Bread and alcohol

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Corresponding Wikipedia articles: Bread, Alcoholic beverage


Comparison of two crop families
Legumes Cereals (grasses)
Protein content 20-30% with a set of the amino acids comparable to a protein of meat and fish 10-15% with a limited set of the amino acids
Carbohydrate content 30-55% 60-70%
Presence of the vitamin C almost every type corn and the sprouted grains
Calcium content 1,0-3,5 g/kg 0,5-1,0 g/kg
Iron content 90-120 mg/kg 30-50 mg/kg
Processing easy extraction from the pods difficult production of the grains and the flour

The preference is given to the cereals for a long time despite all obvious benefits of the legumes. The cereals have only one advantage: a high content of the carbohydrates at the expense of proteins. The most part of the cereal carbohydrates is a starch, a taseless product, which is perfectly suited as a feedstock for the pure ethanol. The cereals are used for the mass production of the cheap alcohol beverages instead of a wine and a cognac, because they contain a minimum of the unnecessary substances.

Cereal Origin Beverage
barley ? beer, malt whisky
rye ? whisky, vodka
wheat Ethiopia, India
corn Mexico american whiskey
sugarcane tropics rum
rice tropics, subtropics rice wine (sake)
millet India, China baijiu
bamboo tropics, subtropics bambooze

Lentil, pea, beans, soybean etc. were gradually replaced by the cereal crops to simplify the agriculture and to provide food and drink for the mass of people. The legumes were one of the basic food in the ancient times:

Crop Area Mythology
lentil southwestern Eurasia Mess of pottage” in exchange for the birthright (Genesis 25:29-34) sickens
pea northern Eurasia Russian "Tsar Pea" (the time when there were no kings, no bread and no alcohol)
soybean China soybeans appeared along with the first emperors
phaseolus Southern America

The boiled barley, rye and wheat are unsuitable for food, although the barley porridge is quite edible. Thus, the bread became a basic food for the peoples of the north-western Eurasia, where the rice and the millet are not the major crops. The bread is a product with a complicated technology, which requires some professional activities: production of the flour of the various degrees of purity; making of the dough with the various additives; baking in some device. Whole this job with associated mills, bakeries, etc. produces a product with a relatively low content of the proteins, vitamins and minerals. The white (wheat) bread is most harmful for the health.

The yeasts are the fungi for an alcoholic fermentation, which naturally occur on the grape berries. The alcoholic fermentation is used also for the dough, which fills the bread with nothing but the air.

The bread has a sacred significance in Judaism and Christianity:

Bread and alcohol is a religious food of the Christians and their modern descendants.


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