The Columbian Exchange, set in motion the widespread transfer of people, plants, animals, diseases, and cultures that greatly affected almost every society on the planet.
The Columbian Exchange of foods richly improved the European diet, not only by improving and diversifying its taste but also, by simply increasing Old World societies' abilities to feed more people. Starvation, which had long limited population growth in Europe and Africa, was largely overcome through the transplantation of New World foods. The colonies the Europeans have established in the New World soon became efficient producers of not only New World crops, but Old World crops as well. As a result, the Columbian Exchange vastly increased the health and wealth of Europeans and their colonists in the Americas.
