The 11 Most Impactful Events in Food History
The National Food Museum is interested in all aspects of food—the history of the human diet, the contribution of the food system to the climate crisis, recipes for healthier “plant-forward” cooking, and more. This list of the “most impactful” developments in the food world was compiled by Museum founder Michael F. Jacobson, with valuable input from the Museum’s Advisory Council. If you think of even more impactful developments, just amend your list and send your thoughts to the Museum (info@food.museum).
Invention of cooking – As far back as two million years ago, our ancestors (Homo erectus, the predecessor of Homo sapiens) learned how to control fire and invent cooking. Cooking made food easier to chew, increased the availability of calories and nutrients, required fewer calories to chew and digest food, and killed pathogenic bacteria. The increased availability of energy allowed for larger, energy-hungry brains, which enabled humankind to develop in unheard-of new directions. More digestible food may have led to smaller colons and dentition.
Agriculture and the domestication of crops and animals – For millions of years, modern humans and earlier primates survived by hunting land and sea animals and gathering fruits, vegetables, and honey. But beginning in the Middle East around 12,000 years ago—after the last ice age—people figured out how to cultivate chickpeas, wheat, barley, and peas and rely less on hunting and gathering. Similarly, people domesticated animals for food, transportation, or work on farms and elsewhere. Agriculture started several thousand years later in China and much later in Africa. Agriculture became more central to many cultures and created surpluses that allowed people to create permanent settlements and more varied lives. But note that even now small tribes in Africa, South America, and several Pacific islands maintain their traditional hunting-and-gathering lifestyles. It is worth noting that the hunger-gatherer diet has about 10 times as much dietary fiber as the Western diet and supports a more diverse gut microbiome.
Food preservation – Fresh food, be it from plants or animals, spoils rapidly. Early humans discovered ways to use salt, sugar or honey, fermentation, smoke, cold, and drying to preserve meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables, which enabled them to survive when adequate food was not available. More recently, canning, refrigeration, chemical preservatives (e.g., sodium nitrite, sodium benzoate), novel packaging, and irradiation have been used to extend the shelf life of foods.
Invention of farm implements – Attempting to grow crops with only the use of sticks and other simple tools made farming challenging, if not impossible. Over the millennia, humans developed the plow, then tractors, combines, and other advanced farm machinery, now even with GPS and other digital add-ons. Those feats of engineering led to enormous increases in productivity, which freed many people from manual labor on farms and was key to urbanization…and inexorably to electricity, TV dinners and microwave ovens, pharmaceuticals, armies, and weapons capable of returning civilization to the Stone Age.
The Columbian Exchange – The exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World, beginning in the late 15th century when Christopher Columbus made his historic voyages, had historic effects on both sides of the Atlantic. Measles, smallpox, mumps, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever, which had previously not existed in the Americas, were cataclysmic for most people there. The Columbian Exchange also introduced tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and squashes to Europe and Africa, and horses, pigs, cattle, goats, and sheep to North and South America. Tobacco, a Western Hemisphere crop, became a killer globally, with the Encyclopedia Britannica saying that it “has probably killed far more people in Eurasia and Africa than Eurasian and African diseases killed in the Americas.”
The discovery that microbes cause disease in crops, livestock, humans – Experiments in the 1860s by French chemist Louis Pasteur first showed that microorganisms caused food spoilage. That led to the heat treatment of milk (pasteurization) to prevent the growth of pathogens. Subsequently in Germany, bacteriologist Robert Koch identified specific microbes that caused a variety of diseases. Understanding the causes of various diseases in humans and other animals led to new ways to prevent diseases, from simple cleanliness to sterile surgical practices to antibiotics and other drugs. Farmers use crop rotation, removal of diseased plants, fungicides, mulching, and other practices to prevent or reduce the spread of diseases.
Genetic improvements in crops and livestock – Farmers have long used careful selection to create more productive and tastier varieties of crops and animals. Then came hybridization of plants. In recent decades, biotechnology has facilitated the creation of previously undreamt-of agricultural products, such as herbicide-resistant soybeans and corn, corn and cotton plants with a built-in insecticide, virus-resistant papayas, potatoes resistant to late blight, pine trees with denser wood, and faster-growing farmed salmon. More than 90 percent of corn, soybean, and cotton acres in the United States are now planted with genetically modified seeds.
Despite potential benefits in terms of cost, taste, and quality, many farmers and consumers have remained skeptical of genetically engineered crops. One concern is whether the herbicide glyphosate (in Roundup) used to kill weeds on land that will be planted with herbicide-resistant crops is carcinogenic. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (a unit of the World Health Organization) concluded that glyphosate is a carcinogen, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies in numerous other countries say that their broader reviews did not find it to be carcinogenic. Other common concerns about agricultural biotechnology pertain to the patenting of seeds by corporations, proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds, introduction of risks due to the transfer of genes from one organism into another, and inadequate labeling of foods produced with ingredients from genetically engineered crops (some ingredients, such as corn syrup or soybean oil, do not contain any genetical material whatsoever).
Discovery of essential nutrients in food and their functions in the body – Throughout human history until just three centuries ago, humans routinely suffered scurvy, beri-beri, and other diseases. Only since surgeon James Lind in 1747 demonstrated that lime juice contained something that cured scurvy did people link food to the prevention or treatment of disease. Around 100 years ago, scientists began isolating the vitamins and minerals that protect humans and other animals (and plants) from diseases. Those discoveries led to science-based dietary recommendations and the fortification of salt, flour, and certain other foods, and fortification of feed for farm animals. Nutrient-deficiency diseases have been almost eliminated in wealthier nations but are still widespread in the poorest nations.
Confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – In the United States and many other technologically advanced countries, the cost of raising poultry, hogs, and cattle has been dramatically declined by raising them on huge, crowded “farms.” A typical structure might house 50,000 to 100,000 chickens, which may never see daylight. Dairy and hog farms which 50 years ago might have had a couple of hundred animals now often have many thousands. Beef cattle still spend six months or more grazing the traditional way on pastureland, but then spend the last three to 12 months of their lives in crowded feedlots. Those confined, dirty growing conditions are not only considered inhumane by many but may lead to illnesses in the animals and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to farmworkers and then others.
Agricultural chemicals – After World War II, chemical companies began producing a wide variety of synthetic fertilizers to increase yields; pesticides to kill weeds, molds, and insect pests; antibiotics to promote growth rates and treat illnesses; and other chemicals that farmers use to increase productivity and lower costs (including for labor). While using modest amounts of those products may be harmless, their massive use has led to serious problems. Chemical fertilizer is a significant contributor to the climate crisis, as well as water pollution. The widespread use of certain herbicides and insecticides has led to herbicide-resistant crops and insecticide-resistant insects, as well as to reductions in insect populations. Feeding low levels of antibiotics to animals fosters resistance to antibiotics in bacteria that infect animals, and those resistant bugs may cause untreatable diseases in humans. Many pesticides and medically important antibiotics have been banned from or restricted on farms, but problems persist thanks to opposition from farm groups and the chemical and drug industries.
Production and marketing of ultra-processed foods via supermarkets and restaurants – Another huge post-World War II phenomenon has been the use of technologies of all sorts—artificial colorings and flavorings, emulsifiers and preservatives, extrusion, novel packaging materials—to produce what were earlier called “junk” foods and are now often called “ultra-processed.” Roughly two-thirds of the typical American diet consists of ultra-processed foods. Many of those foods are junky by virtue of their high levels of refined sugars, saturated fat, and salt, three of the biggest health threats in the American diet. And many lack adequate levels of dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other potentially health-improving constituents. Ultra-processed foods may contribute not only to tooth decay, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, but also to changes in the microbiome (with still poorly understood consequences) and even cognitive decline. Making matters worse is that much marketing for such foods is aimed at young children, and who may consider such foods to be healthy and appropriate mainstays of their diets.
Notes:
Cooking | Techniques, Recipes & Nutrition | Britannica
The Evolution of Cooking: A Defining Moment in Human History (anthropology.net)
Bing Videos, part of the History of Food series (video describes the history and importance of cooking; video of current hunter-gatherers, one tribe eats ~100g of fiber/day.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/food-for-thought-was-cooking-a-pivotal-step-in-human-evolution/ Starchy potatoes and other tubers, eaten by people across the world, are barely digestible when raw…. “Up to 50 percent of women who exclusively eat raw foods develop amenorrhea, or lack of menstruation, a sign the body does not have enough energy to support a pregnancy—a big problem from an evolutionary perspective.”