this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 31 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The stupid level of processing is...boiling it? Same as rice, people only discover processing it a bit later.

[–] lb_o@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If you think about it then boiling is not that easy.

There is almost no way to boil something until you discover pottery and ceramic, and this is quite advanced tech for many early civilizations.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The Haida on the west coast of Canada put red hot rocks in their canoes to render fish. You underestimate humans ingenuity.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago

Humans are very clever. Sometimes I feel very clever because I have learned so many cool facts and skills with the internet, and then I think about all the knowledge I hold that people of the past managed to figure out from scratch, and it blows my mind

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Wheat doesn't need to be grown in a marsh.

[–] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My understanding is that rice doesn't need to be soaking in water, either, but it helps with the weeds, since rice can survive the water but not other plants

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 6 points 5 days ago

Very cool to learn something new! Thanks for informing me homie.

[–] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Venat0r@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How did people who wiped their ass with a communal sponge on a stick figure out beer?

[–] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Because someone who is starving to death will eat literally anything.

Someone tried rotten grain and got a buzz and then after surviving the famine went back and figured something out.

[–] Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 13 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Taters? Boil'em, mash'em, stick'em in a stew?

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Also freeze drying them first. Ancient taters were poisonous, since they are nightshade. And freeze drying them would reduce the toxins.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You mean "leave a pile of taters out in the open over night"?

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah but if you live high up the Andes it’s basically freeze drying, because of the freezing nights and the high altitude sun during the day.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Exactly what I'm saying! "freeze drying" sounds like a way more involved process than something that just happens on its own if you do nothing.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

True but someone had to figure out the process even if it was by accident. Like the first people who tried the first potato species probably didn’t eat them again because they got sick. Until someone ate a potato (against the knowledge of the time) that was left out of the ground over night.

Which proves Middle Earth was in South America.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

"be wheat" yeah like anyone here has ever been wheat

buncha posers

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 points 6 days ago
[–] Hupf@feddit.org 4 points 6 days ago

Rice is easy. The soy sauce though...

[–] ynthrepic@lemmy.world 114 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Dehulling rice is way harder than processing wheat...

Also eating boiled wheat grains was a thing long before bread was figured out.

You can make bread with rice flour too if that's your thing.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

“Bread” with rice flour, maybe.

My mom has celiac disease and while the options for gluten free bread have gotten a lot better since the 80s she still sneaks a slice of real sourdough because it’s not the same.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Do you know if she's tried Fat Head dough/bread? I'm pretty sure it's gluten free, it was my go-to on keto. Made with mozzarella cheese. It's really, really good.

[–] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 24 points 1 week ago (8 children)

You can all tropical cultures have some form of rice bread. Indians have rice bhakhari, South East Asia has rice paper, rice mixed with wheat in banh mi, Liberia and Sierra Leone have ginger rice bread. Its a fundamentally different bread and requires different complimentary food. If you use it as replacement for wheat bread it will not taste the same. Its like you made wheat pilav and then complained its not the same. Of course it's not the same that's the point.

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[–] CobblerScholar@lemmy.world 98 points 1 week ago

Rice needs very wet and fairly warm conditions to grow whereas wheat is a cool weather crop and doesn't need as much water

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 64 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Wait until you learn about the ridiculous hoops you need to jump through to make cocoa or coffee beans into something palatable, especially compared to ~~hot leaf juice~~ tea.

[–] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ayyyyy teaaa gang rise up.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 35 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Wheat is just fancy grass. People learned how to process wheat before they learned how to wipe their asses with a communal sponge on a stick.

Wheat calories are what unlocked the big brain thinking that first said, "Guys, let's put just ONE sponge on a stick. And share it!"

[–] psud@aussie.zone 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When humanity discovered bread it made their heads and brains smaller. We all need dental work because of bread - our heads are too small for our teeth.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Bread?

Agriculture. Otherwise explain how cultures that cultivate rice or maize or yams where no wheat grows also experienced the same morphological changes.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wheat was the first farmed plant, about 10k years ago, at least the first we can see in the archaeological record. I shouldn't have said "bread" as that was at least hundreds of years later

I'm not sure whether the Nile region invented bread before they exported farming

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago

My friend. 10K years ago humans already occupied Asia, the Americas, and Southern Africa.

None of them had wheat. But the jaw shrinkage theory applies to them.

How would jaws shrink in MesoAmerica when wheat didn't arrive until 500 years ago?

Cultivated corn.

How did jaws shrink in Asia when wheat was not cultivated widely and was not made into bread?

Cultivated rice.

How did jaws shrink in SubSahan Africa where wheat simply can not grow? 100% of bread made in most African nations is made from imported flour.

Cultivated millet, sorghum, rice, and yams.

Then why would groups that don't have bread, and in many cases have only had access to bread for 4 or 5 generations, experience jaw shrinkage thousands of years ago? There's literally billions of people pointing to the fact that is agriculture.

This isn't conspiracy theory stuff. Even the wiki page says it's agriculture.

It's OK to realize you were told wrong by someone else. It's not your fault. It's not an L, it's learning.

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[–] glimse@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah let me just replace these rolling wheat hills with a rice farm. It'd totally work because wheat and rice have the same growing conditions. Dumbass

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Fucken owned 'em

[–] tburkhol@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

wheat has almost twice as much protein. A wheat-fed peasant, you're probably going to be stronger and healthier than a riice-fed peasant.

[–] red_tomato@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

A person probably made some fermented wheat beverage on accident and thought its worth repeating.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Because if you let it sprout a bit, then roast it, then boil it, then let it sit...

Well you get beer.

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