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Authors: Thor Hanson
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Ukraine to Australia and Argentina continue investing heavily in transportation, export terminals, and subsidized production. In China, the practice dates back to at least the fifth century BC , when work began on the Grand Canal, a 1,104-mile-long (1,777-kilometer) waterway designed to keep wheat and rice supplies flowing to the capital. It’s a timeless imperative. As agricultural lobbyists love to point out, skimping on a highway bill means a few more potholes; cutting the farm bill means that people don’t eat.
Toward the end of our day on the Palouse, Sam and I passed a row of grain elevators on the edge of Genesee and came to a metal-sided building that hummed with activity. “Do you want to see some garbs?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I answered, hoping that I’d correctly understood “garbs” as an insider’s slang for garbanzo beans.
Sure enough, I soon found myself on a noisy factory floor, dodging forklifts loaded high with legumes. We watched the garbs rattle down conveyor belts, pass through cleaners and sorters, and drop finally through an electronic eye that spotted any blemish and removed the offending bean with a blast of compressed air. Packed into hundred-pound sacks emblazoned with a “Clipper Brand” sailing ship, the final product was loaded into waiting trucks. Then it would either head west, to Seattle and the Asian ports beyond, or east, to a hummus factory in Virginia.
“Legumes are an important part of the rotation,” Sam explained, after we’d left the clamor of the packing plant behind. “Most growers will do a fall wheat and a spring wheat, and then work in a crop of lentils, garbs, or split peas.” Alternating crops helps keep the pest load down, but, just as importantly, the peas and beans fix nitrogen in the soil, naturally fertilizing the next grain crop. This pairing of grasses and legumes is as old as agriculture itself, a method repeated virtually everywhere that plant domestication has taken place. Garbanzos (or chickpeas), lentils, and split peas all developed alongside wheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent. In China, early rice farmers soon added soybeans, adzukis, and mung beans to the mix. Central America had its corn and pinto beans, while African millet and sorghum went hand in hand with cowpeas and groundnuts. More than just a good cropping method, this synergy extends all the way to the dining-room table, where starchy grains and protein-rich legumes complement one another perfectly,both in flavor and nutrition. The “complete proteins” found in combinations like rice and beans, or a lentil and barley salad, are common knowledge to anyone who has read the first page of a vegetarian cookbook. Essentialnutrients that might be lacking in a particular grain can generally be found in the accompanying legume, and vice versa. But these stark differences in the contents of grains and legumes also raise very basic questions about the biology of seeds.
With grasses so successful in nature and so useful to people, it’s obvious that packing one’s seeds with a starchy lunch is a good evolutionary idea. So why don’t all plants do it? Why do beans and nuts store energy in proteins and oils? Why does a palm kernel contain over 50 percent saturated fat? Why are jojoba seeds practically dripping with liquid wax? Grass starch may be the staff of life, but plants obviously have a lot of other ways to fuel their seeds and, by extension, us. Happily, one of the best ways to explore the range of sustenance packed into seeds involves a trip to the nearest candy aisle.
CHAPTER THREE
Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut
God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.
—German Proverb
I n the late 1970s, the Peter Paul Manufacturing Company raised its suggested retail price for Almond Joy candy bars to twenty-five cents. But though this figure equaled my entire weekly allowance, I never regretted investing those wages in a confection the ad jingle summarized as “rich milk
Toward the end of our day on the Palouse, Sam and I passed a row of grain elevators on the edge of Genesee and came to a metal-sided building that hummed with activity. “Do you want to see some garbs?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I answered, hoping that I’d correctly understood “garbs” as an insider’s slang for garbanzo beans.
Sure enough, I soon found myself on a noisy factory floor, dodging forklifts loaded high with legumes. We watched the garbs rattle down conveyor belts, pass through cleaners and sorters, and drop finally through an electronic eye that spotted any blemish and removed the offending bean with a blast of compressed air. Packed into hundred-pound sacks emblazoned with a “Clipper Brand” sailing ship, the final product was loaded into waiting trucks. Then it would either head west, to Seattle and the Asian ports beyond, or east, to a hummus factory in Virginia.
“Legumes are an important part of the rotation,” Sam explained, after we’d left the clamor of the packing plant behind. “Most growers will do a fall wheat and a spring wheat, and then work in a crop of lentils, garbs, or split peas.” Alternating crops helps keep the pest load down, but, just as importantly, the peas and beans fix nitrogen in the soil, naturally fertilizing the next grain crop. This pairing of grasses and legumes is as old as agriculture itself, a method repeated virtually everywhere that plant domestication has taken place. Garbanzos (or chickpeas), lentils, and split peas all developed alongside wheat and barley in the Fertile Crescent. In China, early rice farmers soon added soybeans, adzukis, and mung beans to the mix. Central America had its corn and pinto beans, while African millet and sorghum went hand in hand with cowpeas and groundnuts. More than just a good cropping method, this synergy extends all the way to the dining-room table, where starchy grains and protein-rich legumes complement one another perfectly,both in flavor and nutrition. The “complete proteins” found in combinations like rice and beans, or a lentil and barley salad, are common knowledge to anyone who has read the first page of a vegetarian cookbook. Essentialnutrients that might be lacking in a particular grain can generally be found in the accompanying legume, and vice versa. But these stark differences in the contents of grains and legumes also raise very basic questions about the biology of seeds.
With grasses so successful in nature and so useful to people, it’s obvious that packing one’s seeds with a starchy lunch is a good evolutionary idea. So why don’t all plants do it? Why do beans and nuts store energy in proteins and oils? Why does a palm kernel contain over 50 percent saturated fat? Why are jojoba seeds practically dripping with liquid wax? Grass starch may be the staff of life, but plants obviously have a lot of other ways to fuel their seeds and, by extension, us. Happily, one of the best ways to explore the range of sustenance packed into seeds involves a trip to the nearest candy aisle.
CHAPTER THREE
Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut
God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.
—German Proverb
I n the late 1970s, the Peter Paul Manufacturing Company raised its suggested retail price for Almond Joy candy bars to twenty-five cents. But though this figure equaled my entire weekly allowance, I never regretted investing those wages in a confection the ad jingle summarized as “rich milk
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