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The Globalization of Food & Plants

   
 

Food:

 

Where did it come from?

   
   
   
   
   
   

Take a look at your evening meal and what do you see? Common foods that are so much a part of daily sustenance you would hardly suspect that they originally came from another country. But it is true.

Most of the foods that we commonly eat today are the product of globalization. And often a globalization that began centuries before the term came into use. Next time you eat one of the foods highlighted in the following articles imagine what life would be like if that food had never left its home country.

Please click on the links below to learn about the various foods that have made a significant impact in our life today.

 

Spices

   
 

The quest for spices helped pave the way for

 

colonialism and global empires.

   
   
   

 

The Potato

   
 

From a wild tuber to the french fry, the potato has

 

withstood the test of time and traveled the world.

   
   
   

 

Coffee

   
 

First thing in the morning or after dinner, would

 

life be as bright if coffee had never left Ethiopia?

   
   
   

 

The Tomato

   
 

Pizza, salsa, rogan josh, and ketchup: the tomato

 

has adapted to every cuisine and continues to

 

please.

   
   

 

Tea

   
 

That cup of steaming tea in your hand has

 

traveled a long way. The twists and turns taken

 

by tea parallel the early processes of globalization.

   
   

 

Chili

   
 

The chili pepper has been with many cultures

 

for so long, over five hundred years to be

 

exact.

   
   

 

Tobacco

   
 

Cultivated in the Americas long before discovery

 

by Europeans, tobacco spread around the world

 

with its true nature in disguise.

   
   


 
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