Grass (17 JAN 2012)

So much for being smug about the mild winter in the UK ...  On Sunday it was freezing in the spots where the sun wasn't shining. Quite in contrast to a month ago, there weren't enough blooms to justify a Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post. 

These photos of foxglove plantlets in different parts of the garden were all snapped at lunch-time :

sunny flowerbed

woodland

frosty flowerbed














I was supposed to be taking advantage of the few daylight hours available during the weekend to do some gardening. My main gardening activites in order of priority are : transplanting, weeding, mowing the lawn and pruning, but none of these needed to be done urgently. Inactivities are : thinking about things that I don't think about anywhere else, checking every detail of each individual plant and planning for the future.

After congratulating the survivors of the heavy frost,  I could be found perched on the back-doorstep warming my fingers with a hot cup of coffee, trying to bite into a doughnut without squirting its contents onto my coat and staring at this tuft of grass. I contemplated how easy it would be to pull it out and toss it into the rubbish bag, but in a way grasses are weeding us out too ...

The grass family includes lawn grass, ornamental grass and the major cereal crops such as wheat. Despite their simple appearance they are highly evolved plants equipped to reproduce against all odds. Their seeds are not supposed to be dried, milled, mixed with water and yeast, fried in oil, coated in sugar and injected with raspberry-flavoured jam  ... or even nibbled straight off the stalks by mice.

Grasses have developed toxins to defend their seeds from creatures that try to digest them instead of facilitating transit to a new location. Rodents (labelled as granivores) have in turn evolved to bite back, their relatively large guts capicitate longer grain fermentation so that nutrients can be extracted. On the other hand humans, slower to evolve, can't stomach uncooked grains which led to the discovery that cooking releases extra energy in the form of carbohydrates. So much energy in fact, that they don't need to spend all day eating along with the rest of the animal kingdom, allowing time to focus on building communities.

Scientists are confused on whether man is naturally a herbivore or omnivore. Different blood types and smaller jaws which can no longer neatly accommodate our teeth, suggest there were changes. Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, were discovered to be hunter-gatherers; hunting also being a means for males to gain power, meat only accounts for 2% of their diet. Nevertheless, cultivating, cooking and consuming grains in moderation was probably a major contributor to the transformation of the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) hunter-gatherer into the more civilised New Stone Age (Neolithic) farmer ... but was this the rise of the human species before the fall?
Over-consumption especially since the industrial revolution has led to increasing levels of coeliac disease, diabetes and other maladies initiated by high blood sugar levels.  Even though the British government recommends that a healthy, balanced meal should contain one third carbohydrates, there is an increasing trend harking back to those Old Stone Age times, to eliminate grains. Dieters are left with that unsatiated feeling only too familiar to our Paleolithic ancestors.

Maybe the grasses are winning after all :

130 000 000 years ago	: The rise of  Angiosperms: flowering plants
65 500 000 years ago		: Dinosaurs became extinct
60 000 000 years ago		: Earliest true primates
35 000 000 years ago		: Grasses evolve from among the angiosperms
2 600 000 years ago		: Beginning of Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age) – first use of tools
2 300 000 years ago		: First homo (Homo habilis)
1 800 000 years ago		: First hunter-gatherer societies (Homo Erectus)
350 000 years ago		: Evolution of Neanderthals
200 000 years ago		: Anatomically modern humans appear in Africa
30 000 years ago		: Evidence of humans using tools to grind grains
10 000 years ago		: Beginning of Neolithic Era (New Stone Age) - introduction of agriculture
3 512 years ago		: Egyptian manuscript refers to  diabetes : “too great emptying of the urine”
2 083 years ago		: Report of first water-powered grain mill
1 900 years ago		: Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappodocia described coeliac disease : “suffering in the bowels”
209 years ago		: Doughnuts mentioned in an 1803 English volume of American recipes
133 years ago		: The first steam grain mill was erected in London at the beginning of the Industrial Era
Last year		: World Health Organisation estimated 346 million people worldwide have diabetes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution


Are humans naturally plant eaters ? :
http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

Predatory behaviour of wild chimpanzees :
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~stanford/chimphunt.html

Introduction to the Paleolithic Diet :
http://www.earth360.com/diet_paleodiet_balzer.html

The late role of grains and legumes in the human diet, and biochemical evidence of their evolutionary discordance :

http://www.beyondveg.com/cordain-l/grains-leg/grains-legumes-1a.shtml

A balanced diet, recommended by UK government Food Standards Agency :
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/publication/eatwellplate0210.pdf

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