McKenna+Pearson

Life without Lucky Charms  Without the Columbian Exchange our lives as we know it wouldn’t even be close to the same. The population of our world wouldn’t even near what it is today, not to mention our eating habits and food would be much different.  Imagine, waking up to a beautiful, sunny day in America. Your stomach rumbles saying its breakfast time. You saunter to the kitchen being faced with a choice consisting of a small variety of tropical fruit, peanuts or pecans, some potatoes, and turkey. Everyone faces the same decision; however, the typical cereal and milk that most of us resort to would no longer be an option. The wheat to make the cereal and the cows that produce the milk are all in the old world. That means no Lucky Charms for the children of the western hemisphere. While, you might be thinking how lucky the people of the eastern hemisphere are in the old world think again.  The old world seems to have everything at this time; they have people, religion, government, crops, animals, even buildings. They also have many other things the new world hasn’t had to deal with. They have famine, disease, lots of people and not enough space for them all, and crops that just can’t survive long enough to serve their purpose. They have people dying left and right from diseases, the tradition of burying the dead and having a nice ceremony was unheard of. The death toll was so high people were throwing the dead onto the street to be picked up like they were trash. Once they were picked up what could they do with them? You could smell death in the air. All of this changed when the new world was discovered.  The Columbian Exchange all began after Columbus reached the Americas. The old and new world benefited from each other. The new world had lots of open land, trees, and new plants. The land was vast and amazed the explorers; they were so used to their cramped lives that the possibility of having space all of their own was amazing! The use of this land would make how the people of the old world lived much less disgusting. The trees were a huge deal in the old world, trees were used for everything. In the old world they were starting to have a shortage of trees. The new plants found in the new world included the potato. The potato was very important for the population of Ireland. With the potato Ireland thrived, increasing the amount of people in the world today.  The old world gave the new world many plants and animals. Our farms would seem incomplete without the chickens, cattle, and horses that are typical. But we wouldn’t have any of that if it weren’t for the old world we wouldn’t have wheat either. If you haven’t noticed a majority of our food has a form of wheat in it especially if you’re trying to be healthy. Nevertheless, we can thank the old world for immunity to many diseases that we had never before contracted such as smallpox, influenza, and the bubonic plague. “That that does not kill you only makes you stronger.” With our newfound immunity our population was made stronger and we only have the old world to thank for that.  The Columbian Exchange was a fantastic addition to our history, not only did it help to increase the population of our world but it also technically expanded it as well. Our populations grew stronger and our children now enjoy bowls of Lucky Charms for breakfast and the old world no longer has to worry about infectious, life threatening diseases wiping out their entire population.