Cereals

Cereals, grains used for food mostly as breadstuffs, or ground into flour or meal. They are mostly grasses, the chief being wheat, barley, oats, rye, and the millets. With them may be classed buckwheat, which is not a grass, and maize and rice, which are largely eaten in an unground condition. The cereal grains, so called from the Roman goddess Ceres, form the staple food of more than four-fifths of the human race.