• History & General Information
• Bamboo
• Wheat
• Rice
• Other Grains
• Links - to information on Grasses

Grasses are the most recently evolved line of flowering plants. There were no grasses in the days of the dinosaurs, only herbs, ferns, palms, cycads and trees. The only flowers dinosaurs might have seen were magnolias, the ancestor of all flowering plants including grasses.

Grasses now cover vast areas of the world. In some areas not because they outcompete other plants but because they are beneficial to man. The Great Plains of the U.S., were artifically created by the Native Americans by burning forests so the buffalo whould have plenty grass for forage. The burning is no longer done except in parts of Canada, so where the plains are not farmed they are reverting to forest.

Grasses range in size from far smaller than lawn grass to giant timber bamboo which tops 40 feet. A few grasses developed concentrated seed heads with a heavy yield of medium to large seeds which made them efficiently harvestable for human and animal food. Humans further developed these by selective breeding to create modern grains. The largest seed heads belong to a grass called corn in the U.S. and maize most other places.

Other than the seeds, few grasses are used for human food because the foliage is generally tough stringy, not particularly flavorful and often toxic. Cows, sheep and goats live happily on grasses by chewing them up and running them through multiple stomachs where bacteria digest the grasses and the animal digests the bacteria.

Amaranth
Amaranth is not a grain but the seed of an herb related to spinach. It is high yield and easily harvested so its tiny seeds are used as if they were grain. Unlike grasses, the leaves are also used for food.

Quinoa
Quinoa, (pronounced keen-wah) like Amaranth is not a grain but the seed of a chenepodium herb related to spinach. It is somewhat larger than amaranth and has a unique cooked texture because the germ curles into a crunchy tail on each grain. Quinoa varies from brown to nearly white, The white is larger and considered the best for eating.

Like amaranth, quinoa was a staple for the pre-columbian population, but in Peru, while amaranth was used farther north. It also shares nutritional properties with amaranth, particularly its nearly complete protien compliment which includes lysine, missing from grains.

Rice -

Wheat - the seed of an annual dry land grass, is, along with rice, one of the two most important food grain crops in the world. It is the most importnat grain in temperate climates and in all areas not wet enough for growing rice.

In recognition of its importance and the number of products that are made from it, we have given wheat it's own page.

Wheat

Sorghum - [Milo, Broom Straw, Durra, Egyptian Millet, Feterita, Guinea Corn, Jowar, Juwar, Kaffir Corn, Shalluo, Sudan Grass, Sorghum bicolor]
Sorghum is a major crop in areas too dry to sustain other grains, particularly India and Africa, There is evidence (disputed) of sorghum cultivation in India, Oman and Yemen 3700 years ago or more. Modern cultivars appear to have been developed in East Africa about 2000 years ago but exactly where has not been determined.

The U.S. is the largest producer (mainly for animal feed and ethanol production) but it is also a mojor crop in India, Nigeria, Mexico and other countries with dry areas. Sorghum flour is used to make a bread called Bhakri in Maharashtra and Karnataka provences of India.

In some areas sorghum replaces barley for production of beer, including by major names with breweries in areas barley doesn't grow well, and is also used for production of "gluten free" beer consumable by coeliac sufferers. In China sorghum is used for production of distilled alcoholic drinks.

In the American South sorghum syrup made from a cultivar called "sweet sorghum" has long been used for pouring over pancakes as maple syrup is used in the north, though that usage is declining.

Sorghum is also the source of "broom corn", the straw from which brooms are made, and is used to make composition board for construction.