Columbian Exchange
Case Study: Food
Who: Old World and New World
What: Food transferred via the Columbian Exchange When: (Roughly) 1400-1600 Where: Old World to New World and vice versa Why: Food and agricultural techniques where traded through the Columbian exchange due to the high demand for new food sources. |
The Columbian Exchange did more than just transport goods from one area toanother; it changed the scope of the entire world. The Columbian Exchange still affects us till this day. The biggest way it does this is through the foods exchanged. Some of the Foods exchanged were, Corn, Potato, Sweet Potato, Tomato, Chilis, Peanuts, Chocolate, Vanilla, Pineapples, Strawberries, and Avocados. New foods became staples of human diets, and new growing regions.opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine. Many of the foods we eat today did not originate from where they are currently grown but they got to where they are now through the Columbian Exchange. Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no tomatoes in Italy, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no chili peppers in India, and no chocolate in Switzerland.