Historical Diets

>>3153071
Generally speaking, you're unlikely to create more "optimal" foods on accident. Unless you're deliberately making foods to be healthy, the fact you didn't evolve alongside the food and diet as a whole makes it less likely you'll be properly adapted to it. In other words, it'll usually be less healthy. This is really just a general or statistical statement, not a rule or anything. It's also hard to determine for certain because of how complex our biology is. Sometimes you just don't see the effects of diet or sometimes it only appears decades down the line.

All that said, people who preach you should only eat foods that could be found 1000 years ago or longer is bullshit, they're giving the whole "natural" aspect of it way too much credit. There's no such thing as unnatural, including GMOs. Natural at best could be a standin to refer to foods we evolved with.

>>3153071
>preservative-laden sugar heavy ones that are pretty consistent across the west
Who eats that shit dude? Why would you want to eat anything other than veg and meat and wholefoods? They heaps cheaper and better

>>3153071
No GMO's, preservatives, pesticides, eostrogen-laden packaging, pollution, processed sugars - sounds pretty healthy to me. Though if you've read Plato, even back then the elite understood that if you restrict meat to the lower classes and give them a primarily grain-based diet, they will be strong enough to work but too weak to revolt.

>>3153181
I always assumed lower classes eating less meat was just a cost-prohibitive thing?

>>3153171
They may well be, but I was trying to go off what it seems like most people in the west eat. I'm sure Roman senators ate quite differently to the plebs, but I was more curious about the 'standard' diet of a period/culture.

>>3153188
I don't know bro, just repeating Plato's ideas.

>>3153192
Grains for the masses, meat for the elite.

>>3153071
Ancient diets were basically meat and bread, with some fruit and vegs for taste (more fruit than vegs).

In fact, vegs and fruit were seen as hard to digest and rather unhealthy, even though some Greek athletes apparently tried a vegan or keto diet, which was seen as unhealthy and unnatural. The ridicule was mostly the same as today.

However, ancient diets were extremely high in calories, 2 pounds of bread and 1 pound of meat per day was seen as normal throughout the ages, for example. And keep in mind people ate this in one or two meals generally, because breakfast wasn't common in many cases.

>>3153227
That's interesting, I never knew that about breakfast. Any idea when eating breakfasts became popular - is it just tied to increased wealth/food surplus?

>>3153227
>vegs and fruit were seen as hard to digest and rather unhealthy
I dont find this very plausible, where did you read it?

Doesn't the effects of diet show more in the later age? Paleo diets and the like are not as good as they are made out to be considering the average lifespan of the people who ate them was so short.

>>3153275
This meme needs to die. Do you think that a bed is the most dangerous piece of furniture, because most people die in bed? Or that the average person has one breast and one testicle? Lifespans weren't short just because the average was 30.

>>3153275
>Paleo diets and the like are not as good
BS. A grain-heavy diet is what will shorten your life. Veg and Meat makes you Elite!

>>3153071
/ck/ here:

In trying to recreate medieval and early modern foods --

Compared to modern processed foods: yes. Almost anything is, though.

Compared to modern home-cooking: not too much. Many modern dishes are just evolved forms of historical foods. Old precolumbian recipes use some weird ingredients here and there, but thats really about it.

two big things about medieval food that need to be recognized from a modern standpoint:

1) christian fast days were monday wednesday and friday outside of lent, and 40 days a year, the whole week is meatless.

2) medieval work required far higher calorie counts than modern work.

>>3153227
Uh that's wrong meat other than fish was not common for commoners or serfs anywhere in Europe

>>3153275
We are only just now returning to normal human heights (if you use paleo as baseline). Agricultural revolution saw human height fall to its lowest. Paleo diet is quite healthy and nutritious.

>>3155326
Meat was very common among lower classes in Europe they just didn't eat it every day and it was a bit more seasonal. People in the colder parts of Europe ate a lot more meat in the winter for example than they did throughout the rest of the year because it's harder to take care of animals in the winter so they'd slaughter their excess livestock and preserve the meat.

>>3156302
Yes it was seasonal (not common), but it was not 1lb daily