Food Patterns

Man eats what his forefathers ate, if possible, and what his environment offers. A young child does not form fixed food habits, but is patterned by adults, who eat certain foods and not others. The foods which his father does not like, and which his mother therefore does not serve, do not become familiar to the child and would not be eaten by him. The environment—the physical, psychological and social setting, which relates to the culture of a group—also determines the food patterns.

Historical: Some of our knowledge of what early man ate comes from archaeological studies of cave drawings of food getting and preparation activities. Other evidence of what primitive people ate includes the study of remnants of discarded food found by archaeologists in mounds, pits, bogs, lake beds and tombs. The remnants of human faeces (coproliter) also tell the story of early human food.

From such remains of prehistoric man a picture of the food eaten by him has been reconstituted with some degree of certainty from the study of anthropologists and other scientists.

Primitive men lived as hunters and gatherers. They collected their food from wild animals and plants. They depended upon fruits, nuts, roots and other plant foods, meat from animals and the fish catch from seas, lakes and rivers. They were forced to spend their days and nights in search of food.

They roamed from place to place to correspond to the changing season, the appearance and disappearance of various fruits and leaves, or the migration and movement of game animals. They lived this way till about 10,000 years ago in a few places and 5,000 years ago in most of the world.

Gradually, food gatherers learned to domesticate plants and animals. They were no longer roaming about eating what was available. They settled down, built shelters and raised plants and animals to provide food. Plant domestication began in China about 10,000 B.C. followed by India, the eastern Mediterranean area and Africa. The first crops to be grown were wheat and barley from wild grasses. Simultaneously, livestock were domesticated. Cows were domesticated first and then sheep and goats. Milk was probably the first food to be extracted from animals. In the early stages, food production did not develop beyond an inefficient subsistence level and small farming communities developed around the areas of farming. The development of agricultural skills over the last two centuries and consequent supply of a sufficient amount of food, its preservation and storage, resulted in the emergence of cities and urban civilization.

One of the first great changes which occurred in man's food pattern must have been when he learnt to use fire to cook. It is not known when he first used fire for this purpose. Man eats most of his food cooked and this is one of the many characteristics which separate him from other animals. The type and amount of fuel available determines the pattern of food of a society. In areas where fuel is scarce, quick cooking foods are prepared. The use of chapatis, thin unleavened bread, and stew-like mixtures has developed in our country and in other parts of Asia and Africa because their preparation requires meagre equipment and little fire.

Many changes took place in food patterns prior to the Middle Ages. As man moved from one place to another, he found new foods growing in his new settlement. Since he usually carried the seeds of foods grown where he lived to his new place of residence, there was a migration of foods. Thus, sugar went from India to other parts of the world. Sweet oranges from China and sour ones from India went to Europe with the early overland traders. The dispersion of foods indigenous to one country into another has always increased the variety of man's diet from ancient times. Today, with the rapid development of the means of communication and transportation, the differences in the diets of different countries are becoming less marked.