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Concept
Cereal
Summary
A cereal is any grass cultivated for its edible grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), which is composed of an endosperm, a germ, and a bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa, and chia, are referred to as pseudocereals.
In their unprocessed whole grain form, cereals are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils, and protein. When processed by the removal of the bran and germ, the remaining endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing countries, cereals constitute a majority of daily sustenance. In developed countries, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial, primarily in the form of refined and processed grains. Because of the dietary importance of cereals, the cereal trade is often at the heart of the food trade, with many cereals sold as commodities.
Agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for greater organization of political power (and the creation of social stratification), as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water and land. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, which led to the accumulation of material goods.
Early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, in which many of these villages were based. There is evidence of the cultivation of cereals in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. Wheat, barley, rye, oats and flaxseeds were all domesticated in the Fertile Crescent during the early Neolithic. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using human-made floods and fires as part of their cultivation regimen.
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