Last week I talked about my October visit to DC with three old friends, and our visit to George Washington’s grist mill.  You might say that it wasn’t exactly at the top of their list, but they are great sports, and we are still friends!  Actually, they agreed it was pretty interesting, and Ronnie even sent me a copy of The Gastronomica Reader (Darra Goldstein, ed.) yesterday. 

This week we continue talking about how the past 200 years of food-related inventions (which decreased markedly the work of gathering, preparing, and metabolizing food) have finally caught up with us.  Less work means easier to digest, which means more insulin.  That’s not what you want.  The more insulin you use, the hungrier and heavier you get.  If your insulin levels are high, you are more likely to be having problems with your blood pressure, fertility, and triglyceride levels.  And the button on your pants.  Not to mention that your blood sugars begin to rise the minute your insulin supplies start running short, which starts to happen about 10 years before you are actually diagnosed with diabetes.  That’s why diabetics usually have about 10 years worth of damage to their blood vessels by the time they are formally diagnosed. 

The 20th century was a time of mergers, acquisitions, efficiency experts, and assembly lines.  Someday, it will also be remembered as the time when we learned how efficient is too efficient, how big is too big.  Too big is when one company’s failure threatens the stability of an entire economy.  The 20th century was a time of substitutions, when we learned to use Crisco and margarine instead of butter and lard, beaters instead of eggs, soda pop instead of milk and water, boxed cereals instead of breakfast, and TV dinners instead of meals.  In contrast, the 21st century is when we began to realize that, at a certain point, food can be so easy to manufacture, acquire, and eat that it becomes costly in an entirely different way. 

Healthwise, we are now paying a very hefty price for the privilege of being the land of good ‘n’ plenty.  Our bodies and metabolisms were not designed to be spoon fed to the extent that we are.  I’m not saying we should thresh our own grain.  I’m saying that since we don’t, we need to eat less.  How much less?  Well certainly no more than our ancestors, who actually worked very hard for it.  Just because refined (stripped) flour is now available in bulk doesn’t mean we should eat large amounts at every meal.  Remember, everything in moderation.

The 20th century was when we learned to take large-scale advantage of the production efficiency of the combine harvester, one of the greatest labor-saving devices ever invented.  Why is the combine harvester, patented by Hiram Moore in 1834, called a “combine”?  Because it combines several operations (reaping, binding, threshing, and winnowing) in a single machine, and drastically increases the rate and efficiency of harvesting. 

Before the introduction of the combine harvester, wheat was harvested by a group of people, several reapers plus a binder.  The reapers would slice across the ripe grain stalk with hand-held scythes.  Next, the crop would be bound together for drying and storage.  Later, dry grain or seed was separated from the straw and the chaff.  It was laborious as well as inefficient, for a large amount of the grain fell to the ground.  That grain became the equivalent of today’s food banks.

In contrast, a combine harvester first gathers and cuts the standing stalks, and then feeds the cut stalks, with their attached grain, to a threshing unit.  Inside, kernels of grain are separated (threshed) from the straw and chaff, which are blown (winnowed) out the rear of the machine.  Threshed grain is cleaned and collected for storage or transfer. 

Many seeds (soybeans, canola, and flax) and grains (wheat, corn, oats, barley, and rye) are universally harvested in bulk by combine harvesters.  The relatively sudden availability of virtually endless amounts of grains and seeds set the stage for an explosion of processed, food-like, edible products.

Next week:  Washington’s grist mill.
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