I
have just published my sixth book, Forgotten Landscapes: How NativeAmericans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn from It. I am starting a series of essays and videos to promote portions of
this book.
I
have just posted a video on this topic.
As
I explain in chapter 4 of the book, Native Americans depended largely on
agriculture. Native Americans (mainly in Mexico) domesticated many important
crop plants, such as maize (what we usually call corn), some kinds of beans,
squashes, tomatoes, peppers, and chocolate. The impact on world agriculture has
been significant: today, maize is grown not just in the Americas but Europe,
Africa, and Asia as well.
In
chapter 2 I explain that pre-Columbian Native Americans and their villages and
cities were healthy. Largely this was because of a healthy diet. The meat was
largely venison, turkey, and squab (from passenger pigeons). But also their
diet, based on corn and beans, was healthy because of protein complementarity.
Corn has protein, but you cannot live on corn protein, because an essential
amino acid (lysine) is largely absent. Beans have protein, but you cannot live
on bean protein, because an essential amino acid (methionine) is largely
absent. But mix the two together, and you have a complete source of protein.
This
is called protein complementarity and is found all over the world: corn and
beans in America, lentils and wheat in the Middle East, and rice and soybeans
in Asia. All of these traditional diets were healthy.
In
addition, Native American diet had plenty of Vitamin C—as did the traditional
diets of people on other continents, if the poor had access to fresh fruits and
vegetables.
But
in one important aspect, European peasants had an unhealthy diet and Native
Americans did not. Many European peasants had to live off of rye bread. The
ergot fungus (Claviceps purpurea) lives in rye plants, and when the rye grain
is produced it is mixed with ergot spores. These spores have a toxin, lysergic
acid diethylamide, that partially destroys blood circulation and results in
fingers and toes being stubby and falling off, and in a generally crummy state
of health. No such fungus or toxin grows in maize, the basis of Native American
food.
Lysergic
acid diethylamide is better known as LSD, and at larger doses can produce
hallucinations.
Once
in a while, outbreaks of ergotism occurred in European rye fields, especially
after cold winters and wet springs. At these times, the peasants got a big dose
of LSD and had hallucinations—acid trips, which they could not explain. This
was the cause of witch hunts and werewolf crazes in the middle ages. Once
again, this is something that never happened among Native Americans.
Native
Americans, before Columbus, were healthy, and one reason was that they ate
healthy food which, unlike European peasant food, never contained LSD.
Have a nice July 4 meal of corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, and of course chocolate!