how adequate were peoples' diets in the past?

yuppies

I think I remember reading before that around the time of the French Revolution, the average man consumed an average of 1400 or 1600 calories a day (forget which). British men consumed about 1800 I think. Would these people have lived in a state of constant hunger? I know that they grew up shorter as a result.
Did the average daily calorie consumption throughout history (prior to the last 100 years) ever reach levels where people weren't hungry all the time?

paky

i think the history of diet is a fascinating topic. i'm sure if there was enough research put into it it would answer a lot of problems we face today. ive yet to come across a book that covers the topic.

yuppies

paky wrote: »

i think the history of diet is a fascinating topic. i'm sure if there was enough research put into it it would answer a lot of problems we face today. ive yet to come across a book that covers the topic.

Yes, I find it perhaps the most fascinating aspect of history and yet I've never seen a book on it! I see historical paintings and the first thing i wonder is how did they sustained their bodies and carry about their lives on what was, supposedly, according to conventional wisdom, a diet lacking in meat, calories, fat, vitamins etc. for most of human history. Like were they in a state of perpetual longing for these foods or what?
Also, apparently for centuries people only drank beer? So when i see paintings from the 1500s and 1600s the first thing I imagine is how dehydrated they must have constantly been and the headaches they must have had!

JuliusCaesar

'Small beer' had a low alcohol content and was chiefly a way of sterilising water. In the Far East, they sterilised their water by boiling it - and making tea - which is why we in the West are genetically more able to cope with alcohol.

There's lots on food in history - google or google scholar will throw up lots of links, depending on what you're interested in, from the encyclopaedic History of Food to short overviews to the odd recipe. It's coming up with relevant search terms that's difficult, if you want to avoid all the modern fad reducing diets!

Capt'n Midnight

looking at seeds / pollen / bones at a site you can work out the diet and climate
climate means certain plants won't grow, lots of grass means less trees and so on

Hunter gatherers had good diets, even the settled ones

Then at the start of farming it went down hill
Women were engaged in the litterly back breaking work of kneeling down grinding grain, - skeleton showing damage to back, limbs and toes - just to get empty calories from nutritionally poor foodstuffs, and damage to teeth from bits of grindstone


during the middle ages IIRC the main source of protein was smoked kippers / picked herring / salted cod and other fish because farm animals were just to valuable to eat and dairy products / meat went off anyway before refrigeration. Cod fisheries in Newfoundland were well under way by 1504

lots of wildlife was eaten too out of necessity, stuff we don't eat anymore because it's too small or doesn't taste as nice a chicken or too much work to catch and prepare

on the other hand stuff that are now considered delicacies like oysters and turtles were much more common, lower population of humans and higher population of animals made the relative availability much higher , especially when you remember that few areas were polluted out of it. Salmon was used as fertilizer


so until recent times when you could distribute food via canal / railways the average person could only afford local food


now bananas can be cheaper than carrots
but corn is heavily subsidised in the US , other grains are here
vitamins have to be added to cereals , including bread

This all distorts the food market, at one point recently Germans were burning grain in wood stoves because it was cheaper than wood pellets.

yuppies

Interesting answers. I remember reading before that agriculture actually resulted in more miserable conditions for humanity when they gradually adopted it, due to the nutritionally-defunct nature of the grains they were eating, the huge increase in hours spent working (hunter gathers are only estimated to have worked like 8 hours a week, I read) and for the huge susceptability to disease that larger popultaions in sedentary groups have.

I remember hearing before about some hunter-gatherer tribe where some of the men would risk death climbing to the top of very high trees to procure honey because it was so valuable! The subjective experience they would have from eating a perfectly-cooked medium-rare fillet steak with mashed spuds, pepper sauce, chips, mushrooms and a pint of coke would probably render them catatonic!

Cailleachdubh

It's also worth noting that parasite infestation would have been relatively common in many populations and that some parasitic worms can severely strip the body of nutrients, even causing anaemia in some cases.

Anaemia, scurvy and other metabolic disorders are not infrequently found in the course of skeletal analysis. It is thought that children were often more vulnerable to nutritional deficiency in many populations as the most nutritionally-rich portions would be given to the adult men of the family.

p

paky wrote: »

i think the history of diet is a fascinating topic. i'm sure if there was enough research put into it it would answer a lot of problems we face today. ive yet to come across a book that covers the topic.

That's a big assumption. 30 seconds of searching on amazon revealed quite a few books & articles. I'm sure there's huge amount of research on the subject.

Here's a starting point for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Diet-Its-Origin-Evolution/dp/0897897366/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1334496687&sr=8-9
http://www.amazon.com/CHOOSING-NATURAL-LOOKING-Nutrition-ebook/dp/B004JN11Z2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334496687&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/DIETARY-SYSTEMS-HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE-Encyclopedia/dp/B001S58V2K/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&qid=1334496708&sr=8-30

Ostrom

The diet of the 19th century Irish labourer was adaquate in many respects. As long as mixed farming ensured a regular diet of milk / buttermilk and potato, its only defect was a lack of Vitamins A and D.

Estimates suggest a typical labourer consumed around 10-12 pounds of potato per day, which was more than sufficient to meet protein, fat and carbohydrate requirements when consumed with a sufficient quantity of milk. Amongst workhouse occupants between 1849 and 1852, there was a substantial increase in opthalmia, due to their Vitamin A deficient diet of Indian meal, which largely eliminated milk from their diet.

Cormac O' Grada reported clinometric data in his 'Ireland: A New Economic History'* which suggest that the Irish compared well with their European counterparts on height and weight.

* I think it was this, but may have been one of his papers - apologies I dont have it to hand. I believe there may have been some issues with the data also, as it was collected largely from army recruits if I remember

Capt'n Midnight

Cailleachdubh wrote: »

It is thought that children were often more vulnerable to nutritional deficiency in many populations as the most nutritionally-rich portions would be given to the adult men of the family.

This is the whole boycott Nestle campaign.

mother buys milk power to feed the newborn, this means less money for good food for older kids. Also unless the water used with the milk power is clean can cause problems