Characteristics of Some Common Legumes Soybeans and Their Transformations Nuts and Other Oil-Rich Seeds Nut Structures and Qualities The Nutritional Value of Nuts Nut Flavor Handling and Storing Nuts Cooking Nuts Characteristics of Some Common Nuts Characteristics of Other Oil-Rich Seeds Seeds as Food Seeds are our most durable and concentrated foods They’re rugged lifeboats, designed to carry a plant’s offspring to the shore of an uncertain future Tease apart a whole grain, or bean, or nut, and inside you find a tiny embryonic shoot At harvest time that shoot had entered suspended animation, ready to survive months of drought or cold while waiting for the right moment to come back to life The bulk of the tissue that surrounds it is a food supply to nourish this rebirth It’s the distillation of the parent plant’s lifework, its gathering of water and nitrogen and minerals from the soil, carbon from the air, and energy from the sun And as such it’s an invaluable resource for us and other creatures of the animal kingdom who are unable to live on soil and sunlight and air In fact, seeds gave early humans both the nourishment and the inspiration to begin to shape the natural world to their own needs Ten thousand turbulent years of civilization have unfolded from the seed’s pale repose The story began when inhabitants of the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America learned to save some large, easily harvested seeds from wild plants, and sow them in clearings to produce more seeds of a similar kind It appears that agriculture first arose in the highlands of southeastern Turkey, around the upper reaches of the Tigris and ... The bulk of the tissue that surrounds it is a food supply to nourish this rebirth It’s the distillation of the parent plant’s lifework, its gathering of water and nitrogen and minerals from the soil, carbon from the air, and energy... from the soil, carbon from the air, and energy from the sun And as such it’s an invaluable resource for us and other creatures of the animal kingdom who are unable to live on soil and sunlight and air In fact, seeds gave early... humans both the nourishment and the inspiration to begin to shape the natural world to their own needs Ten thousand turbulent years of civilization have unfolded from the seed’s pale repose The story began when inhabitants of the