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I would like to see calories/acre of nuts and olives too - cashew and peanuts and hazelnuts pack quite the energy punch too. They may be comparable. So maybe th
by venomsnake 14y ago
I would like to see calories/acre of nuts and olives too - cashew and peanuts and hazelnuts pack quite the energy punch too. They may be comparable. So maybe there were other factors at play why grain was chosen as the primary food source.
- Avshalom 14y agoNot a food historian but at a guess: grain can produce a crop from seed in one season. Fruits/nuts can take years before they produce good yields.
- VLM 14y agoYou can pack grain away for a typical military campaign pretty well. Nuts go rancid too fast and fruit rots and is kinda delicate. You can haul wheat from the north african provinces to london in the roman era pretty well, not so good for the alternatives. Its fundamentally a warrior food. You can't conqueror the known world feeding your legions apples. Wheat, yes, but not pine nuts or oranges. Sometimes you see this in opposition to non-grain diets, its part of our long warrior/military tradition, etc etc. You can't have a long term ancient empire without some kind of grain, otherwise you end up something like Ghengis Kahn starving horde has to go home. No not the guy Kirk yelled Kahhnn! about, the much earlier one.