can be eaten if boiled long enough
Sweet corn is a mutation that was only really cultivated in the late 1700s. Before that dent and flint corn were the norm. These corns require nixtamalization to soft the corn and then need boiling, grinding, and cooking to make something like tortillas.
Sweet corn is also harder to store if harvested at a flavorful stage. Up until canning became widespread, there was no easy way to store corn without drying it out.
Yeah, the effect is stronger for dent corn.
Dent corn can last upwards of 20 years when stored correctly.
I’m not sure what that number is for other cereals but i guess it’s less long.
Corn (Maize) is a selected grass. (Teosinte) Wheat is also a grass (Emmer) which hasn’t been nearly as modified.
The american indigenous people cultivated and developed corn over 10,000 some years. An ear of corn can be boiled and eaten. Wheat? Not so much.
You can absolutely boil wheat, so I am not sure I follow…
I guess I meant more along the lines of: “An ear of corn can be husked by hand and boiled.” Individual processing is far more accessible and feasible compared the threshing, hulling, and winnowing processes of wheat.
Have you not heard of corn on the cob? Just pull off the husk, boil, and eat.
I can’t tell if this is in jest or ignorance.
Sweet corn is a recent invention.
And great, you’ve got the months of July and August covered. How are you going to survive fall, winter, and spring? Corn doesn’t become a staple crop until it can be stored year round, maybe between years to alleviate famine.
My point being that corn only needs to be boiled to be easy to eat. Going around like it’s completely inedible is ridiculous.
And your second “point” is a complete red herring. It applies to almost any crop outside of its harvest season. Those vegetables you’re buying at the grocery store? They’re not being stored year round. They’re grown in Mexico and South America before being imported. That’s how you’re able to get tomatoes in March.
My point being that corn only needs to be boiled to be easy to eat.
Sweet corn harvested at the milky stage, sure. But wait until the kernels are reddish brown and they won’t be great. And that’s a variety that was developed like 1500 years after the Romans were wiping their asses with sponges, so not relevant to the conversation about ancient prehistoric people developing a staple crop.
Go boil a jar of popcorn and see how practical it would be to try to eat flint corn with just some boiling.
Plus nixtamalization improves the nutrition of cornmeal so that it can meet more of human nutritional needs.
And your second “point” is a complete red herring. It applies to almost any crop outside of its harvest season.
It doesn’t apply to staple crops. Wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, beans, and potatoes can be stored long term, so entire civilizations came up around them millennia ago. Sweet corn harvested at an edible stage can’t be, at least not without refrigeration or canning technology.
All this is to say yeah, the civilizations built around maize as a staple crop had to figure out nixtamalization.
The ignorance around rice is what gets me on this one. It’s almost troll level.
Don’t mind me, just gonna go and internally scream “STONES” for 3 minutes straight over there.
Because they wiped their ass with a communal sponge.
The shared gut bacteria provided the micronutrients that are needed to develop the intelligence that can handle the complexity.
OP needs to get topped more to compensate.
Wheat is a more modern staple than you might imagine. Millet was more widespread than rice or wheat for much of Eurasia.
You can eat wheat right out of the head (the top part of the wheat stalk). No processing required (other than threshing it - removing it from the husk).
Rice makes terrible bread. Grind me up some more of that fancy grass please.
Rice bread is fine. I haven’t had any that tries fancy grains to mimic whole wheat or anything like that, but it’s at least as good as regular white bread.
Probably better than white bread tbh. Store-bought white bread in the US has a higher glycemic index than pure fucking sugar.
Don’t eat white bread, it’s terrible for you
Unfortunately rural japan hasn’t really figured out good bread yet so almost all the bread where I live is white bread. Japan is known for a lot of great food but their sandwiches are depressing.
I kinda dig Japanese sandwich culture. Japanese milk bread makes for great egg salad sandwiches. And things like steaks or fried cutlets make for delicious sandwiches, too.
They’re good sandwiches for a bit, but after awhile the lack of substance really gets to you. With the single bread type and an almost complete lack of deli meat (and good toppings like cheese and pickles being scarce) i just really miss sandwich culture
Yeah, commercial bread is terrible. Good bread isn’t hard to bake at home though
It’s all the same, Rice bread is terrible for you also.
Got a source on that, because it sounds like “America bad” bullshit? Also, what is “store bought?”
wheat is overrated, I can’t even eat it with out shitting myself and eventually developing cancer. Its because my genes are too evolved to eat it or something
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nah I am fully diagnosed celiac - immune system attacks itself in the presence of any wheat or barley
The communal sponge is peak hygiene, stop dissing it
It’s learned over time. I expect what we learned from easier-to-process roots was applied to grains.
