Lazarus Cooke wrote:
> In article >, Frogleg
> > wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:22:54 GMT, "Cookie Cutter"
> wrote:
>>
>>My belief (unsubstantiated by research) is that we have a fondness for
>>calorie-dense foods -- fat & sweet -- because plain ol' calories
>>supported life.

A look at paleodiets would substantiate this. Animal fats were
sufficiently prized that bones were cracked to get the marrow. Offal
was eaten, including brains, for that same reason. Ripe fruits in
season were prized and the gathering of honey has been documented in
cave drawings. Watching the behaviors of our closest primate relatives
documents the apparently instinctual attraction of these foods. Chimps
hunt and kill prey between bouts of fruit eating.

>>A carrot is beneficial in terms of fiber and vitamin
>>A, but it doesn't contribute much to keeping the internal fires
>>burning. The Irish potato famine was devastating in part because many
>>people were existing on a diet of potatoes and damned little else.
>>They weren't particularly healthy, but potatoes supplied calories and
>>most vitamins, and could support life for some time with occasional
>>supplements of meat, fat, bread, and other veg.
>
> Sorry, frogleg, I'm not picking a fight (promise) and shall be glad to
> have a beer with you some day but this is totally wrong - in fact the
> opposite of the truth. One of the most interesting points made in
> Leslie Clarkson's book "Feast and Famine: a history of food and
> nutrition in Ireland 1500-1920" is that the pre-famine Irish diet of
> almost nothing but potatoes, (supplemented very occasionally by
> herrings, cabbage, or bacon) was an extremely healthy one, with a very
> good supply of very high-quality protein.

Given that they ate potatoes virtually exclusively and about 3 million
did eat them exclusively, the amount of protein

> The strapping good looks and
> health of Irish peasants were frequently commented on. The one thing it
> was a bit low on was fat (though obviously the herrings and bacon
> supplied this).
>
> In fact the Irish were much worse off nutritionally after the famine
> was over, when they shifted the diet away from the almost exclusive
> potato diet.

The potato was problematic all across Europe. The blight was endemic
in England as well as Ireland. European potato crops had been wiped
out earlier in the century by a different disease caused by the
fusarium fungus. No other culture was as hard-hit as the
subsistence-level Irish farmers. But out of more than 8 million
counted in the census of 1841 (and which was undoubtedly a good deal
less than the actual count in 1846), more than a million starved and
another 1.5 million emigrated. By the census of 1851, the population
was reduced to just over 6 million. Since many lived in remote and
inaccessible places, it is likely that far more people died than has
been estimated.

Ireland is a relatively small island with many rivers. Fish abound all
through and around it. The soil will support root crops of all sorts.
Cabbages and other brassicas will do fine. It's called the Emerald
Isle because it's so green. The gulf stream warms it, it virtually
never snows and I've stood under palm trees in Dublin. There have been
several famines in Ireland between 900 and 1900. There were others in
the early 19th century, all exacerbated by barbaric British
regulations and laws.
[Famine: "The Irish Experience 900-1900: Subsistence Crises and
Famines in Ireland." E. Margaret Crawford (Editor)]

Farmers could grow triple the amount of potatoes as grain on the same
amount of land. A single acre of potatoes could support a family for a
year. About half of Ireland's population depended on potatoes for
subsistence.

"To increase their harvest, farmers came to rely heavily on one
variety, the lumper. While the lumper was among the worst-tasting
types, it was remarkably fertile, with a higher per-acre yield than
other varieties. Economist Cormac O'Grada estimates that on the eve of
the famine, the lumper and one other variety, the cup, accounted for
most of the potato crop. For about 3 million people, potatoes were the
only significant source of food, rarely supplemented by anything else.
[...]
"At the beginning of the 19th century, a Dublin Society survey
recorded at least a dozen varieties of potato cultivated in the county
of Kilkenny alone. Then, adults could still remember when most of the
poor raised oats, barley, or rye, along with beans and other green
vegetables. But according to O'Grada, this diversity had largely
disappeared by the 1840s.
[...]
"Although the potatoes were ruined completely, plenty of food grew in
Ireland that year. Most of it, however, was intended for export to
England. There, it would be sold--at a price higher than most
impoverished Irish could pay."
A wonderful article, "The Irish Potato Famine." Catharina Japikse
[EPA Journal - Fall 1994]
<http://www.epa.gov/history1/topics/perspect/potato.htm>

It would seem that peasants don't choose healthy diets.

> I was myself very surprised by this, I must admit, but
> I've talked to the author about it and he is totally convincing.

One reviewer took this information from the book: "The Irish diet of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was reflective of their cattle
economy: meat and milk products for the gentry and meat scraps, offal
and milk products for the poorer Irish. They had long cultivated
cereals and legumes. Potatoes made their appearance during this time,
but they were meant only to supplement other foods, and were not
intended to be the primary, indeed the only, food source.
[...]
"Clarkson and Crawford examine tea drinking in post-Famine Ireland,
noting that while there was a good deal of regional variation, tea
consumption per capita increased from 0.5 pounds to 2.2 pounds between
the late 1830s and the early 1860s. Tea drinking spread in the 1870s
and the 1880s, so much so that by 1904 the Irish were consuming more
tea than tea drinkers in the British Isles. Not only did the Irish
drink large amounts of tea, but they also drank the best available
tea. The cost of tea and sugar for the tea that they drank very sweet
cost the Irish 20% of their food income in 1904."
"Feast and Famine: Food and Nutrition in Ireland 1500-1920." Maureen
Murphy. Hofstra University.
<http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/murphyM.html>

It would seem that peasants don't choose healthy diets.

>>So how many balanced, nutrition-complete diets have there been in
>>history?
>
> I think most peasant societies develop an extremely healthy diet, and
> unhealthy diets are a feature a few very rich countries.

Peasant societies develop a diet from what's available. Through most
of history, peasants have eked out a rather bare living. That some
developed the notions of eating beans and corn together or that others
found out ways to process otherwise toxic foods says that the breadth
of availablities was narrow. Why be forced to suffer malnutrition
until some soul puts together corn and beans by happy accident if
other, healthier sources are generally available?

Information and educational levels are more significant contributors
to societal health. Even in modern times with (somewhat) greater
access to medical care, peasants, by whatever name the culture uses,
live shorter, more difficult lives. From Pubmed, "Mortality in Asia."
<http://tinyurl.com/yrhgf>
Excerpts: "Generally, rural areas exhibited higher infant mortality
than urban areas. The level of child mortality declines with increases
in the mother's educational level in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka, and Thailand." And "In most countries, particularly in South
Asia, population is expected to increase by 75%, much of it in rural
areas and among poorer socioeconomic groups."

> It can't be a
> coincidence that the US has perhaps both the worst food tastewise and
> nutritionally, until you get to some pretty poor places.

Nonsense. Until you got here, it was reasonable, if certainly
debatable. This generalization that's supposed to cover 300 million
people and their food supplies across every climate and geological
terrain from arctic to desert, mountain to plain, seacoast to inland
is just too broad to credit. This sort of assertion seems to assume
that the U.S. sprang into existence with no antecedents and no new
food notions being continuously introduced. Foods from every nation on
earth can be found here. Food handling ideas from every culture on
earth can be found here. People who brought their recipes, utensils,
methods and preferences are here. If it was healthy back home, it'll
still be healthy here.

In my international travels (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia), I've
found food that was great and food that was bad (quality, not tastes).
It's frankly rather silly to characterize any nation's food as though
it existed homogeneously. There is a great number of regional
cuisines in the U.S. just as there is in every large, settled land mass.

The U.S. has probably the best raw-material food on earth (as well as
some admitted crap, but so does everybody), and with with the
resurgence of significant levels of artisanal food production and
departures from the mainstream agribusiness approach, some of the best
finished foods, as well. The most-processed foods can be found in
Japan and other Asian countries.

Americans have the greatest choice of foods and their nutritional
implications. The greatest breadth of choices is accompanied by very
detailed nutrition labeling. It's a matter of choice. They can choose
the quality levels they want. Clearly, the choices have not been as
wise as could be. But a significant percentage of the American
populace live in rural areas and could be considered modern peasants.

It would seem that peasants don't choose healthy diets. Actually,
educated urban-dwellers seem to choose more wisely.

From Pubmed, "International Conference on nutrition."
<http://tinyurl.com/2bkml>
"WHO scientists reviewed data from 26 developed and 16 developing
countries from the period 1960-89: 20 countries showed increases
ranging up to 160% in death rates from diet-related and
life-style-related causes. The biggest decreases were in Australia,
Canada, Japan, and the USA where education advised people to limit
intakes of fat, saturated fat, and salt as well as to increase
exercise and reduce smoking."

> Interestingly,
> other very rich countries such as Japan and Italy have a very
> well-balanced diet.

Italy is having a plague of obesity *greater* than the U.S., Europe in
general, and Australia. The nation's doctors are now asserting that
Italy has the greatest percentage of obese children of any country.

Japan has done well with their public health issues, but that's
largely because they've modified their traditional diet by reducing
the amount of sodium being consumed and eating a wider diversity of
foods. But an alarm has been raised recently about the increase of fat
in their diet with all the diseases that can result from that condition.

> Certainly when I travel south and east from Italy I'll have to go a
> long long way (In Ethiopia/sudan, the result of war and corruption,
> rather than native choice) before I'll find anything other than a
> delicious, well-balanced diet.

That question of what a "well-balanced diet" is remains open. Research
into the subject has turned up some surprises and that work is ongoing
and will be for a long time. Delicious is in the eye of the beholder.

Developed nations offer their citizens the greatest number of choices
for their food. It doesn't mean they'll choose wisely. Indeed, they
haven't. World-wide. Whether the fault lies in deliberate choices of
nutritionally bad food when better could be purchased, or bad food was
the only food available, humans don't have a good record for healthy
eating until relatively recent times. Attribute it more to mass media
than folk wisdom.

Pastorio