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Imagine enjoying a vanilla and chocolate ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Did you know that tasty delight is the result of the Columbian exchange?
That was the movement of people, animals, plants, ideas, and even diseases between Europe and the Americas. It first started when European explorers reached the Americas. Here’s how.
Vanilla and chocolate come from plants that are indigenous, or native, to Mexico. But before European exploration, there were no cows in the Americas to produce cream. There was no sugarcane to provide sugar. Not until the Columbian exchange could all of these ingredients be combined to make your ice cream cone. The Columbian exchange changed the world forever—in good ways and bad.
