Simulating the temporal-spatial distribution of areas suitable for crops is an important part of analyzing the effects of climate change on crop growth, reducing the vulnerability of crop growth, and assessing the adaptability of crop growth to climate change. This study selected climate factors that affect the growth of wheat, maize and rice, and it combined surface soil and ground elevation factors as environment variables, as well as data from agricultural observation stations as species variables. The MaxEnt ecological model was used to identify suitable areas for these three crops during the period of 1953-2012. The areas suitable for the three crops were analyzed to determine the temporal-spatial distribution of major food crops and to estimate the difference in crop growth adaptability under climate change. The results showed the following: \mathrm{①} The response to climate change of the areas suitable for food crops could be ranked from strongest to weakest as follows: wheat, rice, and maize. \mathrm{②} On the same space-time scale, for the growth of wheat and rice, the southern agricultural regions, mountainous areas and plateaus were relatively unsuitable for a wider variety of crops than the northern agricultural regions, plains and basins. \mathrm{③} The adaptability of wheat increased in the major agricultural regions slightly. The adaptability of maize increased in the northern agricultural regions and decreased in the southern agricultural regions, respectively. The adaptability of rice was stable in the southern agricultural regions, and it decreased in the Huang-Huai-Hai region and increased in the northeastern region. \mathrm{④} Over 60 years, the ability of the major food crops to adapt to climate change increased in the northeast region, Gansu-Xinjiang region, Southwest region and Loess Plateau region, but the adaptability of major food crops decreased in the Huang-Huai-Hai region and the Mid-and-Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River. \mathrm{⑤} The suitable areas of maize and rice were significantly correlated with planting areas and yields, respectively, which provided feasibility for simulating the distribution of suitable areas on maize and rice in different climate scenarios in the future. The suitable area of wheat is not significantly related to the planting area and yield. In the future, we will take more factors to model the suitable area of wheat accurately.