This was my thought too -- at least about Paleo diet proponents rejecting grains.
IMHO these early people were smart enough to work out ways to eat things that were available to them. They probably had cooking with heat, boiling in water, grinding with stone, and probably worked out using salted water for preservation, and kept the spoiled food that had random yeast that tasted good and used it for culture.
Rice is a soft grain and can be eaten whole. Grains like wheat are HARD and need grinding to be edible. The hard grains keep well, so there was a big incentive to work out how to use them. A tribe that got it right probably had quite an advantage.
They're edible with your teeth when young/fresh....
The quality of grains that made them staples is that they could be dried/hardened. That way they keep all winter, can be traded, etc.
For an everyday example, think of beans. We sometimes eat them fresh/soft as vegetables (green beans or edamame). More often they're dried, stored, traded on commodity markets and then re-softened to be eaten as soy cheese or chili con carne.
"They're edible with your teeth when young/fresh..."
No, I do mean the ripe ones. I am a bit into survival food and know the differences - but as I said, only of the grains I tried so far. I could chew them with no big problems.
I'm confused. The uncooked rice I buy in the store is harder than the wheat grains I occasionally eat from a field. (It takes a while to chew and makes a glue-like substance that is quite tasty when you're hungry.) Is this a new development?
Hard grains presumably are protected against bugs and so could be grown/stored without being eaten (as much) by other creatures - giving the advantage to tool users who can smash them open.
IMHO these early people were smart enough to work out ways to eat things that were available to them. They probably had cooking with heat, boiling in water, grinding with stone, and probably worked out using salted water for preservation, and kept the spoiled food that had random yeast that tasted good and used it for culture.
Rice is a soft grain and can be eaten whole. Grains like wheat are HARD and need grinding to be edible. The hard grains keep well, so there was a big incentive to work out how to use them. A tribe that got it right probably had quite an advantage.
The movie "10,000" works on this idea.