Greentext

Rice requires hours just to filter out all the stones from it.

Wheat is easier to grow and requires less water. The first farmers in the Middle East became farmers almost acidentally. When they transported the wheat, the dropped crop started growing more and closer to where they were processing it. Eventually some of them decided they would rather grow the wheat than being part of a nomadic tribe. This will eventually lead to a population boom where women would have children every year rather than every four years.

Boiled wheat is perfectly edible, actually. Tasty? Not really, but I didn't grow up on it and we're extremely spoilt compared to prehistoric peoples. Stuff like boiled barley kernels (AFAIK you can't really make bread with barley) was still a relatively common dish 1-200 hundred years ago in my parts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groat_(grain)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_barley

Sir and/or Madam,

Have you heard the good word about maize (corn)? 🌽

Anon is not thinking enough about beer

You can boil wheat too. Ancient peoples used to make porridge

Rice needs just as much processing. Do you think the rice you buy in the store is what it's like in the field?

Be hooman, eat much seed. Seed good. Wheat like seed. Wheat good. Rock smash seed, easy eat seed.

Rain make smash seed taste funny. Fire make rain smash seed tastey. Society.

Wheat doesn't actually require all that much. Soak it in water, and it becomes gruel. Let gruel sit around for awhile, the liquid becomes a rudimentary ale. Boil off the liquid, you have a rudimentary bread. Want to make it easier to eat? Grind it before you add the water.

Every other use is an evolution of those basic concepts.

You can't grow rice where there isn't a proper water supply so much so that your field is basically a swamp until it's time to harvest. Meanwhile wheat and barley doesn't need much water to cultivate.

The number of people who have no clue how much processing goes into making rice edible is hilarious.

In California, native Americans made acorn porridge. They collected the acorns, shelled and roasted them, ground it into a flour, then leached it because it's full of bitter tannins, and then they can cook the leached acorn meal into a porridge. It is crazy and multiple steps to get there. Mind blowing stuff.

One guy can grow and harvest a wheat field large enough to feed his family, but rice requires a lot of community organization to grow.

Chaffing it, and then grinding it and adding water aren't exactly rocket science. Also you didn't have any smartphones to keep you from being bored.

It's pretty simple, really. Rice doesn't grow everywhere.

This phenomenon is even stronger with (most types of) Maize (excluding sweet corn). It requires heavy processing to be turned into glucose sirup or anything resembling edible food. By default, the grains are extremely durable and very difficult to digest.

But this is essentially what protects it from insects and fungus. Because the grains are so hard to digest by default, they can only be eaten by humans who have the tools to heavily process them before eating; for everyone else it's essentially uninteresting as a food source and that prevents mold and insects.

We have tried to grind, dry, ferment, bake, broil, boil, and fry everything on the face of the earth. Countless times. Humans have had the same brainpower for ages, just not the same knowledge base.

wheat makes beer

beer yeast and wheat makes bread

wheat made pasta

wheat grows well in colder climates.

Rice makes terrible bread. Grind me up some more of that fancy grass please.

Wheat is a more modern staple than you might imagine. Millet was more widespread than rice or wheat for much of Eurasia.

The ignorance around rice is what gets me on this one. It's almost troll level.

I often wondered this about potatoes. Wild potatoes are extremely poisonous, so who went, the last time we ate one of those we all got sick and a few people died.

Let's cultivate them. I'm sure in just a few thousand years we can turn it into something useful. Of course until then it's kind of just wasted effort but our children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children will thank us.