| 'True' Greek Oregano If you are serious about authentic Mediterranean food - or want a superior pizza, you must have the authentic oregano - dried wild Greek oregano flower stems. Not the whole plant. Intense, austere, the taste of the searing Mediterranean sun. Limited quantities of South Pacific organic true Greek 'origini' are available now. Artemis Herbs. www.crosswinds.net/~oregini |
The human animal evolved in the forests, woodlands, and plains of Africa. The human animal spread into virtually all environments, from tropical rain forest to arid desert because that animal, which is you and me today, had evolved the kind of guts that could digest most kinds of food - plant (except woody twiglets and cellulosy grass blades) or animal. Our natural diet is everything edible. But in any given area of the world, we relied on starchy plants, nut and seed oils, or animal fat for fuel to burn for energy. Animals that know how dangerous humans are tend to run - fast, and in the opposite direction - and are fat only at certain times of year. Plants have the virtue of standing still, so underground storage tubers and carbohydrate rich seeds are a reliable energy, and in some cases, fat and protein source.The human animal evolved to eat every animal or plant that wasn't actually toxic (and, after simple treatments, some that to greater or lesser degree were). Seeds are a rich store of energy, some have good protein levels, vitamins (especially vitamin E), minerals, and protective phytochemicals. Living as wild animals for the last million years or so, we ate every seed that was worth collecting, grass seed, legume (bean-like, pea -like, peanut and others), and any other seeds that were sustaining and productive, or big enough to be worth bothering with.Seeds were seasonal. We travelled to seed sources and ate them when they ripened, generally over a short period of time. 'Cached' seeds are hard to keep from becoming mouldy or insect ridden, unlike nuts. They have no hard shell to deter birds, and many being very small indeed, they are hard to handle. When the seasonal seed resource was too depleted to be bothered with, we moved on to another food, and didn't eat seeds until the next harvest season, nearly a year away. The fact we very recently gained the technical ability to eat seeds every day of the year is a major change for our ancient evolutionary genetic dictated biochemistry. For reasons to do with the behaviour of genes in populations as they disperse and/or become isolated in small groups, some people have not biochemically adapted to gluten containing grains - mainly wheat. Such mal-adaptations may be present for other seeds, such as maize or soya beans; or indeed for virtually any other foods, such as almonds, beef or oranges. The very small percentage of the population of the West who are gluten sensitive can relatively easily substitute grains with no gluten, such as rice. Or switch to tubers, nuts, and fruits for 'ready' carbohyrates.
Today, we have a wide range of seeds available to include in our diet, but for historical and cultural reasons Western people now eat only a few kinds of seeds, and, with the exception of beans and peas, generally eat only the carbohydrate store of the seed, leaving the vitamin, oil and mineral rich part behind.
Investing the time to change our cultural mind set to include more whole seeds of all kinds, or using canned precooked whole seeds can increase the amount of nutrients and protective plant chemicals consumed per calorie eaten, and help to displace un-natural, less nutrient dense, industrially modified foods. The result is a way of eating in harmony with the absolute needs of our ancient gene determined biochemistry. And over time, the removal of one the most important barriers to the possibility of feeling really well.
As humans radiated out of Africa into all the regions of the world,
they exploited all food sources they came across, grasses included. In
parts of Australia, the aboriginal people regularly harvested wild grass
seeds (chiefly a wild 'millet', Panicum spp.), and it is likely
that given time, they would have domesticated them. Indigenous tribespeople
of the grasslands of Southern South America gathered grass seeds for food,
and even brought one species of brome grass into cultivation. In Mexico,
one of the local 'panic grasses' (Panicum spp., a kind of 'millet')
was collected, and ultimately, domesticated. Palaeanthropologists have
found 19,000 year old stone mortars for grinding grain show that wild grains
were not just parched, but processed, from at least since that time.[1]
Saharan wild grass
harvest There is a lovely cave art picture of women gathering
wild grasses in the once productive Sahara region of Africa at the Paleologos
site (www.paleologos.com).
Our ancestors probably parched the whole grains on ember-heated stones
(this would have burnt off the adherent husks around the seed), and made
a dough from the cooked flour (Tibetan people today eat a dough from roasted
barley flour mixed with tea and yak butter and formed into a ball - tsampa).
Such doughs laid on hot stones or embers would have made the first unleavened
'bread' . Or the roasted flour could perhaps have been mixed with
water to make a thin 'porridge'.
Morama
Bean. J Very brief notes
on the variability of protein and oil content of the wild African Morama
bean. Ironically, it is being considered as a 'new food'. In fact, it may
be about the 'oldest' food in the human diet.
Seeds contain 'antinutrients' - substances such as saponins, tannins,
'protein splitting enzymes' inhibitors, and phytates. These compounds reduce
the body's ability to access the nutrients in seeds. The type, and amount
of anti-nutrient varies both with the species of plant, and with the local
variety of the species (common beans, Phaseolus vulgaris, for example,
have a wide range of phytic acid and tannin concentrations - with
white seeded beans having least tannins-depending on the variety). Some
have several different anti-nutrients, some have few, some have relatively
a 'lot' of any one anti-nutrient, some have very little.
Most, but not all, antinutrients are destroyed or reduced by cooking.
Soaking and leaching are necessary to reduce some antinutrients, particulalry
in some varieties of bean and other legumes. Soaking and sprouting seeds
also reduces phytates. Soybeans, for example, contain a contain a 'tryptophane
inhibiter' that interferes with the absorbtion of the amino acid 'tryptophane'.
The inhibitor can be neutralized both by cooking and by sprouting (the
sprouted root must be 3 to 4 inches long for this to be largely complete).
A very low percentage of the starches in some seeds 'resist' being
digested ( up to 7% for wheat, and oats and 20% for baked
beans) These undigested starches are fermented by the microflora of the
colon, producing variable quantities of gas.
Guided by the practices of recent African gatherer-hunters, it seems
likely our African ancestors mainly dealt with anti-nutritional factors
by roasting the seeds. Sometimes they were soaked as well, either before
or after roasting (and grinding). These are classic techniques that we
use even today when preparing legumes; although westerners rarely roast
any other than peanut seeds, and occasionally soya seeds.
Sprouting and soaking
Sprouting seeds is a form of 'delayed gratification' far beyond the
wait for the seeds to parch by the fire. It probably didn't figure in our
biochemical evolution. Certainly, in very recent but pre-industrial times,
legumes (particularly) were sprouted. It conserves fuel in de-forested
areas, and it makes seeds reasonably palatable and much more usefully digestible.
Sprouting seeds converts some of the starches to simple sugars. In grains,
a simple sugar, maltose, is formed.
In the middle ages of Europe, there is some suggestion that wheat soaked
in hot water, and left overnight by the fire to soften and 'gell' ('frumenty')
was as common as leavened bread.
Protein source
Protein builds growing bodies, and protein is made up in turn of 'building
blocks' called amino acids. Grains are low in the amino acid 'lysine',
which makes their protein content less useful than it would otherwise have
been. Wheat has about 8-15% protein, depending on the variety (ancient
wheats had a higher protein content), rice has a low content, at 7%. So
grains in general are perhaps best regarded primarily as an energy and
vitamin and mineral source.
Legumes, on the other hand, are very good sources of protein. Peanuts,
for example, are protein rich, with about 25% or more protein content (and
with a favorable amino acid profile). Lentils have about 25%, cowpeas
have from 23-35%, common beans (Phaseolus) have about 22%, and so
on. Legumes tend to be low in the amino acids methionine and cystine, but
are high in the amino acid lysine. Lysine is low in grains, so eating the
two together leverages the protein content of both. Co-incidentally, legumes
such as lentils and peas tended to grow as weeds among wheat and other
grains at the time they were being domesticated; in South America maize,
a grain, was (and is) grown with beans, a legume. In Asia rice and Soya
beans complement each other.
In conjunction with tree seeds, and to a lesser extent meat/marrow,
the protein and oils of wild African legumes may have been the deciding
factor in allowing humans to develop a big brain, and consequently evolve
to the point where you can read this on the Internet!
Other seeds are also rich in protein. Sesame seeds are about 20% protein,
altho, like grains, they are low in lysine. Mixing them with a legume such
as the chickpea, Cicer arietum, (e.g. in the middle Eastern dish
'houmous') balances it out. Both sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds are
also high in protein.
Mineral and vitamin source
Grains are a very good source of magnesium, calcium, and potassium.
Grains are a good source of chromium- necessary for maintaining normal
glucose tolerance (low chromium intakes are very common in the industrialized
diet, and over the long term this chromium deficiency may contribute to
onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus, or middle-age diabetes). Legumes are
a useful source of these minerals. Seeds in general are excellent
sources of B-complex vitamins and vitamin E.
Two of the most critical nutrients for humans are folic acid, essential
for normal cell division, immune response and correct developement of the
fetus in the womb; and thiamine, vitamin B1, essential for metabolising
the carbohydrates in seeds, nuts, and tubers. Legumes, interestingly,
are particularly rich sources of both these fundamentally important elements.
Legumes are high in iron and B vitamins, particularly B6. The iron
in beans is reasonably bioavailable, ranging from 53% to 76%, depending
on the variety. The iron levels also vary between cultivated varieties
- the range is from about 50 to 150 micrograms/gram (dry weight). USDA
Agriculture Research Station experiments have also shown that once cooked,
there is no relationship between phytate or tannin concentrations
and the amount of iron that is bioavailable. Researchers in Japan are currently
working to genetically engineer legume iron carrying protein (ferritin)
into rice, which, it is estimated, would enable a typical rice meal to
supply from 30-50% of daily dietary iron needs. Sesame seeds are
rich in calcium and in vitamin E, altho' when hulled the calcium analysis
drops off.
Fibre source
Whole grains have a lot of 'woody' (for want of a better description)
fibre in their seed coat which help regulates bowel activity. What is less
well known is that many also contain soluble fibre, which also has positive
health benefits. The soluble and insoluble fiber in seeds is known to be
helpful in preventing constipation and diseases of the digestive tract
such as diverticulitis. It is also suspected that fiber may have a protective
effect against colon cancer. Oats contain quite high amounts of soluble
fiber, as does barley, and to a lesser extent, wheat. Legumes high in soluble
fiber are lentils, pinto beans, and black beans. Legumes are also an excellent
source of insoluble fiber. The fiber content of legumes slows the digestion
of their carbohydrates content, regulating blood sugar levels.
Source of fats, including essential fatty acids
The oils in oily seeds are an excellent energy source, and when eaten
as part of the whole seed are slowly parcelled out into the blood stream
over a period of hours. While oily seeds are a concentrated source of calories,
like any calory containing (or convertable) food, their calories
are only stored as fat when we eat more calories than we need for energy.
Otherwise, the oils and carbohydrate are burnt in the furnace of active
life.
Legumes from which oil is extracted, such as peanuts (40-59% oil content)
and soya beans, obviously have a high oil content (some non leguminous
seeds, such as sesame seeds also have a high oil content - sesame has between
45% and 60%) . When whole seeds are eaten, it is suspected that the oil
portion is very slowly released and metabolised, preserving and enhancing
both stable energy levels and favorable blood fat chemistry (the effect
on blood fat profile of consuming the expressed oils can be quite
different). Whole peanuts have been found to be particularly helpful in
maintaining energy levels in times of sustained exertion, such as playing
soccer.
Two kinds of fats, 'omega-3' and 'omega-6' are essential for various
body functions, and have to be obtained from the food we eat, as the human
body can't synthesise them from other dietary fats. While omega-6 fatty
acids are quite pervasive in the Western diet, Omega-3 is not. Linolenic
acid, an omega-3 fat, is found in flax seeds, soya beans, and
pumpkin seeds. Flaxseeds (linseed) is a very rich source of omega-3 fatty
acids, with about 18.1% omega-3 content.
The very oily seeds of the Perilla plant ('Korean sesame'), Perilla
frutescens are also a rich source of linolenic acid.
Hormone regulatory effect in women
Naturally occurring plant substances, particularly in legumes, have
been shown to have a weak hormonal effect. Given our long evolutionary
association with legumes, one must wonder if this effect hasn't become
integrated into our genetic biochemical background.
Flax oil, in particular, is said to be 'estrogenic', that is it can
attach itself to cellular estrogen receptors. This plant derived source
of 'plant estrogen' may be helpful for postmenopausal women showing signs
of hormone deficiency, such as atrophy and thinning of the vaginal walls.
Soybeans also have a weak estrogenic effect.
Whole grains in general are suspected to help regulate estrogen levels in the body, through their natural plant estrogens (phytoestrogens) content, and through an effect of their fiber content. The fibre 'lignan' in grains has been found to be weakly estrogenic.
Hormonally potent forms of estrogen (estradiol and estrone) are naturally metabolised in the liver to a less active form (estriol). This metabolite is eliminated into the bile, which empties into the digestive tract. The fibre in seeds binds to this estrogen, and it is removed from the body. There is some suggestion that without sufficient fibre, this estriol is altered by gut bacteria to the more potent forms and re-absorbed, altering the ratios of the forms of estrogen in the blood. There is some suggestion that such inbalances of the 'estrogen profile' may tend to predipose such a woman to pre-menstrual syndrome, fibroids, heavier menstrual bleeding, and maybe even breast cancer.
Soybeans are filled with natural plant estrogens (or phytoestrogens)
called bioflavonoids. Certain bioflavonoids are weak estrogens, having
1/50,000 the potency of a dose of synthetic estrogen. As weak estrogens,
these compounds bind to estrogen receptors and act as a substitute form
of estrogen in the body. They compete with the more potent estrogens made
by a woman's body for these cell receptor sites. As a result, bioflavonoids
can help to regulate estrogen levels.
After menopause, estrogen levels drop, and dietary sources of estrogen
may have an important role in the female body. In Japan, where phytoestrogen
rich soybeans are a common part of the diet (altho' only around 4-5 grams
per day are eaten, on the average), only 10-15% of women experience menopause
symptoms, where 80- 85% of European and North American women (and
who eat a standard western diet) do experience symptoms at menopause.
Some people assert that the early onset of puberty in girls in the
West is 'caused by' the soya component of food. However, Asian girls, who
eat similar or higher amounts of soy do not have early puberty.
The much simpler and more obvious explaination is that the calorie rich
Western diet both brings the body mass up to the critical 45kg that
allows the onset of menstruation much earlier, and that the intricate
glucose metabolism/sex hormone synthesis mechanism has been made potentially
partly dysfunctional by evolutionary inappropriate dieatary composition
and it's concommitant unusual metabolic pathways (unusual compared to the
biochemical compostion of the food that was presented to our metabolic
pathways over the last million years or so) .
In a recent study menopausal women were asked to supplement their diet
with a phytoestrogen containing food - soy flour, flax seed oil, or red
clover sprouts. The soy flour and flax oil (only) significantly prevented
the vaginal mucosa from thinning and drying; but the effect of eliminating
these foods caused the mucosa to return to the previous menopausal thinning
and drying.
In yet another study, post-menopausal women with bad blood fat profiles
were split into two groups, with one group given bread and muffins made
with flax seeds, the other group foods made with sunflower seeds. After
six weeks, they switched seeds for another 6 weeks. The flaxseed lowered
the 'bad' LDL cholesterol by 25 mg/dL (a 14.7% reduction) and levels
of a protein called 'lipoprotein (a)', by 0.07 mm/L. Artificial estrogen
supplements lower levels of this particular protein, 'lipoprotein (a)',
but this is the first study to demonstrate that diet can also reduce the
levels, possibly due to the weakly estrogenic lignans (according to the
researchers).
The importance of this is that when estrogen levels drop off after
menopause, the increase in lipoprotein (a) (in woman eating a western,
industrial diet) oxidizes LDL cholesterol, making it more dangerous, and
increases both clotting and cholesterol deposition on artery walls.
Other studies have found a relationship between the levels of
phytoestrogen in the blood and both 'cardiac favorable' blood fat biochemistry
and artery 'reboundability'; an indicator of arterial health. This relationship
of better cardiac health indicators and phytoestrogen levels in the blood
was found to be independant of both the bodies own naturally produced
estrogen levels and additional estrogen from hormone replacement
therapy)
Perhaps older women were good legume gatherers in our evolutionary
past. Perhaps menopausal and older woman are biologically dependant on
external sources of estrogen - from legumes - in the same way as males
and females are dependant on vitamin C from external
sources...?
General Protective effects
Eating substantial amounts of soybeans and soybean products has been
linked to a lower incidence of breast cancer in Japanese women, and in
Japanese men, lower mortality from prostate cancer.
A recent study in USA of diet and heart disease in older women showed
that one daily serving of whole grains - as cereal or wholegrain bread
- cut the risk of death from ischemic heart disease death by nearly a third.
Eating refined grains (for example white bread) didn't have a protective
effect. When the protective effect of fiber, phytic acid and vitamin E
were factored out, there was still a protective effect. The researchers
speculate that it may be due to an as yet undiscovered phytochemical in
grains, perhaps working together synergistically with the other protective
plant compounds and forms of vitamin E in the seed.
The most important anti-oxidant we normally think of is vitamin E. Yet
there may be other anti-oxidants in some grains that are just as powerful.
Oat flour, for example, has long been known for it's anti-oxidant properties
- to the extent it used to be used as a component of such things as 'ready-mix'
cakes, in order to slow oxidative deterioration of the mix.
In a study where men and women ate a controlled diet, with one group
getting 1,000 calories of their daily maintainence requirements from oats,
and the other getting 1,000 calories from wheat, the people who used oats
for energy dropped their blood levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
(LDL or "bad" cholesterol) by 23 mg/per deciliter, and the wheat eaters
dropped LDL by 13 mg/dL. In addition, at the end of the six week study
period, the oat eaters lowered their systolic blood pressure by 7 millimeters
of mercury, and the wheat eaters showed a lowering of 2 mm/Hg. The reseachers
speculate that the bood chemistry improvement and lower blood pressure
are due to the soluble fibre. Oats contain more soluble fibre than wheat.
They speculate that the soluble fiber slows down the rate of both
digestion and absorbtion, slowing the release of insulin, high rates of
release of which is implicated in blood pressure rise in some people. There
may also be 'unidentified factors' in oats which have a beneficial effect
on blood vessels.
Women eating a diet that included 1.3 'servings' of 'whole grains'
had about a 30 to 40% lower risk rate of ischemic stroke, relative to the
women whose 'normal' intake was a half a serving of whole grains per day.
So boosting intake of natural grains to even one serving per day
has a powerful stroke protective effect. What particular attribute of grains
in gneral, or their effect on metabolism, that is so helpful isn't known.
But some useful chemical constituents have been identified.
Plants contain a class of common natural chemicals called 'Isoprenoids'.
They help regulate such things as seed germination, and plant growth. Grain
seeds contain an isoprenoid called 'gamma-tocotrienol', chemically
somewhat similar to vitamin E. Laboratory experiments on the growth of
human leukemia and breast cancer cell lines showed that the cancer lines
growth was three times slower compared to a normal human cell culture which
received the same dose of isoprenoid. The important point is that
the experiment used a dose of isoprenoids that anyone might be able to
be obtain from eating a standard natural diet.
Recent (1998) research has shown that nitric oxide in the body has
a protective effect on the integrity of the blood vessels. An amino acid,
arginine, is the main source of nitric oxide in the body. Peanuts, sesame
seeds and sunflower seeds are the richest sources of arginine, along with
meat and nuts. The arginine content of wild legumes and nuts in the African
and Asian ancestral environment has not been reported (except for the Southern
African manketti nut, which has the highest concentration of all, with
3.5 mg/100 mg - peanuts are the next highest with 2.8mg/100 grams). Arginine
is said to also be useful in treating some cases of 'penile hypotumescence'.
Ahem.
The natural 'phytochemicals' known as 'phenols' and 'polyphenols' are
hypothesized to be responsible for reducing the risk of cancers in people
who eat sufficient fruit and vegetables. The various kinds of polyphenols
have a variety of protective modes of action - carcinogen compound blocking,
antioxidant and free radical scavenging, and tumour proliferation repression.
While the phenols in fruit, black tea, red wine, and vegetables are well
known, few know that in fact barley, at 1,200 to 1,500mg/100gms, and some
forms of sorghum, (at up to 10,260mg/100 grams) have by far the highest
amounts of any foods -other than dried figs (around 1,000mg per 100grams
of product).
Well, a lot of things actually. Most grasses just don't pack a large
enough lunch for humans to consider them worth collecting. But in sheer
production per given area, there is a lot of food going begging. We ('we'
being women, no doubt) likely only collected wild grass seeds when tree
seeds, meat, or starchy roots weren't available. Parts of the human population
may have had to turn more and more to grass seeds as a resource as richer
lands were already occupied. And there is evidence that we harvested quantities
of wild grass seeds at least 12,000 years ago. We have almost certainly
always eaten wild grass seeds in our evolutionary history, but probably
as a short seasonal harvest, rather than a daily fare. A site ('Ohalo II')
on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Valley shows that we
were harvesting and eating wild wheat and wild barley over 19,000 years
ago, as part of a seasonally mixed diet that included fish, animals, tree
seeds (acorn), fruit, and other plant parts.
Certainly, when we radiated out of Africa into the Eastern Mediterranean
and South West Asia there was an annual abundance of waving grasses in
the foothills - and the animals that grazed them, no doubt. Experiments
with harvesting wild 'einkorn' wheat (higher in protein than domestic wheat)
in Turkey showed that one hour of work yielded nearly 1 kilogram of grain.
Every 1 kcal of energy expended yielded about 45 kcal of energy food. (see
also below)
One thing is certain - we would have preferred the larger seeds and
the more palatable seeds.Of the 23 or so edible grass seeds of the grasslands
of the eastern Mediterranean, two had big seeds - relative to the rest,
anyway. One was emmer, a form of wild wheat, the other was barley. Emmer
had the additional advantage of the seeds not sticking to the outer husk,
unlike barley (even today, barley has to be 'pearled', that is, the adherant
hull abraded off mechanically). The temperate zone grasses did not spread
south beyond the climatically similar Nile valley. Dryland grasses are
not suited to Equatorial and Sub Equatorial Africa's humid climate and
pattern of summertime rainy season.
In the hot and humid parts of Africa and Asia, the aquatic grass we
call 'rice' met the prescription for larger and more palatable seeds.
Domestication of grass seeds
'Millets'
This is a slightly dismissive term used by European colonialists to
describe predominantly African and Asian grains that Europeans themselves
didn't ordinarily eat. It includes 'common' or 'broom-corn' millet Panicum
miliaceum, the shiny seed usually fed to budgies in the west;
'foxtail millet' Setaria viridis var. italica, an Asian species
domesticated in China for at least 2,500 years and used in the west primarily
as 'millet sprays' for your budgie cage (a native middle Americas species,
S. parviflora, was almost domesticated by 3,500 years ago,
but was abandoned as maize emerged) ; 'Japanese millet' Echinochloa
frumentacea a very fast maturing grass seed widespread in many climatic
zones of South East Asia; but not much now used; 'pearl' or 'bulrush millet'
Pennisetum typhoides a white seeded millet on a bulrush-like head,
which, unlike bulrushes, is adapted to semi arid areas and probably originated
in the Sudan or immediate sub Saharan Africa ; 'finger
millet' Eleusine coracana, a species native to tropical east Africa,
is a short stemmed, dry land adapted, millet with excellent storage characteristics
and an outstanding mineral content, and is still a staple in parts of central
and eastern Africa; and 'sorghum' Sorghum bicolor, from Ethiopia
a relatively large seeded drought resistant millet that doesn't keep well.
It was probably domesticated in Ethiopia or Central Africa, initially maybe
around 5,000 years ago, and carried to West Africa, perhaps 3,000 years
ago, where it was further developed by the Mande people, especially the
high quality white seeded forms (red grained types are bitter).
Various species of Panicum, or 'panic' grasses, are indiginous
to Africa. In South East Africa, possibly the cradle of the human species,
there are at least seven species- Panicum aequinerve, P. deustum,
P. ecklonii, P. hymeniochilum, P. maximum,
P. natalense, and P. subalbidum. Westerners who chose
to eat a primarily grain and seed based diet consider Panicum the
most digestible of all seeds, and the best suited to human nutrition. Given
our long evolutionary association with this grass seed, it is not suprising.
'Millet' farming has been dated to 7,500 years ago in Northern China, so it seems likely that consumption of wild millets has been going on for many millenia prior to that date in Asia.
These grains are primarily dry-land adapted, are generally low yielding,
but very tough. They don't have the high productivity of temperate grains
such as wheat, and are much smaller seeded (except for sorghum). But they
make life possible in drought prone, difficult areas.
Presumably Europeans don't eat millet because it has no gluten and
can't be made into a bread.
Finger
Millet, Eleusine coracana - A very good page covering
the origin, distribution, nutrient analysis, ecology and more.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Eleusine_coracana.html
Finger
Millet, Eleusine coracana - an online re-presentation
of the section on finger millet in 'Lost Crops of Africa: Volume
I: Grains' (1996), including an outline drawing of the seeding plant.
http://books.nap.edu/books/0309049903/html/38.html
Foxtail
millets, Setaria sp. - an Iowa State University
page on their weed potential also has put up good photographs of the seed
heads-foxtail millet S.
viridis var. Italica; yellow foxtail S.
glauca; knotweed, S.
parviflora; giant foxtail S.
faberi ; and Bristly foxtail
S.
verticillata
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~weeds/Ag317-99/id/WeedID/Ffox.html
Rice
Unlike the dry climates of the Mediterannean and South West Asia,
rice grows in hot, wet, humid climates, so evidence of it's first domestication
is poor. 11,500 years is as close as we get (from archaeological sites
in China's Yangtse valley, altho' this may have been wild gathered rice),
for the dominant rice seed, Oryza sativa, but if the wild seeds
were edible and big and productive enough to be worth gathering - and they
are - you can bet they have been gathered and eaten for many millenia before
that, and probably domesticated as well.
A West African rice species, Oryza glabra, was domesticated in
West Africa at least 3,000 or so years ago, and is still cultivated to
a diminishing extent. And when humans radiated out of Africa into South
East Asia, they would have encountered the wild progenitors of O. sativa
. These progenitors are thought to have been a weakly rhizomatous perennial
form, O. rufipogon, giving rise to an annual form, O. nivara.
This species seems to have been domesticated by the peoples of South
Asia, the warmer part of East Asia,
and the Northern part of South East Asia. The cultivation of this pond
edge marginal grass over a wide geographic range, taking in many different
soils and seasonal variations has resulted in the very variable O. sativa
that is cultivated today.
The native African rice also seems to have probably arisen from a rhizomatous
perennial ancestor, O. longistaminata, also giving rise to an annual
species, O.barthii, ultimately becoming the cultivated O. glaberrima.
The Asian and the African rice are very similar in form, but genetically
distinct (hybrids between the two species are sterile). The African rice
varieties are now rapidly being replaced by highly bred Asian varieties.
Wheat & Barley
Yields of wild wheats are high relative to the energy expended. In
a famous experiment in the later 60's,
a botanist used a flint sickle to harvest wild cereals in their natural
range. He harvested 1.8 kilograms /4 lbs in an hour. A few weeks' work
would have yielded enough grain for one family for a year. Just how many
families the wild grain resource of that area could have supported - annual
fluctuations aside - is uncertain. But relatively large quantities could
be harvested. In some ways, the problem was what to do next. 'Cache' the
excess in one place, guard it, and scrape by on whatever other alternative
food sources there were until the next harvest? Or eat only a portion of
what was there in the grain season, then move on? The first strategy would
require semi permanent settlement, and this seems to be be what eventually
happened. Settled camps are also defensive units, and it would have made
sense to make sure the immediate environment was growing plenty of wild
grasses, so the tribe's women and children didn't become dangerously exposed,
and didn't have too far to carry the harvest.
Gatherer hunters are acute observers of the natural world, and it wouldn't take a big leap of understanding to hit upon both planting harvested seeds close to home, and perhaps choosing the best sorts from the wild population. And when gathering and re-sowing grains over many years, there is a 'drift' towards those that retain their seeds on the head, and that have the most grains on the grass head. Genes for these attributes tend to accumulate by unconcious and conscious human selection at harvest time, as well. This, then, was probably how Europeans came to be eating these particular grass seeds.
Tribespeople living in the dry Mediterranean climate these grasses grew
in obviously didn't just eat grass seeds. They would have eaten animals
large and small, other seeds of annual plants, nuts, and fruit. Upland
grass meadows are, by definition, relatively devoid of trees, including
seed bearing trees such as nuts. So grass seeds may have been the major
carbohydrate source for the local tribes. The seeds would have been a good
source of protein, altho' limited by low levels of one of the essential
amino acids (lysine). These limiting amino acids could have been 'made
up' by other seeds that mature at the same time, such as lentils (or other
legumes such as peas). Grass seeds contain oil, vitamin E, and some other
vitamins and minerals, except for vitamin C. So they are a very good framework
from which to flesh out a diet for health and growth.
These domesticated seed producing grasses soon spread west and east
to European and Asian countries of a similar latitude. In a span of about
8,000 years or so, grass seeds went from domestication in the eastern Mediterranean
and the Tigris-Euphrates river valley region of Iraq to a situation where
the seeds were being grown for food from Ireland to Japan. And that is
in prehistoric times, a time of relatively low population, with no modern
infrastructure or communications other than trade trails and war parties.
This is an example of a technology so 'hot' that its benefits needed no
selling.
The temperate zone grasses did not spread south beyond the climatically similar Nile valley. Dryland grasses are not suited to Equatorial and Sub Equatorial Africa's humid climate and pattern of summertime rainy season.
Wheat
Wild 'einkorn' wheat, Triticum boeoticum, became the cultivated
T. monococcum, still not much different from the wild progenitor,
and fairly low yielding. Einkorn wheat is still in cultivation, but in
almost imperceptible quantity. Goatgrasses, a group of weedy, very small-seeded
Triticum species with a high gluten content and wide ranging climatic adaptability
crossed naturally (perhaps even as weeds of our early crops of einkorn
wheat) with einkorn to give rise to a series of species known as the 'emmer'
wheats. Wild emmer has been identified from at least 10,000 years ago.
One emmer, T. dicoccum, is still grown, albeit in small amounts.
Emmer wheats have hulls on the seeds that have to be winnowed off. Modern
wheats arose from the emmer by mutation in chromosome number. Of these,
one, 'spelt' formerly the main wheat of Europe, has grains with hulls,
but another, T. aestivum, has naked seeds that fall free from the
wheat head. These are now the preferred wheat for bread.
Perrennial
wheatgrass in southwest Asia - a good factsheet on 'triga',
a dryland wild wheat relative that our ancestors may well have collected.
It appears to have "no functional gluten", and has similar levels of 'antinutrient
substances to wheat'.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/triga.html
Maize
'Maize', Zea mays, and another wild grass 'Teosinthe', Zea
mexicana lived in the same region of South America (Mexico and Guatemala)
and were probably derived from the same common ancestor. Over the millenia,
the very hard grained but 'poppable' teosinthe probably crossed with maize,
creating a seed head with more worthwhile characteristics.
Native Indians first wild harvested this variable seeding grass, then
later domesticated it. The earliest evidence for domestication is from
about 12,000 years ago, but evidence of any kind is sparse this far back.
Early forms were very small, with very small kernels, and were probably
a hard kernelled 'popcorn'.
From these early forms, came larger hard kernelled types with a small
soft floury core-'flint' corns. 'Dent' corn has a larger floury core, which
shrinks as the grain dries, forming a 'dent' on the surface. Floury corns
have little hard endosperm, and were preferred by the Indians for cooking.
They have smooth kernels, and may be brown, white, pink, red, yellow, purple,
streaked, or speckled.
Maize seeds were (and are) ground to flour to make a flat bread cooked
on the embers, the ears were roasted whole, steamed in an earth oven; the
dry grains were soaked in wood ash and lime to remove the hull, then dried
and ground to make thin flat breads (tortillas). Immature green corn was
eaten in earliest times, and the fungal fruiting bodies of 'corn smut'
a serious fungal disease of maize, were eaten (and still are by those who
know). Even the pollen was sometimes added to stews.
Oats
Oats, Avena sativa and A.byzantina, are a grass
seed of temperate climates with a good rainfall (although there is a dryland
African species, A. abyssinica in Ethiopia). The cultivated species
probably evolved from a weedy grass ancestor, A. sterilis, a present
day major grass of the hills of the Mediterranean and South West Asia.
The larger seeded crop species are very close genetically to the ancestor.
It is believed that oats were initially a weed in wheat crops as wheat
pushed into central Europe and beyond. As wheat reached its northern European
limit, the oats thrived where the wheat didn't, and from this switch, domestication
of oats developed. That oats were a less worthwhile seed than other grasses
is evidenced by archaeologists finding emmer and einkorn wheat, pulses
and barley at sites 8,000 years old in South West Asia, but not oats. Oats
don't appear in the archaeological record until about 3,000 years ago,
and then not in their native South West Asia, but in Europe.
Like barley and flax seeds, oats are one of the few seeds that grow
well in a moister, colder climate. And oats are particularly useful for
the cold of northern climates, because not only do they have good protein
content (about 16%), but they are also a valuable source of fat (about
8%).
Barley
Another South West Asian grass seed we would have been confronted with
as we migrated out of Africa, barley, Hordeum vulgare, is
valuable because it is very cold hardy, growing up into the Arctic, and
growing at high elevations in the mountains. The husk is tightly adherent
to the seed, and our ancestors no doubt would have had to parch it off.
(Today it is mechanically abraded off, a process known as 'pearling').
Barley originated from the wild H. spontaneum (H. vulgare
is strictly the same species), widespread in Eastern Mediterranean
and South West Asia. Archaeological finds of 10,000 year old remains in
these regions may be from wild harvested seeds, or may have been the beginnings
of cultivation, nobody knows. By 8,000 years ago, 'improved' varieties
appear, and it became probably the most important grass seed -far more
important than wheat - until only about 2,000 years ago, when wheat more
or less replaced it.
Curiously, it had the reputation for being a 'strong' food; it was
awarded to the champions at the Eleusian games, and gladiators were called
'hordearii', 'barley men', because that was the chief component of their
training diet.
Rye
Like oats and barley, rye, Secale cereale, is a relatively unimportant
seed in the big picture of human diet, in that it is a 'second choice'
seed used mainly because of it's adaptation to poor soil and very cold
conditions. Like oats, it appears late in the history of human domestication
of grasses, and linked to life in the colder, more marginal climates of
northern Europe.
Again like oats, it was probably selected from weeds in wheat crops,
as wheat pushed into the limits of its climatic adaptation. Another case
of 'the wheat crop failed yet again, but at least we got those weed seeds.
Maybe we should forget the wheat and grow the weeds!'
The very particular downside of this grass seed is that, like most
grasses, it is parasitised by a fungus - but this fungus (ergot, Claviceps
purpurea) has poisonous, not edible, fruiting bodies. In fact bread
made from heavily contaminated rye seeds can cause hallucinations, gangrene,
or abortions, amongst other unpleasantness.
The seed coat is tightly adherent, and has to be abraded or parched
off. It is claimed that buckwheat contains "dyes" which, when consumption
is heavy enough, are activated by exposure to light to produce skin irritation
in the exposed area.
Sesame
Of the 36 or so species in the genus Sesamum, two thirds are
indigenous to Africa. S. angustifolium, S. radiatum, and
Ceratotheca sesamoides (same family as sesame, different genus)
are still grown to a very limited extent in Africa. One species, S.
indicum, is the main commercial crop. It is not found in the wild,
so its origin is obscure, but it probably arose from the species S.
capense and S. grandiflorum, which are native to Africa, South
Asia, and South East Asia.
Everywhere, it has been highly valued for its rich, oily seeds. The
outer seed coat is tightly adherent, which meant it would have to
have been ground to make it edible. Sesame is a low yeilding plant, and
the fact it is harvested and has been domesticated attests to the value
that humans place on oil rich foods.
Archaeological evidence shows sesame in India about 4,000 years ago,
and East Mediterranean and South West Asia from at least 6,000 years ago.
Due to its small seed size and poor productivity, it has not been a
mainstay of a domesticated human diet, but more a highly valued adjunct.
Flax seed (linseed)
Flax is a widespread annual plant of temperate and warm temperate North
Africa and Eurasia. Linum usitatissimum, the domesticated flax,
may be derived from the biennial L. angustifolium of South West
Asia and Southern Europe. This is a very variable species, and some presently
described species, such as Linum africanum, may in fact be L.
angustifolium. Either way, this very plastic and variable seed plant
will have long been a part of our evolutionary history.
South West Asia seems to have been the major centre of diversity for
useful seeded forms, and it is thought that flax spread north and west
fromýÿÿÿ‚
Why is wheat seed biofoam more common than most other seed biofoams?
Because wheat seed has a particular kind of protein in it called 'gluten',
which can form a light springy mass when fermented with yeast. Removing
the bran makes it even softer and 'melt in the mouth'. Most other
grass seeds either don't have this protein, or don't have much of it (oats
and rye have some gluten), and their biofoams are not very foamy, they
are dense and solid. 'We don't like to chew, but we sure like to swallow',
as the old saying goes!
Gluten intolerance
Much has been made of 'gluten intolerance'. Some people are allergic
to gluten ( it is more prevalent in women than men, and because it is genetically
determined, it's prevalence varies between about 1 person in 300 in Western
Ireland and 1 in 2,000 for Europe in general); but the gassiness, fatigue,
depression, and stomach discomfort can be quickly eliminated by eating
other grass seeds such as rice, or millet which contain no gluten.
Gluten intolerance is primarily a genetic predisposition, probably
involving several genes, and has persisted at a very low level, probably
ever since a small portion of the human species inhabited South West Asia
and the Eastern Mediterannean. The levels of gluten in the local perennial
and annual wheat type grasses were low, and likely didn't provoke much
of an auto-immune reaction in most new immigrants; and for those in whom
it did, there was much likely to be malabsorbtion of food, poorer nutritional
status overall, maybe diarrhoea, complications and either death or poor
reproduction, hitting children especially hard.
In other words, those indivduals whose genes caused them to react severely
to the low levels of gluten in the grains tended to disappear from the
local gene pool, leaving a population well adapted to wheat eating, but
with a small number who reacted to gluten without showing symptoms, or
who had relatively inconsequential symptoms, as the amount of gluten in
wild grains was not high.
But cultivated wheats have much higher gluten content than their wild
parents. It may be that modern wheat is more likely to tip the immune system
(of those already genetically pre-disposed) into a reaction. One
estimate is around .5% overall in Europe -
( still a high actual number of people) exhibit symptoms of some degree,
and maybe 5% being 'silent carriers' of the genes (not exhibiting symptoms,
but demonstrating a biochemical reaction to gluten when tested, and perhaps
a potential for reaction to triggered off at some stage in their life).
So most of the European population of South East European descent show
no bad effect from eating gluten containing grains; and those most recently
introduced to glutens, as in Ireland, having more people who react. Having
a west European background doesn't mean that you are gluten sensitive;
it simply means you are more likely to be one of the small percentage of
gluten sensitive people.
The genes will live on at a low level within the European population,
but with the mixing of various populations the level of the genes in the
population may shift either higher or lower, depending on a variety of
difficult to predict interplaying factors. Gluten intolerance will never
'go away', each individual is biochemically distinct. Some of us have to
learn to listen to the intelligence of our our own biochemistry.
The seeds we eat are chosen more for convenience and because of cultural
norms, not because we 'have' to eat any one particular seed to have a healthy
diet. Most people are tolerant of most foods, including grass seeds of
all kinds. Some people have food allergies of greater or less importance
(one estimate is 10% of the population). These allergies traverse virtually
all foods, from beef to wheat, peanuts to oranges. The consequences range
from mild gut disturbance, to, in a tiny minority of cases, anaphylactic
allergy reaction and death. 90% or more of us have no food allergy
(not all digestive effects are caused by allergy-because beans cause gas
doesn't equate to allergy!).
People in the west today have seeds from Mediterranean-like climates
in both the new and old world - wheat, rye, barley, maize, flax, garbanzo/chickpeas,
lentils, peas, sesame. We have seeds from tropical and subtropical climates
- rice, sorghum, peanuts. We have temperate climate seeds - barley, oats.
Some of these seeds are available only in health food stores. Some are
preground, some whole, some pre-cooked and canned. We can easily mimic
the diverse seed eating of our ancestors because the seeds are available.
The main reasons for eating seeds are cultural (convenience) and very recent,
not evolutionary. Tubers and roots could be substituted, or green bananas,
or nuts. But for 90% or more of the population, there is no reason to.
As always, to the extent we re-culturate to eat freshly ground whole
seeds, or sprouted seeds, or biofoams with soaked whole seeds, or boiled
whole seeds, freshly roasted /parched whole seeds, then we are eating the
foods we evolved to eat; and we will obtain the oils, vitamins, minerals,
fibres, phytochemicals the cells of our bodies unconditionally require.
This natural way of eating creates the pre-conditions for a healthy life,
all other lifestyle factors not limiting.
Reading & notes
Lost Crops of Africa: Volume I: Grains Board on Science
and Technology for International Development, National Research Council
408 pages , 6 x 9, 1996. Available by mailorder at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/2305.html
[1] Ofer Bar-Yosef, in an article in Evolutionary
Anthropology, 1998:161, dates the Kebaran sickles somewhere between
18,000 and 14,500 years before present, and puts stone mortars for grinding
wild grains at about 19,000 years before present
Catassi C, Ratsch IM, Fabiani E, Rossini M, Bordicchia F, Candela
F, Coppa GV, Giorgi PL: Coeliac Disease in
the year 2000: exploring the iceberg.
Lancet, 1994, 343: 200-203.
Greco L, Maki M, Di Donato F, Visakorpi JK. Epidemiology of
Coeliac Disease in Europe and the Mediterranean area. A summary report
on the Multicentric study by the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology
and Nutrition. In "Common Food Intolerances 1: Epidemiology of Coeliac
Disease", Auricchio S, Visakorpi JK, editors, Karger, Basel, 1992, pp 14-24.
Paper Reading-list
of books & scientific papers to buy or find at the library (links
to internet sources of the book or paper are included where available)
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