On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:47:12 -0000, "ahem" >
wrote:

>
>"Frogleg" > wrote

>> people tend to disparage 'low class' items and
>> favor the rare and expensive. 'White' (refined flour) bread was an
>> upper-class treat (see 'Heidi') Meat has often been a prized and rare
>> addition to the diet. Yet low-class diets...
>> seem, by today's
>> standards, a healthier diet than a tableful of roasts and sweets, as
>> described in many medieval feasts.
>> How many pre-20tth
>> century diets were 'healthy' by contemporary analysis?
>>
>> My belief (unsubstantiated by research) is that we have a fondness for
>> calorie-dense foods -- fat & sweet -- because plain ol' calories
>> supported life.
>>
>> So how many balanced, nutrition-complete diets have there been in
>> history?

>What about diets from the Far East regions (coastal China, Vietnam, Myanmar
>etc etc) where there were according to a number of contemporary reports,
>meals of rice (not polished, generally), vegetables and fish; some accounts
>of African diets - as far as I can recall - from again coastal regions; the
>diets from the 'cradle of civilisation' - the 'Fertile Crescent', etc
>
>Have some reading material at home - will find it if you're interested.

This is kind of what I meant. There *must* be healthy (balanced?)
diets through history that sustained life adequately . Rice, veg, &
fish sounds good to me. Maybe my question would have been better
framed as 'unbalanced diet.' I haven't done a great deal of reading on
the subject, but medieval upper-class menus seem awfully dependent on
meat and sweets. A good deal of extended lifespan today, I believe,
has to do with adequate nutrition. People can *survive* on very
limited diets, but not thrive. 'Angela's Ashes' about a poor Irish
family mentions feeding babies with sugar-water when milk was
unavailable/expensive. Supplying calories, but not the minerals,
protein and vitamins necessary for health.

The caveman (and his family) was mostly after enough calories to
support life. It doesn't matter much if you eat a carrot and have
enough vitamin A to keep your vision good when that's *all* you have
to eat. In some sense, we have gone to the opposite corner -- a $1
fast food burger is 650 calories -- a bunch of broccoli on sale this
week is $2. Few calories not a 'meal' but useful nonetheless.

So how many historical, common diets were 'balanced'?