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For most of human history calories in was way more important than nutrition since we could barely even manage that. Just the fact that you can buy fresh fruit a

For most of human history calories in was way more important than nutrition since we could barely even manage that. Just the fact that you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables in the middle of a harsh winter is an incredible feat of logistics and technology that has taken a century to develop.

brabel 13d ago
A century? I guess you mean all of human history to develop.
steveBK123 13d ago
> buy fresh fruit and vegetables in the middle of a harsh winter This is extremely recent, most people even in my age range (40-50) recall growing up on frozen/canned in the off season for the most part. The idea of getting year round good fresh produce flown in from other climates is regionally a very recent thing. Peru for example exports 40x more blueberries to the US today than they did even a decade ago.
AngryData 13d ago
It was more of a storage problem than a production problem. Plenty of grains and foods people grew throughout known history were more than capable of providing all the calories someone would want or need without crazy effort. The problem is keeping that food good for an entire year, or more if there is unexpected bad growing weather. One person, even using entirely hand tools and no draft animals, could grow 10x more food than they need in a year. But people didn't do that because they knew they had no way of keeping food around for that long, all it would do is attract pests and/or mold and rot after enough time.
- bobthepanda 13d ago
  It was both storage and transport. The development of international shipping logistics, improved infrastructure and refrigeration were all needed to make this happen. You can grow the food and you can store the food but that doesn’t do much good if locally you make too much and someone somewhere else is starving but you can’t get from point A to point B, and it has to get there not only unspoiled but intact, or at least undamaged enough to eat.
  - quickthrowman 13d ago
    You’re correct, there needs to be refrigerated trailers, train cars, and ships along with refrigerated warehouses from source to destination. Transportation and storage. Before vapor-compression refrigeration, there was the ice trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
    - bobthepanda 12d ago
      Even that is a bit of an advanced step. We didn’t have paved roads or railroads until relatively recently, and so a good chunk of goods were being damaged on rickety horse drawn wagons on bumpy, muddy dirt roads.

brabel 13d ago

A century? I guess you mean all of human history to develop.

steveBK123 13d ago

> buy fresh fruit and vegetables in the middle of a harsh winter This is extremely recent, most people even in my age range (40-50) recall growing up on frozen/canned in the off season for the most part. The idea of getting year round good fresh produce flown in from other climates is regionally a very recent thing. Peru for example exports 40x more blueberries to the US today than they did even a decade ago.

AngryData 13d ago

It was more of a storage problem than a production problem. Plenty of grains and foods people grew throughout known history were more than capable of providing all the calories someone would want or need without crazy effort. The problem is keeping that food good for an entire year, or more if there is unexpected bad growing weather. One person, even using entirely hand tools and no draft animals, could grow 10x more food than they need in a year. But people didn't do that because they knew they had no way of keeping food around for that long, all it would do is attract pests and/or mold and rot after enough time.

bobthepanda 13d ago
It was both storage and transport. The development of international shipping logistics, improved infrastructure and refrigeration were all needed to make this happen. You can grow the food and you can store the food but that doesn’t do much good if locally you make too much and someone somewhere else is starving but you can’t get from point A to point B, and it has to get there not only unspoiled but intact, or at least undamaged enough to eat.
- quickthrowman 13d ago
  You’re correct, there needs to be refrigerated trailers, train cars, and ships along with refrigerated warehouses from source to destination. Transportation and storage. Before vapor-compression refrigeration, there was the ice trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
  - bobthepanda 12d ago
    Even that is a bit of an advanced step. We didn’t have paved roads or railroads until relatively recently, and so a good chunk of goods were being damaged on rickety horse drawn wagons on bumpy, muddy dirt roads.