Nearly every plant we cultivate for food, medicine, textiles, shelter and fuel begins life as a seed. Seeds have been an essential food for humanity since before the advent of agriculture. Many products we use every day are made or derived from seeds. Yet how often do we think of a grain of rice, a walnut or a black bean as something that could become the next generation of the plant that produced it? Nestled in a matrix of highly concentrated nutrition and surrounded by a complex protective coating, each seed has the capacity to wait for just the right time to germinate, initiating a new cycle of growth.

The genesis of modern civilization is deeply connected to the use of seeds. It's no mistake that we use the word "heirloom" in regard to some of our most special and valued seeds today. My great-grandparents sewed seeds into the hems of their clothing alongside what little valuables they had to ensure they'd have a supply of familiar food and medicine upon leaving their homeland.

No wonder we imbue seeds with such enormous metaphorical significance. To plant the seed of almost anything -- be it literally a seed in the ground or, less tangibly, the seed of an idea, a project or a movement -- connotes a world of potential, shared possibility and hope. Seeds connect us to the past in the form of knowledge, culture and culinary and medicinal traditions, even as they carry within themselves keys to the future.

Grains, legumes and nuts
Three types of seeds familiar to most of us as foods are grains, legumes and nuts.

Grains are mainly members of the grass family, and their carbohydrate-rich seeds -- or whole grains -- can be cooked and eaten as such, or milled into cereals, ground into flour for baking or fermented into alcoholic beverages. The word "cereal" comes from the name of the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres, which itself is derived from an ancient word meaning "to grow." The Romans' 5,000-year history is notable for the development of concentrated populations of people that grew up around early grain farms to become the first premodern cultures.

From the Latin word "legere," meaning "to gather," comes our modern term for the bean: legume. Among the oldest of cultivated plants, well over 10,000 species of beans have provided humans with a rich source of vegetable protein: up to four times the amount found in most grains. Beautiful, versatile and nutritious, beans can be used fresh, dried for long-term storage and even sprouted in the dead of winter and eaten like a vegetable. Beans are known to reduce unhealthy cholesterol, balance blood sugar, supply a rich variety of vitamins, antioxidants and fiber and, thus, are linked to lowered incidences of many serious illnesses. The very things that provide the protective and colorful coatings of these and many seeds are, in fact, the prized antioxidants that play such a vital role in the defenses of our own bodies.

Nuts are quite possibly the oldest of food plants, in some cases coming from trees with lineages in excess of 60 million years. Nuts are generally the richest in oils of all the seeds, though some legumes (like peanuts and soy) and grains (like corn) are also high in fats. Yet despite their high oil content, nuts are known to reduce the incidence of obesity, heart disease and diabetes among people who eat them regularly.

The changing role of man
For millennia, people have patiently observed plants and collected seeds to ensure their next generation of crops would carry on the best qualities of taste, nutrition and resilience to environmental stresses.

Because science allows man to become an actual engineer of genetic evolution -- as opposed to merely a guide in the process of natural selection -- we have reached an unprecedented moment in natural history. The patenting of life forms and the centralized control of seed supplies have perhaps offered some food production advantages, but at great expense to the farmers who grow most of the world's food. The time-honored tradition of collecting, sharing and replanting one's own seeds has even become, in some instances, a punishable crime.

Ordinary people are working hard to ensure that everyone is allowed the right to grow traditional foods in traditional ways on their own land. People like Vandana Shiva of the Navdanya foundation in India and organizations like Seed Savers Exchange are dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds, foods and farming techniques and fighting for the rights of small farmers worldwide.

Plant a seed. Grow the future.