Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Has nothing to do with "keeping at bay", but there was, (and is) a good reason to keep bay leaves around.
They repel bugs. A few bay leaves in a bag of grain keeps the bugs away. I suspect they might keep mice away too, though my experiments along those lines have been too sporadic to give valid evidence either way.

This leads to an interesting what if: Since the really big attraction of white flour is its shelf life (doesn't have enough nutrients to support insect life), what if people had just put bay leaves into their stored grain? Would the only effect be that they were more healthy, lived longer, had more babies and therefore reached population maximum (and thus, collapse) earlier?
Or would the increased level of collective intelligence caused by all the brains of entire civilizations being better fed have made it possible for them to see the approaching limit, and take steps to avoid it?