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Grain

February 15, 2024

This article is about the seeds grown for food. For other uses, see Grain (disambiguation).

A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption.[1] A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes.

Various food grains at a market in India.

After being harvested, dry grains are more durable than other staple foods, such as starchy fruits (plantains, breadfruit, etc.) and tubers (sweet potatoes, cassava, and more). This durability has made grains well suited to industrial agriculture, since they can be mechanically harvested, transported by rail or ship, stored for long periods in silos, and milled for flour or pressed for oil. Thus, the grain market is a major global commodity market that includes crops such as maize, rice, soybeans, wheat and other grains.

Grains and cereal edit

Grains and cereal are synonymous with caryopses, the fruits of the grass family. In agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble caryopses. For example, amaranth is sold as "grain amaranth", and amaranth products may be described as "whole grains". The pre-Hispanic civilizations of the Andes had grain-based food systems, but at higher elevations none of the grains was a cereal. All three grains native to the Andes (kaniwa, kiwicha, and quinoa) are broad-leafed plants rather than grasses such as corn, rice, and wheat.[2]

Classification edit

 
Illustration of a wheat kernel, its composition and the nutritional values of its parts.

Cereal grains edit

This section is an excerpt from Cereal.[edit]
For the food, see Breakfast cereal. For other uses, see Grain (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Serial.
 
Harvesting a cereal with a combine harvester accompanied by a tractor and trailer.
 
Cereal grains: (top) pearl millet, rice, barley
(middle) sorghum, maize, oats
(bottom) millet, wheat, rye, triticale

A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat and quinoa are pseudocereals. Most cereals are annuals, producing one crop from each planting, though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial. Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn, becoming dormant in the winter, and harvested in spring or early summer; spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer. The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility, Ceres.

Cereals were domesticated in the Neolithic, some 8,000 years ago. Wheat and barley were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent; rice was domesticated in East Asia, and sorghum and millet were domesticated in West Africa. In the 20th century, cereal productivity was greatly increased by the Green Revolution. This increase in production has accompanied a growing international trade, with some countries producing large portions of the cereal supply for other countries.

Cereals provide food eaten directly as whole grains, usually cooked, or they are ground to flour and made into bread, porridge, and other products. Cereals have a high starch content, enabling them to be fermented into alcoholic drinks such as beer. Cereal farming has a substantial environmental impact, and is often produced in high-intensity monocultures. The environmental harms can be mitigated by sustainable practices which reduce the impact on soil and improve biodiversity, such as no-till farming and intercropping.

Warm-season cereals edit

 
Cereal grain seeds clockwise from top-left: wheat, spelt, oat, barley.

Cool-season cereals edit

 
Barley
 
Rye grains
 
Rice grains by the IRRI

Pseudocereal grains edit

 
Buckwheat

Starchy grains from broadleaf (dicot) plant families:

Pulses edit

 
Lentil

Pulses or grain legumes, members of the pea family, have a higher protein content than most other plant foods, at around 20%, while soybeans have as much as 35%. As is the case with all other whole plant foods, pulses also contain carbohydrates and fat. Common pulses include:

Oilseeds edit

Oilseed grains are grown primarily for the extraction of their edible oil. Vegetable oils provide dietary energy and some essential fatty acids.[3] They are also used as fuel and lubricants.[4]

Mustard family edit

 
Rapeseed

Aster family edit

 
Sunflower seeds

Other families edit

Ancient grains edit

This section is an excerpt from Ancient grains.[edit]
 
Wild cereals and other wild grasses in northern Israel

Ancient grains is a marketing term used to describe a category of grains and pseudocereals that are purported to have been minimally changed by selective breeding over recent millennia, as opposed to more widespread cereals such as corn, rice and modern varieties of wheat, which are the product of thousands of years of selective breeding. Ancient grains are often marketed as being more nutritious than modern grains, though their health benefits over modern varieties have been disputed by some nutritionists.[5][6]

Ancient grains include varieties of wheat: spelt, Khorasan wheat (Kamut), einkorn, and emmer; the grains millet, barley, teff, oats, and sorghum; and the pseudocereals quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, and chia.[5][6][7][8][9][10] Some authors even consider bulgur and freekeh to be ancient grains,[11] even though they are usually made from ordinary wheat. Modern wheat is a hybrid descendant of three wheat species considered to be ancient grains: spelt, einkorn, and emmer.[6][7]

Historical importance edit

Because grains are small, hard and dry, they can be stored, measured, and transported more readily than can other kinds of food crops such as fresh fruits, roots and tubers. The development of grain agriculture allowed excess food to be produced and stored easily which could have led to the creation of the first temporary settlements and the division of society into classes.[12]

This assumption that grain agriculture led to early settlements and social stratification has been challenged by James Scott in his book Against the Grain.[13] He argues that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to settled agrarian communities was not a voluntary choice driven by the benefits of increased food production due to the long storage potential of grains, but rather that the shift towards settlements was a coerced transformation imposed by dominant members of a society seeking to expand control over labor and resources.

Trade edit

This section is an excerpt from Grain trade.[edit]

The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and other food grains. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other agricultural products. Healthy grain supply and trade is important to many societies, providing a caloric base for most food systems as well as important role in animal feed for animal agriculture.

The grain trade is as old as agricultural settlement, identified in many of the early cultures that adopted sedentary farming. Major societal changes have been directly connected to the grain trade, such as the fall of the Roman Empire. From the early modern period onward, grain trade has been an important part of colonial expansion and international power dynamics. The geopolitical dominance of countries like Australia, the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union during the 20th century was connected with their status as grain surplus countries.

More recently, international commodity markets have been an important part of the dynamics of food systems and grain pricing. Speculation, as well as other compounding production and supply factors leading up to the 2007-2008 financial crises, created rapid inflation of grain prices during the 2007–2008 world food price crisis. More recently, the dominance of Ukraine and Russia in grain markets such as wheat meant that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused increased fears of a global food crises in 2022. Changes to agriculture caused by climate change are expected to have cascading effects on global grain markets.[14][15][16][17]

Occupational safety and health edit

Those who handle grain at grain facilities may encounter numerous occupational hazards and exposures. Risks include grain entrapment, where workers are submerged in the grain and unable to remove themselves;[18] explosions caused by fine particles of grain dust,[19] and falls.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Babcock, P. G., ed. 1976. Webster's Third New Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Co.
  2. ^ Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation. Office of International Affairs, National Academies of the. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. 1989. p. 24. doi:10.17226/1398. ISBN 978-0-309-04264-2.
  3. ^ Lean, M.E.J. (2006). Fox and Cameron's Food Science, Nutrition & Health, 7th Edition. CRC Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-4441-1337-2.
  4. ^ Salunkhe, D. K. (1992-02-29). World Oilseeds. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9780442001124.
  5. ^ a b Conis, Elena (19 February 2011). "Ancient grains: The best thing since sliced bread?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  6. ^ a b c Joanna Jolly (16 December 2014). "Why do Americans love ancient grains?". BBC News. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  7. ^ a b Clark, Melissa (13 March 2015). "Know Your Heirloom and Ancient Grains". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  8. ^ Dan Charles (8 December 2014). "'Ancient Grains' Go From Fringe Food To New Cheerios Variety : The Salt". NPR. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  9. ^ Vara, Vauhini (24 October 2014). "Why We're Willing to Pay More for Cereals with Ancient Grains". The New Yorker. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  10. ^ Zevnik, Neil (7 January 2014). "Ancient Grains: Everything Old Is New Again". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
  11. ^ Charlie Fox, Freekeh Recipes: A Guide to Cooking with this Ancient Grain, 2020
  12. ^ Wessel, T. (1984). "The Agricultural Foundations of Civilization". Journal of Agriculture and Human Values. 1 (2): 9–12.
  13. ^ Scott, James (2017). Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300240214.
  14. ^ Pei, Qing; Zhang, David Dian; Xu, Jingjing (August 2014). "Price responses of grain market under climate change in pre-industrial Western Europe by ARX modelling". 2014 4th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH): 811–817. doi:10.5220/0005025208110817. ISBN 978-989-758-038-3. S2CID 8045747.
  15. ^ "Climate Change Is Likely to Devastate the Global Food Supply". Time. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  16. ^ "CLIMATE CHANGE LINKED TO GLOBAL RISE IN FOOD PRICES – Climate Change". Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  17. ^ Lustgarten, Abrahm (2020-12-16). "How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  18. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions About Flowing Grain Entrapment, Grain Rescue and Strategies, and Grain Entrapment Prevention Measures" (PDF). Agricultural Safety and Health Program, Purdue University. April 2011. p. 1. Retrieved November 4, 2012.
  19. ^ Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "Combustible Dust in Industry: Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Fire and Explosions". Safety and Health Information Bulletin. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved 29 October 2013.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grain.
 
Look up grain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Grain

February 15, 2024
grain, this, article, about, seeds, grown, food, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find,. This article is about the seeds grown for food For other uses see Grain disambiguation This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Grain news newspapers books scholar JSTOR June 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message A grain is a small hard dry fruit caryopsis with or without an attached hull layer harvested for human or animal consumption 1 A grain crop is a grain producing plant The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes Various food grains at a market in India After being harvested dry grains are more durable than other staple foods such as starchy fruits plantains breadfruit etc and tubers sweet potatoes cassava and more This durability has made grains well suited to industrial agriculture since they can be mechanically harvested transported by rail or ship stored for long periods in silos and milled for flour or pressed for oil Thus the grain market is a major global commodity market that includes crops such as maize rice soybeans wheat and other grains Contents 1 Grains and cereal 2 Classification 2 1 Cereal grains 2 1 1 Warm season cereals 2 1 2 Cool season cereals 2 2 Pseudocereal grains 2 3 Pulses 2 4 Oilseeds 2 4 1 Mustard family 2 4 2 Aster family 2 4 3 Other families 2 5 Ancient grains 3 Historical importance 4 Trade 5 Occupational safety and health 6 See also 7 References 8 External linksGrains and cereal editGrains and cereal are synonymous with caryopses the fruits of the grass family In agronomy and commerce seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble caryopses For example amaranth is sold as grain amaranth and amaranth products may be described as whole grains The pre Hispanic civilizations of the Andes had grain based food systems but at higher elevations none of the grains was a cereal All three grains native to the Andes kaniwa kiwicha and quinoa are broad leafed plants rather than grasses such as corn rice and wheat 2 Classification edit nbsp Illustration of a wheat kernel its composition and the nutritional values of its parts Cereal grains edit This section is an excerpt from Cereal edit For the food see Breakfast cereal For other uses see Grain disambiguation Not to be confused with Serial nbsp Harvesting a cereal with a combine harvester accompanied by a tractor and trailer nbsp Cereal grains top pearl millet rice barley middle sorghum maize oats bottom millet wheat rye triticaleA cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain Cereals are the world s largest crops and are therefore staple foods They include rice wheat rye oats barley millet and maize Edible grains from other plant families such as buckwheat and quinoa are pseudocereals Most cereals are annuals producing one crop from each planting though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn becoming dormant in the winter and harvested in spring or early summer spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility Ceres Cereals were domesticated in the Neolithic some 8 000 years ago Wheat and barley were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent rice was domesticated in East Asia and sorghum and millet were domesticated in West Africa In the 20th century cereal productivity was greatly increased by the Green Revolution This increase in production has accompanied a growing international trade with some countries producing large portions of the cereal supply for other countries Cereals provide food eaten directly as whole grains usually cooked or they are ground to flour and made into bread porridge and other products Cereals have a high starch content enabling them to be fermented into alcoholic drinks such as beer Cereal farming has a substantial environmental impact and is often produced in high intensity monocultures The environmental harms can be mitigated by sustainable practices which reduce the impact on soil and improve biodiversity such as no till farming and intercropping Warm season cereals edit nbsp Cereal grain seeds clockwise from top left wheat spelt oat barley finger millet fonio foxtail millet Japanese millet Job s tears kodo millet maize corn millet pearl millet proso millet sorghumCool season cereals edit nbsp Barley nbsp Rye grains nbsp Rice grains by the IRRIbarley oats rice rye spelt teff triticale wheat wild ricePseudocereal grains edit nbsp BuckwheatStarchy grains from broadleaf dicot plant families amaranth Amaranth family also called kiwicha buckwheat Smartweed family chia Mint family quinoa Amaranth family formerly classified as Goosefoot family kaniwaPulses edit nbsp LentilPulses or grain legumes members of the pea family have a higher protein content than most other plant foods at around 20 while soybeans have as much as 35 As is the case with all other whole plant foods pulses also contain carbohydrates and fat Common pulses include chickpeas common beans common peas garden peas fava beans lentils lima beans lupins mung beans peanuts pigeon peas runner beans soybeansOilseeds edit Oilseed grains are grown primarily for the extraction of their edible oil Vegetable oils provide dietary energy and some essential fatty acids 3 They are also used as fuel and lubricants 4 Mustard family edit nbsp Rapeseedblack mustard India mustard rapeseed including canola Aster family edit nbsp Sunflower seedssafflower sunflower seedOther families edit flax seed Flax family hemp seed Hemp family poppy seed Poppy family Ancient grains edit This section is an excerpt from Ancient grains edit nbsp Wild cereals and other wild grasses in northern IsraelAncient grains is a marketing term used to describe a category of grains and pseudocereals that are purported to have been minimally changed by selective breeding over recent millennia as opposed to more widespread cereals such as corn rice and modern varieties of wheat which are the product of thousands of years of selective breeding Ancient grains are often marketed as being more nutritious than modern grains though their health benefits over modern varieties have been disputed by some nutritionists 5 6 Ancient grains include varieties of wheat spelt Khorasan wheat Kamut einkorn and emmer the grains millet barley teff oats and sorghum and the pseudocereals quinoa amaranth buckwheat and chia 5 6 7 8 9 10 Some authors even consider bulgur and freekeh to be ancient grains 11 even though they are usually made from ordinary wheat Modern wheat is a hybrid descendant of three wheat species considered to be ancient grains spelt einkorn and emmer 6 7 Historical importance editBecause grains are small hard and dry they can be stored measured and transported more readily than can other kinds of food crops such as fresh fruits roots and tubers The development of grain agriculture allowed excess food to be produced and stored easily which could have led to the creation of the first temporary settlements and the division of society into classes 12 This assumption that grain agriculture led to early settlements and social stratification has been challenged by James Scott in his book Against the Grain 13 He argues that the transition from hunter gatherer societies to settled agrarian communities was not a voluntary choice driven by the benefits of increased food production due to the long storage potential of grains but rather that the shift towards settlements was a coerced transformation imposed by dominant members of a society seeking to expand control over labor and resources Trade editThis section is an excerpt from Grain trade edit The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals such as wheat barley maize and rice and other food grains Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage unlike other agricultural products Healthy grain supply and trade is important to many societies providing a caloric base for most food systems as well as important role in animal feed for animal agriculture The grain trade is as old as agricultural settlement identified in many of the early cultures that adopted sedentary farming Major societal changes have been directly connected to the grain trade such as the fall of the Roman Empire From the early modern period onward grain trade has been an important part of colonial expansion and international power dynamics The geopolitical dominance of countries like Australia the United States Canada and the Soviet Union during the 20th century was connected with their status as grain surplus countries More recently international commodity markets have been an important part of the dynamics of food systems and grain pricing Speculation as well as other compounding production and supply factors leading up to the 2007 2008 financial crises created rapid inflation of grain prices during the 2007 2008 world food price crisis More recently the dominance of Ukraine and Russia in grain markets such as wheat meant that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused increased fears of a global food crises in 2022 Changes to agriculture caused by climate change are expected to have cascading effects on global grain markets 14 15 16 17 Occupational safety and health editThose who handle grain at grain facilities may encounter numerous occupational hazards and exposures Risks include grain entrapment where workers are submerged in the grain and unable to remove themselves 18 explosions caused by fine particles of grain dust 19 and falls See also edit nbsp Food portalAncient grains Cereals Domestication Grain drying Legume List of dried foods List of Five grains in world culture Mycoestrogen Perennial grain Staple foods Vegetable fats and oils GlutenReferences edit Babcock P G ed 1976 Webster s Third New Dictionary Springfield Massachusetts G amp C Merriam Co Lost Crops of the Incas Little Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation Office of International Affairs National Academies of the Washington D C National Academy Press 1989 p 24 doi 10 17226 1398 ISBN 978 0 309 04264 2 Lean M E J 2006 Fox and Cameron s Food Science Nutrition amp Health 7th Edition CRC Press p 49 ISBN 978 1 4441 1337 2 Salunkhe D K 1992 02 29 World Oilseeds Springer Science amp Business Media ISBN 9780442001124 a b Conis Elena 19 February 2011 Ancient grains The best thing since sliced bread Los Angeles Times Retrieved 22 October 2015 a b c Joanna Jolly 16 December 2014 Why do Americans love ancient grains BBC News Retrieved 19 October 2015 a b Clark Melissa 13 March 2015 Know Your Heirloom and Ancient Grains The New York Times Retrieved 22 October 2015 Dan Charles 8 December 2014 Ancient Grains Go From Fringe Food To New Cheerios Variety The Salt NPR Retrieved 22 October 2015 Vara Vauhini 24 October 2014 Why We re Willing to Pay More for Cereals with Ancient Grains The New Yorker Retrieved 22 October 2015 Zevnik Neil 7 January 2014 Ancient Grains Everything Old Is New Again Huffingtonpost com Retrieved 13 November 2015 Charlie Fox Freekeh Recipes A Guide to Cooking with this Ancient Grain 2020 Wessel T 1984 The Agricultural Foundations of Civilization Journal of Agriculture and Human Values 1 2 9 12 Scott James 2017 Against the Grain A Deep History of the Earliest States Yale University Press ISBN 9780300240214 Pei Qing Zhang David Dian Xu Jingjing August 2014 Price responses of grain market under climate change in pre industrial Western Europe by ARX modelling 2014 4th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies Technologies and Applications SIMULTECH 811 817 doi 10 5220 0005025208110817 ISBN 978 989 758 038 3 S2CID 8045747 Climate Change Is Likely to Devastate the Global Food Supply Time Retrieved 2022 04 02 CLIMATE CHANGE LINKED TO GLOBAL RISE IN FOOD PRICES Climate Change Retrieved 2022 04 02 Lustgarten Abrahm 2020 12 16 How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2022 04 02 Frequently Asked Questions About Flowing Grain Entrapment Grain Rescue and Strategies and Grain Entrapment Prevention Measures PDF Agricultural Safety and Health Program Purdue University April 2011 p 1 Retrieved November 4 2012 Occupational Safety and Health Administration Combustible Dust in Industry Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Fire and Explosions Safety and Health Information Bulletin United States Department of Labor Retrieved 29 October 2013 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grain nbsp Look up grain in Wiktionary the free dictionary nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Grain Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Grain amp oldid 1205500916, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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