Food for Thought

So in my research for my paper I came across a study on European expansionists and how they dealt with the lack of Wheat within the "New World".  Wheat as a major component to the diet as well as the spiritual and philosophical nature of Europeans was absent in the New World.  I was blind to how food could be a reason for oppression of people. But the lack of wheat in the "New World" was unimaginable to the expansionist, and so they planted it where ever they could in place of the "New World" crops such as maize and enslaved the local populations as labor.   Upon finding that the reason for the spread of wheat was due in part by spiritual education disappoints me and I don't understand why.  It should seem obvious its the mentality of "New World" inferiority to Europe in all aspects of life, in which they reasoned justification for enslavement of the local peoples.  It seems that I forget that the foods that I enjoy on a daily basis have history and the prominence of them in my daily life has been built upon years of labor and struggle which continues today.  It reminds me that the food we have access to should be held in reverence with the remembrance of those who struggled to provide it to us.