1.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
2.
Maize
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Maize, also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, the leafy stalk of the plant produces separate pollen and ovuliferous inflorescences or ears, which are fruits, yielding kernels or seeds. Maize kernels are used in cooking as a starch. Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, recent research modified this view somewhat, scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication. The Olmec and Mayans cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked and its believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. The region developed a network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Nevertheless, recent data indicates that the spread of maize took place even earlier, according to Piperno, A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since then, even earlier dates have been published, the study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths and this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Before they were domesticated, maize plants only grew small,25 millimetres long corn cobs, Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. Approximately 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol, genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe, Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation. At another level, Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, that not only would they weaken, despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize and archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates and it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbuss voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant and it is known by other names around the world. The word corn outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize, this usage started as a shortening of Indian corn. Indian corn primarily means maize, but can more specifically to multicolored flint corn used for decoration
3.
Sugar
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Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is used in prepared foods and it is added to some foods, in the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Other disaccharides include maltose from malted grain, and lactose from milk, longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol may also have a sweet taste, low-calorie food substitutes for sugar, described as artificial sweeteners, include aspartame and sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants and are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient commercial extraction in sugarcane, the world production of sugar in 2011 was about 168 million tonnes. The average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, the etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word sugar ultimately originates from the Sanskrit शर्करा, via Arabic سكر as granular or candied sugar, the contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar, respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre and the contemporary French, sucre, the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin – Portuguese jagara from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and it was not plentiful or cheap in early times and honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness, sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule, one of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating back to 8th century BC that state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. Sugar was found in Europe by the 1st century AD, but only as an imported medicine and it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut, sugar is used only for medical purposes. Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store, crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century AD
4.
Dominance (genetics)
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Dominance in genetics is a relationship between alleles of one gene, in which the effect on phenotype of one allele masks the contribution of a second allele at the same locus. The first allele is dominant and the allele is recessive. For genes on an autosome, the alleles and their traits are autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive. Dominance is a key concept in Mendelian inheritance and classical genetics, often the dominant allele codes for a functional protein whereas the recessive allele does not. A classic example of dominance is the inheritance of seed shape in peas, peas may be round, associated with allele R or wrinkled, associated with allele r. In this case, three combinations of alleles are possible, RR, Rr, and rr, the RR individuals have round peas and the rr individuals have wrinkled peas. In Rr individuals the R allele masks the presence of the r allele, thus, allele R is dominant to allele r, and allele r is recessive to allele R. This use of upper case letters for dominant alleles and lower case ones for recessive alleles is a widely followed convention, more generally, where a gene exists in two allelic versions, three combinations of alleles are possible, AA, Aa, and aa. Dominance is not inherent to either an allele or its phenotype and it is a relationship between two alleles of a gene and their associated phenotypes, one allele can be dominant over a second allele, recessive to a third allele, and codominant to a fourth. Also, an allele may be dominant for an aspect of phenotype. Dominance differs from epistasis, a relationship in which an allele of one gene affects the expression of another allele at a different gene, the concept of dominance was introduced by Gregor Johann Mendel. Though Mendel, The Father of Genetics, first used the term in the 1860s, when bred separately, the plants always produced the same phenotypes, generation after generation. However, when lines with different phenotypes were crossed, one, Mendel did not use the terms gene, allele, phenotype, genotype, homozygote, and heterozygote, all of which were introduced later. He did introduce the notation of capital and lowercase letters for dominant and recessive alleles, respectively, most animals and some plants have paired chromosomes, and are described as diploid. They have two versions of each chromosome, one contributed by the mothers ovum, and the other by the sperm, known as gametes, described as haploid. Each chromosome of a pair is structurally similar to the other. The DNA in each chromosome functions as a series of genes that influence various traits. Thus, each also has a corresponding homologue, which may exist in different versions called alleles
5.
Mutation
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In biology, a mutation is the permanent alteration of the nucleotide sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA or other genetic elements. Mutations may also result from insertion or deletion of segments of DNA due to mobile genetic elements, mutations may or may not produce discernible changes in the observable characteristics of an organism. Mutations play a part in normal and abnormal biological processes including, evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system. The genomes of RNA viruses are based on RNA rather than DNA, the RNA viral genome can be double stranded or single stranded. In some of these viruses replication occurs quickly and there are no mechanisms to check the genome for accuracy and this error-prone process often results in mutations. Mutation can result in different types of change in sequences. Mutations in genes can either have no effect, alter the product of a gene, mutations can also occur in nongenic regions. Mutations can involve the duplication of large sections of DNA, usually through genetic recombination and these duplications are a major source of raw material for evolving new genes, with tens to hundreds of genes duplicated in animal genomes every million years. Most genes belong to larger families of shared ancestry, known as homology. Here, protein domains act as modules, each with a particular and independent function, that can be mixed together to produce genes encoding new proteins with novel properties. For example, the eye uses four genes to make structures that sense light. Another advantage of duplicating a gene is that this increases engineering redundancy, other types of mutation occasionally create new genes from previously noncoding DNA. Changes in chromosome number may involve even larger mutations, where segments of the DNA within chromosomes break and then rearrange. For example, in the Homininae, two fused to produce human chromosome 2, this fusion did not occur in the lineage of the other apes. Sequences of DNA that can move about the genome, such as transposons, make up a fraction of the genetic material of plants and animals. For example, more than a million copies of the Alu sequence are present in the genome. Another effect of these mobile DNA sequences is that when they move within a genome, they can mutate or delete existing genes, nonlethal mutations accumulate within the gene pool and increase the amount of genetic variation. The abundance of some changes within the gene pool can be reduced by natural selection, while other more favorable mutations may accumulate
6.
Starch
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Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants as an energy store and it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets and is contained in large amounts in staple foods such as potatoes, wheat, maize, rice, and cassava. Pure starch is a white, tasteless and odorless powder that is insoluble in water or alcohol. It consists of two types of molecules, the linear and helical amylose and the branched amylopectin, depending on the plant, starch generally contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. Glycogen, the store of animals, is a more branched version of amylopectin. In industry, starch is converted into sugars, for example by malting and it is processed to produce many of the sugars used in processed foods. Dissolving starch in water gives wheatpaste, which can be used as a thickening, stiffening or gluing agent. The biggest industrial non-food use of starch is as an adhesive in the papermaking process, starch can be applied to parts of some garments before ironing, to stiffen them. The word starch is from a Germanic root with the strong, stiff. Amylum for starch is from the Greek αμυλον, amylon which means not ground at a mill, the root amyl is used in biochemistry for several compounds related to starch. Starch grains from the rhizomes of Typha as flour have been identified from grinding stones in Europe dating back to 30,000 years ago, starch grains from sorghum were found on grind stones in caves in Ngalue, Mozambique dating up to 100,000 years ago. Pure extracted wheat starch paste was used in Ancient Egypt possibly to glue papyrus, the extraction of starch is first described in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder around AD 77–79. Romans used it also in cosmetic creams, to powder the hair, persians and Indians used it to make dishes similar to gothumai wheat halva. Rice starch as surface treatment of paper has been used in production in China. In addition to starchy plants consumed directly,66 million tonnes of starch were being produced per year world-wide by 2008. In the EU this was around 8.5 million tonnes, with around 40% being used for applications and 60% for food uses. Most green plants use starch as their energy store, an exception is the family Asteraceae, where starch is replaced by the fructan inulin. In photosynthesis, plants use light energy to produce glucose from carbon dioxide, the glucose is used to make cellulose fibers, the structural component of the plant, or is stored in the form of starch granules, in amyloplasts
7.
Vegetable
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In everyday usage, a vegetable is any part of a plant that is consumed by humans as food as part of a meal. The term vegetable is somewhat arbitrary, and largely defined through culinary and it normally excludes other food derived from plants such as fruits, nuts, and cereal grains, but includes seeds such as pulses. The original meaning of the vegetable, still used in biology, was to describe all types of plant, as in the terms vegetable kingdom. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits, and crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations. China is the largest producer of vegetables and global trade in agricultural products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries, the scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast acreages of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing. Vegetables can be either raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, the word vegetable was first recorded in English in the early 15th century. It comes from Old French, and was applied to all plants. It derives from Medieval Latin vegetabilis growing, flourishing, a change from a Late Latin meaning to be enlivening, quickening. The meaning of vegetable as a plant grown for food was not established until the 18th century, in 1767, the word was specifically used to mean a plant cultivated for food, an edible herb or root. The year 1955 saw the first use of the shortened, slang term veggie, the broadest definition is the words use adjectivally to mean matter of plant origin to distinguish it from animal, meaning matter of animal origin. More specifically, a vegetable may be defined as any plant, part of which is used for food, a secondary meaning then being the edible part of such a plant. A more precise definition is any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, falling outside these definitions are edible fungi and edible seaweed which, although not parts of plants, are often treated as vegetables. In everyday language, the fruit and vegetable are mutually exclusive. Fruit has a precise meaning, being a part that developed from the ovary of a flowering plant. This is considerably different from the words culinary meaning, while peaches, plums, and oranges are fruit in both senses, many items commonly called vegetables, such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes, are botanically fruits. The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893
8.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
9.
Canning
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Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a shelf life ranging from one to five years. A freeze-dried canned product, such as canned dried lentils, could last as long as 30 years in an edible state. In 1974, samples of canned food from the wreck of the Bertrand, although appearance, smell and vitamin content had deteriorated, there was no trace of microbial growth and the 109-year-old food was determined to be still safe to eat. The larger armies of the period required increased and regular supplies of quality food, limited food availability was among the factors limiting military campaigns to the summer and autumn months. In 1809, Nicolas Appert, a French confectioner and brewer, observed that food cooked inside a jar did not spoil unless the seals leaked, Appert was awarded the prize in 1810 by Count Montelivert, a French minister of the interior. The reason for lack of spoilage was unknown at the time, unfortunately for Appert, the factory which he had built with his prize money was razed in 1814 by Allied soldiers when they entered France. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the process was gradually employed in other European countries. Durand did not pursue food canning himself, selling his patent in 1811 to Bryan Donkin and John Hall, Bryan Donkin developed the process of packaging food in sealed airtight cans, made of tinned wrought iron. Initially, the process was slow and labour-intensive, as each large can had to be hand-made. The main market for the food at this stage was the British Army, by 1817 Donkin recorded that he had sold £3000 worth of canned meat in six months. In 1824 Sir William Edward Parry took canned beef and pea soup with him on his voyage to the Arctic in HMS Fury, in 1829, Admiral Sir James Ross also took canned food to the Arctic, as did Sir John Franklin in 1845. Some of his stores were found by the expedition led by Captain Leopold McLintock in 1857. One of these cans was opened in 1939, and was edible and nutritious, throughout the mid-19th century, canned food became a status symbol amongst middle-class households in Europe, being something of a frivolous novelty. Increasing mechanization of the process, coupled with a huge increase in urban populations across Europe. Demand for canned food greatly increased during wars, urban populations in Victorian Britain demanded ever-increasing quantities of cheap, varied, quality food that they could keep at home without having to go shopping daily. In response, companies such as Underwood, Nestlé, Heinz, in particular, Crosse and Blackwell took over the concern of Donkin Hall and Gamble. Shortages of canned food in the British Army in 1917 led to the government issuing cigarettes and amphetamines to soldiers to suppress their appetites, after the war, companies that had supplied military canned food improved the quality of their goods for civilian sale
