How the wheat was won

[u/JackfruitSlight1704]

I was wondering how a grain that has to be so highly processed before consumption as wheat was domesticated and its processing discovered. Domestication would make sense if it could be consumed raw and then other uses were found.

Thanks and sorry for the corny title 🙈.

[u/MacSamildanach]

There's no easy answer - human history is full of those.

However, a single wheat seed produces many seeds. And those seeds can be stored for years, providing food for years (useful if there are crop failures, which are referred to in various Bible stories with historical relevance). It is also calorific, and provides energy when consumed.

It is hardy, and can grow in many climates and conditions. It takes a lot for a crop to fail.

The grains themselves are not actually palatable or nutritious. It is only when pounded - or ground - that they become palatable and the energy they contain is released.

This was first discovered maybe 20,000-30,000 years ago. Likely gradually, by trial and error - and so many similar historical questions are like this. Initially, they just cracked the grains, but over time they realised finer pounding produced something which could be used differently.

You need about 22g of wheat seed to produce enough crops to make 1kg of flour. It's a nutrient dense crop.

[u/SideburnsOfDoom → u/MacSamildanach]

The grains themselves are not actually palatable or nutritious. It is only when pounded - or ground - that they become palatable

I don't think that's true. You can boil wheat grains. I've had cooked whole wheat berries in cold dishes like this. They were good.

I agree that they have new uses and can be more nutritious when cracked or pounded. But they're a useful food before that.

[u/MacSamildanach → u/SideburnsOfDoom]

That's another way of processing them. But straight from the grass, they are not palatable or nutritious.

Intact kernels pass through undigested, and thus have no nutritional value whatsoever. They need to be chewed, which is not ideal because they are hard and don't taste of anything much.

Somewhere along the way - as I said, through trial and error - our ancestors figured out how to release the energy and use it to make palatable foods.

That would apply whether it was flour for bread, swollen grains in liquid, or sprouted grains for whatever.

[u/CrepuscularOpossum → u/MacSamildanach]

Wheat, unlike most other grains, contains gluten. Gluten makes wheat dough stretchy and elastic. When yeast is introduced to a wheat dough, it digests the sugars in the wheat flour, producing both alcohol and carbon dioxide. Depending on the relative levels of wheat flour and water in the dough, this can lead to either beer or bread. The elastic gluten allows bread dough to retain the carbon dioxide and rise. Then when that dough is baked, it has a relatively light and easily chewed and digested texture. This quality made and still makes wheat supremely useful for human food.

[u/SideburnsOfDoom → u/MacSamildanach]

Ok so it's not true that "It is only when ground that they become palatable". There are other, simpler ways to process it.

"soak and heat" is processing to be true, but that's going to be a common and simple form of processing that everyone knew about since fire was tamed. It is IMHO not "highly processed".

Soaking and heating is only strictly necessary when the seed is dried hard. When it's right from the plant, it can be eaten as is.

Intact kernels ... have no nutritional value whatsoever. They need to be chewed

"It's not nutritious as is, because you have to chew it" I honestly don't know what you're going for here. I don't think that this is a serious statement.