[gregwebs]

> Why wouldn't ancient people have eaten wheat berries, boiling (like in a stew) seems like the easiest way to prepare wheat or other grain like barley.

You can probably boil a cup of them and eat them and be fine. But you can find the answer to the question by eating 1000 calories of wheat berries and seeing what happens. It's going to be difficult to digest since we don't have a ruminant digestive tract. Making bread helps further break down the wheat so that it is more digestible. Bread making originally used slow fermentation (instead of quick rising yeast) to maximize this process.

[Johnny555]

Why would I eat 1000 calories of any food? I wouldn't eat 14 slices of bread or 1.5 lbs of chicken breasts either. But I do eat normal quantities of boiled grains pretty regularly in stews or on a salad.

[sidpatil]

It's likely that the ancient people you mentioned were physical laborers. They would need the calories.

[Johnny555]

But you don't think they had more than one food source? And if they really did subsist mostly on boiled grains, wouldn't their body get used to it?