2 EVERYTHING’S UNDER CONTROL

1 EVERYTHING'S UNDER CONTROL

DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO Our story starts about 10,000 years ago, in the Middle East. People there, like people everywhere at the time, were hunter-gatherers. They hunted wild sheep, gazelles, rabbits, and ducks. They gathered wild wheat plants, onions, lentils, and figs. They fished along the seacoast and in the lakes and rivers, catching fish, crabs, and oysters. Humans were already the most powerful animal around. But they didn't try to control anybody. They gathered plants but didn't tell them where to grow. They hunted animals but didn't tell them where to go.

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Life wasn't always pleasant. There were still some dangerous creatures around, like snakes, and there were all kinds of disasters, from snowstorms to heat waves. Occasionally there were also brawls with the neighbors—all through history some people could have been nasty to one another. Yet, most of the time, people had enough to eat, and a lot of free time to tell ghost stories, doze off in camp, or visit neighbors to celebrate some festival. Wars were rare. Plagues were rare. And famines were rare. When the gazelles migrated somewhere else, or when there were no more ripe figs nearby, people just moved their camp to another place, following the gazelles and the figs. THE PLANT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD But in some special places, there was so much to eat that people rarely needed to move their camps. They could stay in the same place all year round. These special places were full of unique plants. The plants weren't big or beautiful, but they changed the entire world. These plants were the cereals. You probably eat cereals every day. Wheat, barley, rice, maize, and millet are cereals. Bread, cookies, cakes, pasta, and noodles are made from cereals. Breakfast cereals are also made from cereals—the clue's in the name! But until about 10,000 years ago, humans seldom ate cereals. Cereals weren't very common. Wheat, for example, didn't grow at all in America, China, or Australia. Only some areas in the Middle East had wheat, and even there, we're not talking entire wheat

fields. Some wheat plants grew on one hill, and others on another hill. So even in the Middle East, most bands hardly bothered with cereals… but some did. We don't know exactly when or where some humans became particularly interested in cereals, but we can try to imagine it. Perhaps one day a girl from a band that roamed around looking for all kinds of plants and animals met a girl from another band that spent most of the time in just one place and gathered lots of wheat. "Hello there," said the first girl. "They call me Wanda 'cause I like to wander around! What's your name?" "People call me Wheaty 'cause I really like wheat!" "Wheat? Pah… I don't bother picking that stuff. You can spend all day gathering wheat and still not have enough. And even if you do, the wheat grains are so hard. The one time I found a lot of wheat, I broke a tooth, got a terrible headache from all the chewing, and had a stomachache for three days!" "You didn't do it right!" cried Wheaty. "You can't just eat wheat grains like that! You have to bring them back to camp, remove the tough outer shells, and grind them into tiny bits. Then you mix the grain powder with water, put it on a big flat stone by the fire—wait a

little—and you get yummy bread! Plus, no broken teeth, headaches, or stomachaches!" "That's so much work!" gasped Wanda. "I'll stick to figs and fish." "Well, it is difficult," agreed Wheaty. "But wheat has one really big advantage over figs and fish." "What's so great about that dry little thing?" "The thing is that unless you dry or smoke them very carefully, juicy figs and fish rot quickly. Ever tried eating a fish that's been lying around for three days?" "Uhhh, disgusting!" "You see? With grains it's a whole other story. You can store them for months, no problem! During harvest season, our band collects as much grain as we can and stores it in our camp. When we're not harvesting, we hunt and gather lots of other things like you do. We might pick figs or even manage to catch a gazelle. But sometimes there's nothing to hunt or pick." "So you move to another valley, right?" "No! We go back to camp, take some grain from storage, grind it, and make bread or porridge! If we gather enough grain in harvest season, we can stay in our camp all year!"