by H.E.Jacob, 400 pgs. Doubleday trans 1944; & 97, Lyons press.
Review
by Micheal Sunanda
This History of
Western Civilization growing & fixing, selling & eating Grain since Egypt
Invented Rising Bread. Ô6K of
breadÕ was secretly researched for decades by Jacob & even persecuted by
the Nazi banning the vast ÔgrainÕ study into empire patterns of fooding. I found it inspiring like when we
realize how denial & conspiracy ruled our ancestors & US now helping to
become more free & healthy from ignorant beliefs & habits we learned in
our super-tech empire food systems.
He explains many
of our ancestors troubles & tragedies for centuries before coming to new
world to start over. This encyclopedic survey of Western Civ since 4,000 BC
reveals more unknown (to us) trends of farming & fooding, fixing &
eating grains than all other sources? Jacob begins with Egyptian empire
inventing rising bread, what was flat-bread for centuries before, & still
is in many countries: chapattiÕs, tortilla, tacos, flat breads with many
names.
Why in millions
of our history experts, books, classes & movies are trends of grain growing
& food hidden? Bread Ð the
Òmanna of heavenÓ, Ôstaff of lifeÕ & Òbody of ChristÓ, fueled armies &
economy of cities, dominat-ing & still unreported in empire history of
wars, religions & technology.
Then steam, oil,
electricity, gas & chemistry took over in industrial revolutions
since late 1700s. Slowly the farming revolutions fueled efficient grow-ing
& harvesting grains for bread. This lucid ÔoldÕ 1944 Europe epic history
exposes patt-erns hidden in people & books for millennia - like
corruptions, emotions, class wars & health effects in denial over
centuries!
I ÔlovedÕ junk
ÔwhiteÕ factory bread for 25 years, then ÔbrownÕ for 10 years, unaware of how
its grown, milled, made & denatured in most countries. Bread is the basic food of most western
culture diets, along with meat, dairy & now sugar & chemicals. The orient
uses rice, eggs, soy, little meat & sea foods, not our grains, cattle meats
& diary. Bread flour foods are
basis of many religion rituals, sandwiches, pasta & now treats of pastry,
pizza, chips, crackers, etc. The
southern Latin nations used corn
& potatoes, not wheat, oats, barley & rye traditional for millennia in Europe. White cultures beliefs about popular
traditional grains are deep within religion, habits & superstitions; until
they live in cities where economics, governments & technology rule new
desires & trends in food treats.
The technology
(hoes, plows, wheels, etc) of grain farming, transport-ing, milling &
cook-ing is explained in critical trends, staying the same for millennia, even
lost after fall of Roman empire. into the dark, Christian, midd-le ages. Then deep dark fears, suffering, famine
& starving. by millions of our ancest-ors & victims of culture shocks
revolved around grain farming, milling, baking & selling breads of popular
kinds. Also there health suffered
not knowing the connections of how food is grown, fixed & eaten effects our
health, energy & longevity.
There were 100s
of taboos, beliefs, fears & desires around growing grain & fixing
breads by many cultures, often warring over farmlands & trade-routes, resources,
etc. From the crash of Rome till
1700s grain farming was retarded into struggles with weather, lost soil
fertility & ignorance (hangovers) of lost Roman empire hi tech farming,
wars & shipping. I believe
that womenÕs wisdom about growing grains & making bread was lost from men
controlling them with economy & religion & wars. Like fertility, growing & foraging
herbs, birthing, parenting & healing were crushed by jealous men of Christian
churches, esp the witchunts persecutions in the dark-age of terror &
torture!.
Our Ancestors beliefs, habits & conflicts with wheat, corn, rye,
oats & barley spanned generations over centuries of
fears, shame, hate, lies, prejudice, superstitions & diseases they blamed
on ÔbadÕ bread & evil spirits.
Grain also spawned the brews, ales, wines & alcohol over centuries
in Europe. Corn finally came from
Columbus & co. Euro ships from neworld where Aztec & SW US Indians grew
& used for centuries without Euro grains.
The Incas of
Andes grew potatoes of 100s varieties, also taken to Euro by white Christ-ian
conquerors. But Euro Christians
stuck in fears, beliefs & centuries of haunting habits rejected them for
decades, differently in each Euro empire tradition. Their farming methods used for growing grain & milling
systems for making flour were also troubled, crude & unhealthy over 100s
generations. After 1300 years of
dark-ages some new technology crept into Euro grain farming, milling &
baking in separate countries usually rejecting anything from foreigners. Except their kings bot grains for the
rich, armies & rarely for starving dirty peasants they hated, except
devoted Christians (servants) & warriors for royalty.
The Euro
Christians were addicted to bread & even starved when a grain famine hit
them unable or unwilling & ignorant to grow other foods, healthy or not.
They had very suffering karma for centuries, maybe hangovers from past-lives in
Roman Empire of wars, slaving economics, violent fears of gods & barbarians
they hated. Our ancestors health
suffered them from eating bread hulls of grain milled into flour, while blaming
the miller for adding sand & wood to the flour they craved for bread. Its seems absurd, our ancestors feared
& couldnÕt learn new ways to grow & fix more food, while they struggled
& starved with ÔbadÕ weather, bad grains, cheating food processors, owners
& merchants.
A few new
farming tools from inventors like Jethro Tull & others were rejected for
decades of suffering farmers, till the next generations tried, used & succeeded
in better faming ways. Jacob
reports on many new farming systems from late 1700s innovations. Esp. planting, fertilizing &
harvesting improvements, were slowly starting, trying & mass produced to
sell to farmers growing, harvesting, storing & ship ever more food since
mid 1800s. Like in US mechanized
farming surged before Civil war making US north the biggest producer of grains,
even exporting to Euro the surplus far beyond the slaving south with black
workers. Around 1900 genetic
science growing of new strains of food crops revolutionized farming beyond the
mechanical speeding up of planting & harvesting.
Then in 1930s farm
chemicals of fertilizers, pest & herbicides grew into US ÔGreen revolutionÓ
after WW2, adding to exploding super farming & population bomb we call
Ôbaby boomersÕ in all western countries.
He reports on the new Ôcold hardyÕ Russian & Canadian grain seed
growing, harvesting & shipping to foreign countries unable to grow grains
for their exploding populations.
One current trend of over-farming land & soil from industrial
cropping began with J. Leibig in France using (now NPK) analysis & minerals
to fertilize land with lacking soil nutrients. But like now, it misses the basic microbes & biomass,
trace minerals & worms needed for recharging farmland soils after a
harvest. Now Permaculture, bio-intensive & biodynamic farming are extending
organic growing cycles beyond our western Civ history of agriculture ruined by
hi tech mass production since WW2 feeding the local population bomb, not being
poisoned by 1000 sources of pollution, while eating too much, or growing our
healthy food at home?