There were several effects of changing the emphasis toward agricultural products as in the case of the Mississippian Culture. While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes in different parts of the world, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. Consider these three factors:
There was a down-side to agriculture that has been found in many societies across the world. It was not always a negative, but the possibility is always there.
There is a second major problem with development of a reliance upon agriculture. Population densities for hunter-gatherers were limited. As people began to rely upon agriculture as a way of life, population size and subsequently population density rose. Keep is mind that population growth is exponential. Try giving yourself a penny on the first day of the month. Double that to two pennies on the second day; double it again on the third day to four pennies. Continue to double the amount you received each day and see how much money you would give yourself after 30 days. This exercise exemplifies population growth and the way it works when we speak in terms of exponential growth rates. Farmers found themselves faced with this problem. Also consider the need for larger family size to help out on the farm. It is not accidental that Midwestern farming families were generally very large.
There were implications of growth in population. This relates to a concept known as scalar stress in Anthropology. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing class elite emerge. Skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae dating to about 1,500 B.C. showed evidence that the elite was better fed than commoners. This kind of evidence has been found elsewhere.
There is a second and more indirect impact of having a growing elite structure needed to exercise social control over larger numbers of people. In the case of a Mississippian site known as Dr. Dickson's Mound, one possible reason that Mississippian populations were dramatically impacted by disease and malnutrition could stem back to the reasons noted above. However, there could be a second reason. In the case of Mississippian culture, the need to support the elite with trade items and other markers of elite status could have cost too much in terms of food resources. In this case, the need for trade driven by an ideology could have led to a shortage of food for commoners at Dr. Dickson's Mound as the elite continues to trade extra amounts of surplus. This could have led to a depletion of the food base at the site impacting the masses rather than the elite in a direct way.
Consider the following analogy. If we were to take the last 100,000 years a place it in the context of a 24 hour day, we would find that agriculture became a part of the human story at 11:54 p.m. It is only in the last 6 minutes of our day that famine and circumscription have plagued humans. As for a standard of living, hunter-gatherers have more free time, less emphasis on material culture, and live in societies where social status is unthinkable.