During the Basketmaker period, people became dependent on domesticated farm crops for most of their food.

Early in the period, they grew corn and squash. Later, in about A.D. 500, they started growing beans, too.

Beans were an important addition to the Pueblo diet, because beans eaten at the same time as corn provide a complete protein.

Once dried, both corn and beans could be stored for a long time. Dried corn was ground into cornmeal, which could be cooked in different ways.

People during the Basketmaker period continued to eat wild fruits, nuts, greens (leaves), and seeds, but they didn't eat as many of these foods as they had before. Some of the wild plants were weeds that grew in farm fields. So people could weed their fields and collect nutritious wild plants at the same time!

To get their meat, people during this time hunted deer, elk, bighorn sheep, rabbits, and rodents.