How Did Potato Affect The Potato

Potatoes became a staple in the diet of many as they were discovered around the world. They are still an important part of the diet of many today. ("International year of," 2008)

The conquistadors eventually used potatoes as rations on their ships and took it back to Spain (Chapman, n.d.). From there, the potato spread to other countries. Unfortunately, the potato was “regarded with suspicion, distaste and fear.” (Chapman, n.d.) Only animals were fed the potatoes at first but as time went on, the aristocracy of Europe began to encourage the lower classes to begin cultivating potatoes. Potatoes, however, did not become a staple until roughly 1795 and the food shortages that came during the time of the Revolutionary Wars in England. (Chapman, n.d.)

When Europeans went to the new world they learned how to grow subsistent crops like the potatoes. Potatoes saved many lives in parts of Ireland, Scotland, and especially Russia, because of their harsh environment potatoes are one of the few crops that can grow. And as a result hundreds of thousands of people didn’t starve, which helped lead to European expansion.

Contact between Native Americans and Europeans brought changes to European societies through three ways. First, with many new resources, Europeans were able to start the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange was basically the transfer of new resources and technology from the New World to the Old World and from the Old World to the New World. Second, since new types of crops were introduced to the Europeans, these new crops improved many of the European’s diets. For an example, before potatoes were introduced to the Old World, grains and wheat were the main parts of the European diets. But, after potatoes were introduced to the European countries, potatoes became the substitutions for grain and wheat because they were convenient to cultivate.

What many people only know about Christopher Columbus’s expedition is that he found the Americas. While this is true, he did find a completely new frontier that was unknown to the Old World, his findings re-shaped global consumption patterns from the seventeenth century. He found a New World filled with resources that the old world hasn’t seen before. When he found the new world he brought with him European plants and animal species that were foreign to the citizens of the New World. The Columbian Exchange introduced many foods that are still essential to consumption in today’s world along with the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The potato is a prime example of how the Columbian Exchange changed global consumption patterns because it was nutritious and had an abundant amount of calories in it and caused a mass population increase in areas where the potato was available. The use of slaves also increased exponentially when sugar cane was introduced. This was a very cheap, productive way to produce a large amount of sugar and it was used by many Old World countries. The findings of these new world products created a rise in global consumption and production because products were introduced to the both the New World and the Old World and there instantly became a large spike in the availability of products. Along with this, the old world decided to go out and get themselves involved in the New World because they saw an opportunity

Before 1500, potatoes were not become outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so subject to the potato that the proximate reason for the Incomparable Starvation was a potato malady. Potatoes in the long run turned into an imperative staple of the eating regimen in quite a bit of Europe. Numerous European rulers, including Frederick the Incomparable of Prussia and Catherine the Incomparable of Russia, supported the development of the potato. Maize and cassava, acquainted with the Portuguese from South America in the sixteenth century, have supplanted sorghum and millet as Africa's most essential sustenance crops. sixteenth century Spanish colonizers acquainted new staple yields with Asia from the Americas, including maize and sweet potatoes, and along these lines added to populace development in Asia. Tomatoes, which came to Europe from the New World by means of Spain, were at first prized in Italy basically for their decorative esteem . From the nineteenth century tomato sauces wound up run of the mill of Neapolitan food and, eventually, Italian cooking when all is said in done. Espresso from Africa and the Center East and sugarcane from the Spanish West Independents turned into the fundamental fare product harvests of broad Latin American manors. Acquainted with India by the Portuguese, bean stew and potatoes from South America have turned into a basic piece of Indian

He enormously increased the number of kinds of foods and quantities of food by both plant and animal sources. New food crops have enabled people to live in places where they previously had only slim means of feeding themselves. Each new cargo brought new changes to the European diet, helping to improve eating and strengthening national identities with cultural foods. Some of the exotic new crops had humble beginnings; before the tomato made its way into European diets, it was a weed in the Aztec maize fields. The potatoes which hung on to Spanish ships wasn't welcomed at first either; Europeans found it unappetizing. But packing more calories per acre than any European grain, the potato eventually became the dominant food of northern Europe's working class.

In many ways, food has been imperative to political and social influences on global human society. In chapters five and seven of An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage, the importance of food and its effect on history is shown throughout the major themes of trading, the idea that food is equal to wealth, and the life-long sustenance that foods provide to people. In Standage’s book, middle-eastern botanists traded the spice of cinnamon, and potatoes were traded and seen as a valued food in all of Europe. Standage proves that food equals wealth when he wrote about the importance of spices across the Middle East. He says that people who owned spices were seen as “luxurious” because they could serve delicacies such as rare spices and could serve more flavorful food. Finally, the sustenance that spices, as well as maize/potatoes, provide is actually very similar to each other. Although spices could be seen as a more “secondary” source of sustenance, the rarity and high demand for spices allowed for trading and receiving nutritious food. On the other hand, maize was very important because almost anyone could grow maize and it could, therefore, be used as a major food supply.

Europe gained a new wave of crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, maze, and cassava. Europe was introduced to less caloric

Also, the best form of transportation that the Europeans greatly relied on to carry their valuable resource from one place to another it was by riding horses. Domesticated animals were a fundamental part in European society due to it maintain a reliable, high energy food source through many colonies. Whenever the new settlers introduced animals to the New World, they would let wild pigs run free to the land as a new food source for the Europeans. This had a negative contribution to the new land due to new animals destroyed most native’s crops. Therefore; the Natives Americans were highly exposed to the different outcomes that change their way life. In the Columbian Exchange food crops like corn, potatoes, etc. was cultivated by the Native Americans. In the new world the big advantage over the old word was the food crops that indigenous people were able to produce due to great soil and stretch land. Potato has been for many centuries a great crop to grow because it resisted cold climate and it would grow on thin

Population, values, and foreign relations were all affected by the crops involved in the Columbian Exchange and the Transatlantic trade. First, new crops came to Europe in the Columbian Exchange. This resulted in access to many new, more efficient crops such as potatoes. Producing a very high amount of food per acre, potatoes were a true superfood for Europeans. In response, quality and quantity of European life both skyrocketed.

In the educative essay “What’s Eating America,” Michael Pollan designates the history of corn, a good and healthy food if cultivated properly. This essay is very informative because it talks about American’s diet. In this essay, Pollan examines the way of growing the corn as an influential example of using the chemical fertilizers in food. Also, He complains “Growing corn, which from a biological perspective had always been a process of capturing sunlight to turn it into food, has in no small measure become a process of converting fossil fuels into food…” (Pollan 302). While it might be very useful when used in a prudent way, in reality the usage of chemical fertilizers is higher and the farmers are feeding their corps more than it needs which affect the ecology’s system. In other words, his focus is on corn and not only does him just points out corn presence in nearly all food products; but he comes up with other matters like fossil fuels and the factories polluting the atmosphere. Thus, it’s astonishing when someone stops and thinks about how many things are composed from corn.

After the Spanish settled in America, many new foods and species of plants were introduced to the people of Eurasia, none of which they had said before. Although most of the exchange of food was from the New World to the Old World, Eurasia also introduced the America’s to wheat and grapes, two very important foods for mass. Potatoes and corn were a major part of the Columbian Exchange as they provided a lot of nutrition and were very easy to grow. They could grow in soil that was previously useless for agriculture. Other foods that spread across Europe were tomatoes, peppers, chocolate, beans, pineapples, avocados and blueberries. This exchange of food was the main reason that the worlds population doubled from 545,000,000 in 1600 to 1,128,000,000 in 1850 and historians often describe this massive increase in the nutritional value and variety of

Europe, Africa and the Americas were all involved in the agriculture exchange. The New World provided diverse crops; tobacco, maize, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao beans and many more. Tobacco was a main source of income for some of the colonies because England had a high demand for the new addicting product. Maize was stable of the people’s diet as it grew and adapted quickly. Potatoes changed the poor man’s diet for many reasons. Potatoes were cheap and could survive harsh conditions. This made them ideal for people who

When Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria in 1492 two completely different worlds collided head-on. After that point there was no going back, the world the Europeans and Native Americans knew before that event was gone and moved one step closer to the world we know today. Both of these civilizations benefited from this contact, but some benefited more than others especially the Old World. In fact the Old World benefited significantly more than the New World. One new commodity that greatly benefited the old world was new crops like the potato. This calorie and nutrient dense crop helped feed Europe’s ever increasing population and workforce during the Industrial Revolution. Another crop that benefited the Old World was tobacco.