The Diversity of Food

The fact that wheat, rice and corn supplied half of the calories people consumed never occurred to me before, I liked to think that I ate pretty diversely, but maybe not?

There are many, many, MANY different plants possible for consumption being grown in the world, some that I'd never heard of included:

-Chickpea; Which is apparently comparable to the garbanzo bean is a source of zinc, folate, protein, dietary fiber and carbohydrates. It can also be ground up into Gram flour.

-Aronia; It looks like this is used in some juices for coloring. I'm not sure about it's nutritional content, but it's being contemplated to add it into some farmer's fields.

-Mashua; A plant grown in the Andes. A study was done which revealed a side effect of this vegetable lowers testosterone levels, but it has also been used to treat Nephropathy.

This is just a hunch, but I think that by mostly farming only the same crops over and over, our bodies have to do without some nutrients that are very beneficial to their well being. I also believe that by continually farming the same crops, the same nutrients that those crops require are being pulled out of the soil, while having multiple different ones may provide for more fertile soil in the beginning as well as later on after harvests.

After reading the homework from this week, it almost worries me that we actually depend on only a few types of crops. Such as in Ireland, with the potato famine, it wouldn't be difficult for our choices to be further limited, whereas some diseases may not affect other plants that we do