I Was Staring At An Almond

I was staring at an almond, and thinking: “How come nuts don’t have sugars?” and- I picked up a cranberry.

"How come fruits don’t have oils?

Then I thought, these foods are affected by the climate they are grown in. So, okay: let’s start from the beginning.

Climate systems heavily affect the food productivity in the region. Sunflowers cannot grow in Antarctica, and cacti cannot grow in forests. Likewise, specific grains and fruits only grow in certain regions. That got me thinking- how much does food production affect society?

Let’s take the European continent and its early wheat production. Wheat is grown in the fields, which requires labor. So- who does the labor? Who picks the crops? (I believe, historically, it’s been the men who have picked the crops. This is all just my speculation.) And in the towns and villages, who’d stay home to take care of the children? (Again, historically, and speculatively, women.)

This can also show how much food production affects time and day. Whoever goes to pick the crops, would have to schedule that into terms of ‘how do I spend my time’ and 'what makes up my day?’ Their entire day, as we know, will probably revolve around food.

I then thought about the repercussion of food production on culture. Take a tribal people, who hunt in the forest for survival. The warriors would go in, armed with weapons. Meanwhile, the rest of the villagefolk stay at home, perhaps tending to the children and/or crops. Are there any rituals/ traditions that they do, to empower the warriors on their hunt? Any tools, ceremonies, special customs? I know, in many hunting cultures, these rituals do take place. And again, they can span to religion, too.

Okay then, that’s all pretty cool; but what about technology? My mind turned to Native American cultures, who hunt by the river for fish. What do you need to hunt? Boats. And what do you need to catch fish? Nets. So the hunters would need to get together to build boats and fasten together nets, and this would probably result in some type of close-knit, family connection. Again, food production spawns technology; what do we need to do, in order to survive?

Also another interesting thought: why are some cultures more communal and close-knit than others? I see often, that the role of the family and community is more prominent in cultures living in cold climates. Inuit cultures, for example, seem to have a very strong family system. I thought, okay, maybe that’s because they need to work together in order to survive; bundle together when it’s cold, hunt seals to get their fat, and generally, get through the extremely cold weather as a community. Then, I thought: Maybe it just depends on the type of food grown? (And weather too, of course). European farmers in those wheat fields probably did indeed work together to harvest those crops, but they were more for the individual family unit, or a lord’s household- never as a community. Chinese farmers, I suspect, must have been working together in rice fields and such, but may have been more focused toward the family unit than their village. Hmm.

So what inspires community? The need to band together, to hunt for large prey? Any kind of property and land-owning rules? Weather? Climate? So you see, food production can HEAVILY affect a culture. And, before anything else, climate zones affect food production.

Just thought this was really cool for me to think about, and share. :)