TY  - BOOK
AU  - Warren,John
ED  - C.A.B. International,
TI  - The nature of crops: how we came to eat the plants we do 
AV  - SB175 .W37 2015eb
U1  - 633 23
PY  - 2015///
CY  - Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK
PB  - CABI
KW  - Food crops
KW  - History
KW  - Plant Production
KW  - Biological Resources (Plant)
KW  - Crop Produce
KW  - Food Contamination, Residues and Toxicology
KW  - Food Composition and Quality
KW  - Diet Studies
KW  - Ancestry
KW  - cabt
KW  - Case studies
KW  - Chemical composition
KW  - Diets
KW  - Domestication
KW  - Edible species
KW  - Food safety
KW  - Plant composition
KW  - Toxic substances
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index; Introduction, the nature of natural. What does domestication involve? Peanuts, Rye, Tomato -- Wild things. Recently domesticated crops and crops that have returned to the wild : Cranberries, Huckleberries, Currants, Kiwifruits, Cacao, Cashew nuts, Pistachio nuts, Cabbages -- Learning to live with exotic sexual practices. How plant breeding systems limit domestication : Vanilla, Beans, Figs, Hops, Avocados, Papayas, Carrots -- Storing up trouble. Plants with storage organs :Cassava, Yams, Potatoes, Taro, Akees, Onions -- The weird and wonderful. Herbs, spices and crops with exotic phytochemicals : Wasabi, Chillies, Saffron, Herbs, Willow, Tobacco, Cannabis, Durians -- Accidents of history. The role of chance events in domestication : Strawberries, Wheats, Bananas, Citrus, Rhubarb -- Classic combinations and recurring themes. Plant families that have been repeatedly domesticated : Grains, Legumes, Pumpkins, Spinaches -- Ownership and theft. How the economic value of crops has influenced their domestication : Breadfruits, Sugarcanes, Cloves, Rubber, Tea, Coffee, Mulberries, Monkey Puzzles, Artichokes, Pineapples -- Fifty shades of green. Nutrient rich crops and the next generation : Clovers, Ryegrass; Access limited to subscribing institution; Also available in print format
N2  - This book, containing nine chapters, aims to try and ascertain why we eat so few of the plant species that are available to us on Earth. The first chapter suggests that our ancestral diets differed greatly between cultures and although some of these may have been more diverse than our own, many others would have been more monotonous. Throughout this book, different elements of the problem are tackled by exploring crop biographies as case studies. In the first chapter, this approach reveals that over the history of crop domestication, humans have successfully and repeatedly solved one of the most significant problems involved in transforming wild plants into crops, which is how to avoid being poisoned. The subsequent chapters cover in greater depth issues on how this was achieved using a number of methods, such as selecting plants that contain lower levels of toxic chemicals, adapting our own biology to be better able to digest these new foods stuffs and finally inventing methods of processing plant materials which make them safer to eat
UR  - https://dx.doi.org/10.1079/9781780645087.0000
ER  -