food

food What is food? Looked at in biological terms, it would appear that food is merely a source of the energy and nutrients essential for life. However, viewed from an anthropological perspective, it becomes evident that food has played a central role in human history. While the everyday quest for food shaped the life of prehistoric man, the onset of the production of a reliable and sufficient supply of food is likely to have led to the rise of civilizations, and to human population expansion. Furthermore, the ability of man to colonize almost every part of the world is at least in part due to his adaptability with regard to food. Not only are humans omnivorous, they have also shown remarkable ingenuity in identifying and preparing nutritious foods out of unpromising materials. For example, bitter cassava (Manihot esculenta), a root crop that contains toxic levels of cyanide-producing compounds, comprises, after thorough processing, the major food item in the diet of millions of people worldwide.

Food for prehistoric man

The evidence used to determine which foods were eaten by prehistoric man is scarce and can be very difficult to interpret. The majority of clues about food usage come from the study of collections of animal bones, sea-food shell mounds, plant food remnants, and faecal remains, at or close to sites of human habitation. Studies of these food left-overs provide some hints as to what foods were available to and used by prehistoric man.

Until 10–12 000 years before the present (bp), humans relied on hunting and gathering for their food. They hunted wild animals such as gazelle, antelope, and deer, as well as fish, crabs, and migratory waterfowl, and gathered foods including shell-fish, root vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts, and fruit. The period between roughly 11 000 and 6000 years bp, which has been termed the Neolithic, was a time of crucial and widespread agricultural revolution. Wild crops such as wheat and barley began to be cultivated, and wild animals such as sheep and goats were tamed and then domesticated.

This shift from hunting and gathering to domestication and cultivation was very gradual and by no means universal (indeed some small isolated populations continue today to practise hunting and gathering as a mode of subsistence). However, the nature of the diet was altered considerably by the advent of farming. Pre-Neolithic man may well have consumed a large proportion of his diet in the form of animal products, with a lesser contribution coming from plant items. In contrast, the advent of plant cultivation led to certain crops, such as grains and root vegetables, becoming the main, or staple, part of human diets. As a consequence, the diet of Neolithic man was likely to have been dominated by these staple crops, with animal products making a considerably reduced contribution.

Food acquisition by hunting and gathering was time consuming and unpredictable. With the advent of farming, Neolithic man was, for the first time in human history, able to provide himself with a reliable and sufficient source of food. A major consequence of this was that as humans were no longer merely struggling from day to day to find sufficient food to survive; they could devote time to other matters. Most importantly, the availability of sufficient food led to a massive and unprecedented growth in the human population.

Food for modern man

Over the past 2000 years there have been substantial increases not only in the quantity but also in the quality of the food available to man. Early inventions such as new forms of plough enabled the cultivation of virgin lands, and practices such as crop rotation, which allowed soil to become reinvigorated between plantings, significantly increased food production. The mechanization of seed planting, harvesting, and threshing during the Industrial Revolution made agricultural production even more efficient.

However, this enhanced production led to a new set of problems, as it demanded innovative storage techniques and improved transport capabilities to avoid the produce spoiling before it was consumed. Salting and smoking had long been known as methods for preserving foods over extended periods of time. Canning was perfected in the early 1800s and quickly became popular as a convenient, cheap, and safe method of conserving pre-cooked food. Chilling or freezing was originally only available as a method of food preservation to those with a ready supply of ice. However, with the invention of ice-making machines in the 1830s, ice became widely available, and fresh fruit, meat, and fish could be conserved. Finally, the advent of fast and refrigerated transportation enabled fresh foods to be delivered in their original form to consumers around the world.

In order to ensure that the food supplied to the public is of adequate quality, many countries have set up agencies to monitor food safety. These agencies are designed to protect the consumer and improve the health of the public in relation to food by providing advice and information on food consumption. Furthermore, such agencies develop policies relating to food safety, and, by carrying out their own research, monitor relevant developments in science, technology, and other fields of knowledge related to food.

As a result of the slow but continual development of production, preservation, and safety technology, contemporary humans in developed countries have access to an astonishing quantity and diversity of foods. In the past, only locally-produced, in-season foods were available to consumers, but modern technology has now made it possible to supply consumers with foods produced in countries from around the world throughout the year.

Food for thought

The question of whether there is sufficient food to feed the world's ever-increasing population has exercised the minds of philosophers, economists, agronomists, and demographers for many centuries. In 1798, Thomas Malthus, an English political economist, wrote a paper entitled An essay on the principle of population, which still provokes heated debate. Malthus suggested that the world's population, growing at a geometric rate, was increasing at a much faster rate than the world's food production, which only increased arithmetically. Malthus argued that if a balance between population and food was not maintained, and the world's population grew to a size that was not sustainable by contemporary food production practices, then the consequence would be widespread famine.

The opposing viewpoint to that of Malthus suggests that increased population size is both a sign and a cause of prosperity, and that flexible and efficient markets can overcome any problems associated with an imbalance between population size and food production. This argument assumes that improving technology via scientific and agricultural innovation will ensure a steady and continual increase in food production. To support this assumption, anti-Malthusians suggest that increased population size will lead to a larger number of farmers tending ever-larger amounts of land, and that this will in turn precipitate innovation in land use and agricultural techniques.

There is good evidence that food production and crop yields have indeed increased sufficiently to cope with the increase in population size, but there are worrying signs that the rate of increase of crop yields is declining. This slowdown is no doubt due to a combination of causes: farmers may well be approaching the absolute maximum possible crop yields, and the cumulative effects of environmental degradation, partly caused by agriculture itself, may also be responsible. Considerable evidence suggests that, at least in some of the world's poorest countries, years of intensive agriculture, often coupled with long periods of drought, have led to the nutrient-exhaustion and desiccation of farming land. Such land is significantly less fertile and quickly becomes unable to support an ever-increasing population. Areas where this has occurred have been labelled demographically entrapped, as their projected population exceeds that which can be fed by local food production capabilities. In the absence of international food aid programmes, these countries, which typically lack trade and migratory safety valves, are thought to be facing uncertain futures of starvation, disease, and internal conflict.

Since Neolithic times, humans have carefully selected and bred plant and animal organisms that have demonstrated favourable traits. These selectively-enhanced descendants, with characteristics such as greater yield or improved flavour, often show little resemblance to the wild varieties. This ancient technology was further exploited between 1960 and 1980, during which laboratory-bred, high-yield cereal grains fed much of the world's expanding human population: the so-called ‘Green Revolution’. However, these increases in yield may have led to environmental degradation through the exhaustion of ecological capital such as topsoil and groundwater. In response to the need for more productive and more environmentally friendly crops, modern advances in biotechnology have produced genetically-modified or GM crops. GM crops typically contain gene alterations which confer agronomic benefits such as resistance to pests or to herbicides. These traits can reduce costs to the farmer and can also be beneficial to the environment, as they theoretically decrease the amount of insecticides and herbicides required. However, while such advances may be extremely useful in balancing world food production with population, there has been considerable public concern about this new technology and much more long-term research is still required.

Ironically, while the health of people in developed countries suffers from an excess of food leading to obesity, many developing countries face a stark future. Recent estimates have suggested that almost one-tenth of the world's population is malnourished in ways that impair health, and that the absolute number of malnourished persons, especially children, continues to grow. It is clear that food will continue to play a crucial role in human history for the foreseeable future.

Alan Dangour

Bibliography

Dyson, T. (1996). Population and food: global trends and future prospects. Routledge, London.
Tannahill, R. (1988). Food in history. Penguin Books, London.

See also alimentary system; diets; eating; energy balance.