The Columbian Exchange: The Impact on Food

The Columbian exchange changed the way we eat because now we have way more food possibilities. The new world and the old world food can now be combined to make even more possibilities. It changed the way we live in the aspect that it spread diseases. There is a lot of cereal in my house, without the Columbian exchange, perhaps that wouldn’t be the case because a lot of cereal is derived from corn. Nutrition wise it can go either way (being healthy or not healthy). It all depends how one uses the food combination. I don’t believe the planet could support that many people with out the Columbian Exchange.

Reason being is because what if we only had a select group of food, and out of the select group of food (that probably would be that big) some of it goes into a famine. We would then lose a large selection of food, and with 6 billion people to feed, it wouldn’t work out. The Columbian Exchange does complicate the way I look at food and what “culture” it comes from. The best example is the Italian one. Original Italian food wouldn’t have tomato, but because of the C. E it now does. And typically that is a stereotype associated with Italian food.

As for Ireland, I do associate potatoes with it, but I know without the C. E Ireland wouldn’t even have potatoes. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without the New America food. Pretty much everything on that list is thanksgiving. From the new world food, it’d be hard to live without cranberries and chocolate. From the Old World broccoli, apples, bananas.  I think the Columbian exchange does continue today. One example is diseases. Some of the diseases that occurred spread to other people because of the C. E. The spread of agriculture also continues! This also helps our population to keep growing.