Wheat History by Donna Miller

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Wheat History
by Donna Miller

Long before microwaveable foods, artificial chemicals, and refrigeration, people traveled from place to place to find food. They would pick and eat whatever grew wild and whatever they could find. However, when the population began to grow and more and more food got harder to find, the travelers had to settle and figure out how to grow food themselves.

Wheat could probably have been one of the first plants to be grown, due to how well it adapts to rough climates this seems likely. After it was discovered you could grow wheat, significant changes started taking place. People realized they could grow their own food, so they no longer needed to move around in search of it. The stable food supply caused people to start settling permanently.

The travelers became farmers, and as the growing of wheat developed, so did the farmer's knowledge. They began to make the wheat easier to grow, eat, and cook. Steadily they started choosing seeds from their best wheat plants for the following years' planting. Which later yielded better crops and better quality of wheat that was passed down from one generation to the next. Wheat quickly became one of the world's most important crops. To this day it is grown on more land area worldwide than any other crop!

It is said that the first evidence of wheat was discovered in the Middle East. When the farmers began producing enough crops to feed more than enough people, trading began between the various cultures. Wheat later made it's way from the Middle East to other countries and then into America with Christopher Columbus. Over time, the growing of wheat spread even more and is still one of the highest producing crops in the world!

All of the wheat grains were cooked or milled whole with the bran, germ, and endosperm parts of the wheat still intact. However, a new way of mass refining took hold in the wheat business when the industrialization wave hit America in the later 1800s. These manufacturers began removing the bran and germ from the wheat, because it meant that the wheat products could sit longer on grocery store shelves without spoiling. However, during this process almost all the essential vitamins and minerals (not to mention the dietary fiber from the bran) were removed. Since that time there have been increasingly more health problems throughout America and other countries.

Whole wheat has got the attention of nutrition experts of today. They have seen how the entire kernel contains fiber, healthy phytochemicals and nutrients that are essential for good health. People long before out time used to eat wheat this way, and in most cases they lived longer than we do now! We need to get back to eating wheat in it's natural form, whole.

Author's Biography:

Donna Miller is a wife, mother and stay-at-home working parent. She owns and operate Millers Grain House, an online Organic and Chemical-free Whole Grain store. Learn more now by visiting their blog! http://wholewheats.blogspot.com

Posted on: May 11,2007

Email: donna@millersgrainhouse.com
Website: http://wholewheats.blogspot.com