The Grain Chain
A couple of weeks ago I was in Omaha, Nebraska.
In the perfect fall weather, I drove across the Missouri. In the twin town of Council Bluffs, Iowa, I lingered in a lovely little museum commemorating the spot as the jumping off point of the Union Pacific railroad. Then I drove through streets on the bluff with some of the most gorgeous late nineteenth century houses I have seen, homes to those who benefitted from the railroad.
As I made my way back, a lumbering but deadly accurate bulldozer was tearing down the cylindrical towers of an abandoned grain elevator.
Demolishing a grain elevator, Council Bluffs, Iowa, 2013
And then, before the sun disappeared, I walked the arched pedestrian bridge over the Missouri thinking of Lewis and Clark.
At that moment Omaha seemed the crossroads of the United States, the river and the railroad two ways of linking the heart of the continent with the Gulf, the Atlantic and the Pacific. And the grain elevators the visible sign of the wheat, which was shipped out in along those links.
And then, browsing magazines in a store in Mexico City, I saw that Vogue had an article by Jeffrey Steingarten on the American turn away from wheat in the diet.
You can imagine my astonishment at learning that nearly a third of my fellow Americans say they’ve eliminated [gluten] from their diets or that they’re trying to. This mean removing everything containing wheat.
While making it very clear that the 1% of the population that have celiac disease have a very serious condition, he points out that
if 29 percent of us . . . truly get ill when we consume gluten, that would be among the most widespread epidemics in human history, easily on a par with the ancient Plague of Athens, the medieval Black Death, or the Great Plague of London.
Now let me state unequivocally that I do not have a position on gluten intolerance. When people report that they feel much better when they eliminate gluten, I take them at their word. And I am not a nutritionist, nor in the business of giving nutritional advice.
As a historian, though, I find it fascinating that if large sections of American society (and presumably others too) do reject wheat eating, it will be the reversal of a trend that has persisted for some 20,000 years.
In fact, when putting together Cuisine and Empire, I began to feel I had grain on the brain. World food history circled around grain history and within grain history, the history of rice and of wheat.
Long before farming, people began eating grains. The quantity rose with farming and with cities and for many people grains became as much as 80% of the diet.
And in the western half of Eurasia and in areas where people from that part of the world settled, wheat was the preferred grain. I believe I am correct in remembering that in White Bread: A Social History of the Store Bought Loaf, Aaron Bobrow Strain, states that at the end of World War II, bread–meaning wheat bread–made up 50% of the calories consumed in the United States. Add in pies, cakes, cookies, beer, and the calories from wheat would be yet higher.
Whole societies have been arranged around farming and shipping and storing wheat. And one of them is the United States that in the last hundred and fifty years, the United States has grown, and stored and shipped to its citizens and to countries around the world vast quantities of wheat. The signs are scattered across the landscape from Buffalo to Portland, from Texas to New Mexico.
Barns there had been since the earliest days of the Americas where grains was stored in sacks. In the late nineteenth century, bulk storage of grain in elevators became possible due to a variety of factors: poured concrete, conveyor belts, railroad. Grain elevators are key nodes in the grain chain that links farms with consumers.
In 1927, the artist, Charles Demuth, painted the elevators in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, titling the work My Egypt, grain elevators being to the United States what pyramids were to Egypt. And according to at least one source on the web, eighteenth-century travelers to Egypt suspected that the pyramids themselves were hollow, ancient receptacles for the storage of grain.
Charles Demuth, My Egypt, 1927
Check out this wonderful visual anthology of grain silos from David Worth, a South African interested in industrial heritage.
This elevator is featured in a blog devoted to grandparents who built elevators.
Meyer-Osborne elevator in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Grain elevators reflected the politics of the day. In 1922, the North Dakota mill and elevators were constructed to avoid what were regarded as the unfair business practices of the railroads and the big mills in Minnesota.
The Grand Forks, North Dakota grain mill and elevators in 1915.
It remains the largest flour mill in the United States.
Today, the Japanese-owned Columbia Grain Company has a chain of elevators from Portland to North Dakota.
Japanese-owned grain elevator in Portland Oregon
So is it possible that this vast infrastructure will fall to wrack and ruin. It is possible that grains will be replaced by meat, vegetables, and fruit?
Certainly fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit have become cheap and convenient in a way unknown in history. (For the story of meat, I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of fellow historian of technology, Maureen Ogle’s In Meat We Trust).
It’s certainly far from impossible. The human diet has changed radically in the past and it might do so again.
But if the human diet changes to meat, fruits, and vegetables, it will not be a return to the simpler supply chains of the past. With the present population it will be possible only because in the last century, a supplement to the grain chain has been created, the cold chain.
The Bird’s Eye frozen food plant, Darien, Wisconsin, CLUI photo via Edible Geography
The cold chain is a massive, high tech network of refrigerated railroad trucks, containers, and storage depots. This particular picture is a frozen food plant but essentially all our fresh foods come to us thanks to the cold chain. For a wonderful exhibition of the cold chain, go to Nicky Twilley’s exhibition, Perishable, and with luck soon to a book that is in the works.
I’d bet the grain chain and the cold chain will coexist. The grains are just too valuable a food source to abandon. Your thoughts?
- World Food History: Six Food Histories I Found Essential
- What’s Not to Like About Industrially Processed Food?
I hope you’re right about the grain chain continuing to exist, although I’m beginning to wonder as I find more and more friends and acquaintances who are giving up wheat for one reason or another.
Although I don’t know what the future holds, I think some of the wheat shunning is linked to a couple of things (among others) beyond mere dietary fad.
First, I wonder if it has lost its status as meat, fruit and veg have become cheaper and cheaper. Is it possible that wheat has become a low-status food because it’s the cheapest of the cheap?
Secondly, I would link it to gastro-anomie. We have such an abundance of food here that it becomes something people voluntarily eliminate to create a coherent, personal food culture.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for this very helpful set of comments. On the first point, I think you may be on to something there. And of course now it’s possible for people to get enough calories from these other foods whereas until very, very recently it would not have been. On the second point, that’s why I don’t criticize those who avoid wheat. I increasingly think that personal choice of food is (a) very recent and (b) an important part of being part of a liberal (in the classical sense) political system that allows free choice. It would not be for me to give up wheat. But if that’s what people want, I think they have the right to do so.
Fascinating post Rachel! I do have a position on demonizing and/or arbitrarily (not related to disease, allergy etc.) eliminating from one’s diet an ENTIRE class of foods. But that’s for another time and place. :)
Hi Robyn, I personally would not want to give up grains, nor do I think it’s healthy or prudent to do so. For the reasons in the response to Jennifer I believe people have the right to if they wish. What they don’t have the right to do is cry fire in a crowded theater and suggest that the grains are the cause of all kinds of illnesses for all kinds of people. I’d love to chat more about this.
There’s also that book, Fresh: A Perishable History, by Susanne Freidberg, to consider in the literature related to this topic.
Indeed, Cindy. Susanne’s book is great. But I did not mention it here because she does not pay attention to the physical aspects of cold chain in the way that Nicky’s exhibition and post does.
Possibly a result of the existential crisis pandemic that we seem to be in the midst of?
Would be worth your time to following up on whys and WTFs of the popularity of William Davis’ NYTs best-seller “Wheat belly”.
Hi Adam, yes, pandemic of panic about food. I’m in Mexico right now and it’s such a relief to be in a place where people eat and enjoy it. Someone needs to do a serious study of William Davis’s Wheat Belly, I couldn’t agree more. Not sure I want to take on that battle right now. What I do want to do is to point out that there is nothing local or “sustainable” about eating fresh, “natural” foods. They are just as industrial (which I don’t think is a bad word) as what they replace.
Here in Europe, there is a “paleo-diet” craze, in which it is considered that the human body is evelutionary not adapted to eating grain (the hypothesis is that the invention agriculture is too recent to have made humans adapt to eating grain). Many ‘intellectuals” are switching to low- of “extreme low carb” diets. Bread suffers.
Then again, bread quality has been going down for years and people tend to eat less and less ordinary wheat bread.
Here too, Nick. Even so, I find it hard, as I am sure you do too, to believe that bread (and wheat more generally) will vanish from our diets.
Thank you very much for your consideration and reasonableness. I personally appreciated your statement allowing for the possibility of intolerance to grain, or some constituent thereof, in some individuals.
As a result of combating illness, my family has all but eliminated processed foods. The concerns you raise about the vulnerabilities created by such choices are deeply felt by us on a personal level and I agree that if widespread for a long enough time, elimination of processed foods will create vulnerabilities and risks we can only dimly perceive now.
Rachel — Just found your site and I love the historical aspect you bring to the valuable dialog that is ongoing about food. History is so important! I’ll be back to read more!
P.S. I grew up in a family of 8 kids and my mother spent one day a week baking bread — all day long. She worked so hard to feed us. She bought flour in a 50 pound bag. Today –people long for homemade bread or at least fresh from a bakery. As kids — all we wanted was white bought in a store bread that fit in the toaster!
Hi Donna, Loved your comments and look forward to further interaction.
I know a number of people who have gone gluten-free and felt they were helped by it. I gave it a try for five weeks and didn’t notice any sort of benefit from my Extreme Sacrifice! One person explained to me that the wheat we use now is different from the “ancient wheat.” I haven’t looked into it, mainly because I *love* wheat! I am a good baker and make all kinds of breads, and I don’t really want to give that up. I use organic unbleached all-purpose flour. Because I have several gluten-free friends, I have developed a lot of gluten-free recipes, some that taste no different from their wheat counterparts. But there is nothing like good wheat bread!
Thanks for the comment Jean. And clearly many people do feel better on a gluten free diet though there could be many reasons for this. I’m following the whole development with interest. And the new recipes that are emerging are interesting too.
I believe that this business (and it certainly has become a lucrative one) of gluten-free food is just the “fad du jour.” All this stuff about modern grain production and its evils pale in comparison the the growing of corn and how it has been so hybridized and manipulated by humans that the plant itself would no longer exist without human manipulation. It’s quite annoying to now see foods which never contained gluten with labels informing us of of being “gluten free.” It’s now “big business” for the gluten-free crowd.
Also interesting is that it is only here in the U.S. that this is now an issue. I travel all over the world and I never come across any products labeled “gluten-free.” I think Americans are gullible and are one of the few societies that can afford to reject foods based on hyped up advertising .
Hi Ken. I’m tempted to do the same. I’m preparing a paper on the culinary history of wheat at the moment and it’s so embedded in so many different cultures that it’s hard to imagine life without it. On the other hand, I am loathe to totally discount people’s comments about what makes them feel bad. And there are many reasons why giving up wheat might make you feel better apart from it causing you to react badly, such as the sense that you are doing something about your life.
I know i’m late joining this conversation, but i only recently began reading the archives (i have a food-history project in the works right now).
“Gluten-free food fad” has joined the “fat-free food fad” largely because the processed-food industry is quick off the starting-line when they see an opportunity! :-) Anyone who reads Dr. Davis is familiar with the concept that GF junk-food is STILL junk-food…. And anyone who goes wheat-free has got to be exceptionally vigilant about the hidden gluten and other wheat products in processed foods (especially restaurants) — a shocking number of dishes/products have these ingredients which the uninitiated might not even recognize as wheat-containing, like soy sauce, restaurant hollandaise, etc!