Lentils were domesticated at the same time as wheat and barley, but are rarely mentioned. This article explains how lentils have become a cornerstone of human society and their potential as a plant-based protein**.
Lentils have played an important role in silent human history, although they are not as widely known as wheat and barley. While excavating an ancient site in Iraqi Kurdistan, archaeologists have discovered an easy way to distinguish between the mud walls of a house and the interior space: the mud that has filled the room for thousands of years is packed with lentils!
In 2017, archaeologist Mary Shepperson wrote in an article: "The 30 centimeters of filling at the bottom of the room are all black and consist of lentils; Most of the area is almost entirely 100% lentils. And this isn't the only large lentil cellar found in the Middle East. In 1983, more than a million lentils were unearthed at a site in Israel, which dates back about 10,000 years.
Wheat and barley are often considered to be among the first plants to be domesticated at the dawn of Fertile Crescent agriculture, but lentils are also among them. Hugo R Oliveira, a geneticist who studies small legumes at the University of Algarve in Portugal, says the humble legumes have a long history of living with humans. They are a microcosm of the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculture by people around the world. "In all these areas, there are grains and legumes," Oliveira said. For example, he said: corn and beans in Central America; West Africa has sorghum and cowpea; East Asia has rice and soybeans; In the Middle East, wheat, barley and lentils.
Oliveira explains that cereals are rich in carbohydrates and provide energy quickly, while legumes are rich in protein, which makes up about 25% of the calories of lentils. This combination can provide the basis for the establishment of complex societies and has played an important role many times in human history. In the ancient Middle East, lentils were one of the main proteins**, far more important in people's diets than meat or animal products.
This is still important in today's world," says Oliveira, "and in developed countries, people tend to think of meat as the main protein**. But in low- and middle-income countries, plant-based proteins are still the mainstay**. The same may well have been true of the ancient Egyptians; The people who built the pyramids fed on lentils, peas, and chickpeas.
To understand how lentils were transformed from wild plants to the building blocks of civilization, Oliveira and colleagues sequenced the DNA of domesticated lentils preserved in a gene bank, as well as numerous wild relatives. They found that today's crops are derived from a single wild species, the oriental lentil (lens orientalis), and that the domestication process took place in the Fertile Crescent, but they are unable to pinpoint exactly where the lentils were first grown.
What's more, the DNA information they obtain may help researchers identify the genetic basis for traits such as resistance to heat and disease.
Plant breeders are increasingly turning to wild plant relatives to obtain these traits. Recently, potato breeders in Peru have bred a new type of potato that has acquired genes from wild potatoes that are resistant to late blight, a devastating disease. Morocco has also just introduced a drought-resistant wheat, which is also the result of hybridization, and comes at the right time, as the country has experienced six years of drought and reservoir levels have dropped to historic lows.
With people being urged to replace meat with plant-based foods to reduce climate impact – with the UK's Climate Change Commission recommending a 20% reduction in meat and dairy consumption by 2030 – lentils have the potential to take centre stage again.
Between 2017 and 2021, lentil production in Europe increased significantly, but demand remained high and imports were needed to fill the gap, according to the CBI, a Dutch agency. Even now there are farmers who grow lentils in the UK. In the past, lentils were not grown commercially in the UK, in part because of the manpower involved in harvesting.
However, as the global climate becomes increasingly changing, farmers and breeders will face unprecedented challenges. "Climate change is so fast," says Oliveira, "we're going to have to speed up the pace of plant breeding." ”
He hopes to introduce traits of wild relatives of lentils, such as disease resistance and the ability to survive in harsh environments, into domesticated varieties. "Lentils are very tough," he said, "and you can find them in Scandinavia, but also in the oases of Yemen." The potential of this crop has not been fully explored, and there is a great deal of untapped biodiversity. ”
Perhaps once again we will fill our cupboards with this tiny bean, and thousands of years from now, archaeologists will once again marvel at the rich heritage we have left behind.