Sunday, November 23, 2014

VERY poor grasp of history...

I've heard it on a couple of different occasions -- that Victorian-age people by-and-large ate basically a paleo diet....  ALERT!  ALERT!  There are pod-people among us!  ;-)  Anybody who truly thinks this is obviously from a parallel universe ... or is profoundly ignorant of history!

The "Victorian Era" was defined by the rule of Queen Victoria of England (etc) -- from 1837 to 1901 -- during the course of a century when HUGE changes were taking place in the "developed" world.  For a little perspective, steam-engine trains were in their earliest years when she ascended the throne, and automobiles were in a comparable condition when she was lowered into the tomb.  When this long period started, Mexico owned a gigantic portion of what is now the USA, and by the end of that time, we had wrested (i was tempted to say "stolen") it from them.

What was eaten during that period of time was broadly different, depending upon where you were and how much money you had.  What i can state with confidence and conviction is, the poorer you were, the more HORRIBLY neolithic your food was.  And in our age of plenteous variety, most people would be appalled to observe how repetitious was the diet of ordinary people of that era.

In our day of cheap chicken, i'm sure it will surprise a lot of people that poultry was considered a "special" luxury meal -- that's why in the US, turkey is the traditional main-dish of Thanksgiving and Christmas -- one certainly couldn't afford it more regularly.  150 years ago, it was far more economical for a city-dweller to acquire beef ... and to my surprise, colonial-era Americans ate more veal than mature beef as well.  Of course -- the cows were valuable for their dairy products and you don't want too many bulls around, because they're dangerous.  A superfluous number of male calves become veal, not steers.

Once while visiting Britain, i acquired a wonderful little cookbook, written by one of V's chefs, entitled "A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes" (1861)   (As a reenactor portraying an Irish immigrant at the time of the Civil War, these recipes are PERFECT for describing to our audiences the "affordable" diet of the times.)  I wish it were arranged as most cookbooks are, by type of dish, but no -- Oatmeal Porridge is printed just before Ox-Cheek Soup.  :-P  Mr Francatelli most specifically urges Victoria's subjects to learn to bake their own bread, in order to save money and have a much more wholesome product than their local baker supplies.

If you lived in the American southwest during the period in question, and you weren't a well-to-do rancher, you didn't dream of eating outside the Neolithic template --  you probably ate very little besides beans and corn, as did your ancestors for thousands of years, too.  There just isn't very much GAME out there!  Why do you think they started herding so early -- without sheep/goats and artificially-irrigated fields of the "holy trinity" of corn, beans and squash, the great pueblo civilizations could never have begun.  Prehistoric populations were all hunter-gatherers?  HA!

Don't assume that the non-desert people of the West were all living on game, either.  Comanches and their competitors may be poster-children for "all-meat" diets, but they weren't 100% typical, by any means.  And if your imagination shows you visions of westward-expansionists shooting a deer for dinner every day from the seat of his covered wagon, i've got more bad news -- the great western trails were often great swaths of trampled, hard, grassless earth a mile wide!  People had to go huge distances out of their way to get water and grass for their animals in some places -- can you imagine antelope grazing within the range of a rifle?  No, not even rabbits.

Another valuable reprinted book in my collection is "The Prairie Traveler" (1859), written by an expert on the subject of westward trails (not the quality of the moron who led the Donner Party on an experimental route).  What he tells emigrants to bring are flour (by which he means wheat OR corn), bacon, beef on the hoof, coffee, sugar, leavening, salt, and pepper.  He lists also what a certain "North American Arctic exploration party" carried with them (successfully, i gather) -- pemmican, hard biscuit, preserved potatoes, flour, tea, sugar, and "grease or alcohol for cooking."  He also recommends antiscorbutics, and praises desiccated vegetables.  ...Civil War soldiers preferred to pronounce that word, "desecrated."  ;-)

So when people claim that "Victorians" were eating a paleo diet, exactly WHICH Victorians are we talking about?  Some African tribe that missionaries were pestering?  Uncontacted South Sea islanders?  Cuz it sure wasn't Victoria's OWN SUBJECTS, nor those in most of her empire, nor the North American descendants of previous British monarchs.

30 comments:

  1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
    How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died
    What the Mid-Victorians Ate

    Mid-Victorian working class men and women consumed between 50% and 100% more calories than we do, but because they were so much more physically active than we are today, overweight and obesity hardly existed at the working class level. The working class diet was rich in seasonal vegetables and fruits; with consumption of fruits and vegetables amounting to eight to 10 portions per day. This far exceeds the current national average of around three portions, and the government-recommended five-a-day. The mid-Victorian diet also contained significantly more nuts, legumes, whole grains and omega three fatty acids than the modern diet. Much meat consumed was offal, which has a higher micronutrient density than the skeletal muscle we largely eat today. Prior to the introduction of margarine in the late Victorian period, dietary intakes of trans fats were very low. There were very few processed foods and therefore little hidden salt, other than in bread (Recipes suggest that significantly less salt was then added to meals. At table, salt was not usually sprinkled on a serving but piled at the side of the plate, allowing consumers to regulate consumption in a more controlled way.). The mid-Victorian diet had a lower calorific density and a higher nutrient density than ours. It had a higher content of fibre (including fermentable fibre), and a lower sodium/potassium ratio. In short, the mid-Victorians ate a diet that was not only considerably better than our own, but also far in advance of current government recommendations. It more closely resembles the Mediterranean diet, proven in many studies to promote health and longevity; or even the ‘Paleolithic diet’ recommended by some nutritionists

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    1. as my historic discussions over the last three years point out, "Victorians" is too broad a descriptor to have ANY meaning. SOME "Victorians" ate lots of fruits and vegetables, others did not.

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  2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2408622/
    An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part one: public health lessons from the mid-Victorian working class diet

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2442131/
    An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part two: realities of the mid-Victorian diet

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2587384/
    An unsuitable and degraded diet? Part three: Victorian consumption patterns and their health benefits

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    1. NOTE: it's essential to read more than the abstract on the first study you linked -- i'm not through the whole paper yet, but it's becoming obvious that their conclusions are based on a very short period of time and excludes the urban poor!

      ...it's very interesting, though -- thanks for the links.

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    2. OKAY -- these writers just ruined it all....

      "In short, the majority of even the poorest mid-Victorians lived well, despite all their disadvantages and what we would now consider discomforts. Those that survived the perils of childbirth and infancy lived as long as we do, and were healthier while they were alive their prolonged good health was due to their high levels of physical activity, and as a consequence, how and what they ate. We could learn a good deal from them."

      ^^^ this statement is full of shit.

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  3. Charles, it is easy to romanticize what you never experienced, and how Victorian lived looks more healthy and natural than modern life. I commented many times before about my experience of life in a society free from an industrial food because socialistic economy was not efficient in the creating surplus, and we even experiences shortages of food. I was in a much better position than many because I lived in the capital of Russia - Moscow, and my grandfather was a prominent functioner of the ruling party.
    I guess, Russians were more like Victorians in their diet than like modern Westerners. Many relayed mostly on bread, gruels and especially potatoes with fermented or/and root vegetables with ample amounts of sunflower oil. Fish was very affordable. We ate a lot of fermented and root vegetables during most of the year, most people collected wild mushrooms in a season, dried it and made different preserves out of it . I liked the example of veal being more affordable because grown bulls were a problem. We had the delicious affordable very young male roosters which were eliminated from young hens destined for an eggs production. Everybody knew how to cook we walked a lot, a car was a luxury only few could afford, many city folks had small primitive country houses close to a city where they grew some produce..
    I have to add - such diet kept most of the population not fat, especially children, but many middle-aged people were overweight, and all old were skinny-fat. Tooth problems were the norm, cardiovascular deceases, cancer and diabetes were common, My mother -in-low grew up in a country, her parents grew agricultural produce and cattle, she doesn't remember her parents with teeth.

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    1. It's always so interesting when you tell us about life in Russia, Galina! :-)

      We see the romanticizing of history a lot in the reenacting world -- so many people imagine they'd like living in another time and place, but they don't realize it was just "everyday life" to the people who were there! For myself, living short periods of time without modern amenities just teaches me how lucky we are to have them, and how we take them for granted.

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    2. Thank you, Tess. I lived in an experiment designed to build a just Utopian society, and it lasted only a short time from a historical point of view, but it gave me some insides into the life without a capitalism and modern conveniences. When capitalism is blamed for all modern ills, I sigh and think that money is the best regulator so far, even when the imperfect one. The alternative to market forces is a bureaucracy. We can fight what we don't like only by changing our demand.
      I am sure you found your hobby very beneficial. It is empowering to have the skills others don't have. We all grew too dependent on modern conveniences, and life can be unpredictable.

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  4. This little piggy had roast beef,This little piggy had none,

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  5. ""In short, the majority of even the poorest mid-Victorians lived well"

    Don't make me larf !

    . Esther Copley's Cottage Cookery (1849) suggests the poverty of the rural diet, for her recipes were for potato pie, stirabout, stewed ox-cheek, and mutton chitterlings. In Wiltshire, admittedly one of the poorer counties, the Poor Law Commission found that the standard fare consisted of bread, butter, potatoes, beer, and tea, with some bacon for those earning higher wages. . . .If the rural poor ate birds then the urban poor ate pairings of tripe, slink (prematurely born calves), or broxy (diseased sheep). Edgar Wallace recollects working-class families along the Old Kent Road shopping for 'tainted' pieces of meat and 'those odds and ends of meat, the by-products of the butchering business.' Sheep's heads at 3d each and American bacon at between 4d and 6d a pound (half the price of the native product) were too expensive for the irregularly-employed casual labourer to have frequently. In Macclesfield 23 per cent of the silk workers and in Coventry 17 per cent of the labourers had never tasted meat. Stocking weavers, shoe makers, needle women and silk weavers ate less than one pound of meat a week and less than eight ounces of fats. . . .

    http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health8.html

    The majority of the poor ate a very limited and poor diet in the UK before and during WW2 only after the war did the situation begin to improve for the working classes. Due to the war food rationing was still in place for my early years. Now we are going back in time with hundreds of thousands relying on free food (not much fresh I suspect) from charities. The poor these days are getting plenty of calories, but are suffering from malnutrition, hence the huge rise in diet related chronic disease.

    Kind regards Eddie

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    1. thanks for the extra documentation, Eddie! it really looks like the authors of that paper were relying on information designed to look at England through rose-colored glasses....

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  6. The return of rickets: Victorian disease on the rise due to poor diet and lack of exercise.

    Modern children' s lifestyles are putting them at risk of developing rickets, doctors have warned. The bone disease, which was the scourge of Victorian Britain, is making a comeback because poor diets and the decline in outdoor play have led to a vitamin D deficiency.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1244988/Victorian-disease-rickets-rise-poor-diet-lack-exercise-doctors-warn.html

    http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/dietwh.html

    http://www.parkfieldict.co.uk/infant/victorians/life.html




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    1. it seems to be extremely important, in lands with less sunshine, to eat the traditional diets which kept ancient populations healthy!

      i was reading only yesterday how even already-picked mushrooms can be innoculated with sunshine and stored for later, as a form of home-made vitamin D supplements -- fascinating!

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  7. I often say that the purpose of endurance riding is to make us appreciate modern-day conveniences like the flush toilet, running water, and the internal combustion engine ;-)
    And while we have a few "re-enactment types": riders who outfit themselves as cowboys, most are tricked out w/all the latest high-tech bells & whistles - from heart monitors to electrolyte/BCAA supplements. Myself, I'm a hybrid of the two styles - still trying to find the right combination of supplements/fluid replacement so I can stay the course! (my horses OTOH, do great w/minimal intervention)

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    1. they're probably SASS riders -- SASS folks tend to go for a superficial oldfashionedness rather than aiming for the authentic. the ladies' dresses are appalling. ;-) OTOH, i have a friend in Utah who jumps her horse side-saddle....

      what do these events of yours entail? i'm not familiar with them....

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    2. Uh-oh - be careful what you ask for ;-) !!! it's easiest for me to quote from our rule book:
      1. The ride must be at least 50 miles in length per day, up to a maximum distance of 150 miles in three days (although we do offer Limited Distance events of 25, 30, or 35 mi)
      2. The equines must be under the control of control judge(s) experienced with equines or endurance rides. (almost always equine veterinarians)
      3. The ride must be open to any breed or type of equine.
      4. The ride must provide a specific amount of time (total competition time) which will include all stops and holds, and within which competitors must complete the ride to qualify for placing or completion.
      (This translates into 6 hrs for a 25, 12 hrs for a 50, 24 hrs for a 100 mi ride)
      But I think one of our most important rules is the "No Drugs" one - while we don't care how many NSAID's the rider pops in order to keep goin', you may not administer any medications or therapeutic interventions to your HORSE other than normal caretaking during the mandatory rest stops...

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    3. wow, those ARE long rides! at what pace do you go, mostly trotting? alternate canter and walk...?

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    4. Yep, in order to stay w/in that time frame, it averages out around 6 MPH (jog-trot)... Of course, the "hot shoes" race much faster - I believe our most recent 50-mi championship ride was won in about 3:45 (that would be cantering the entire course).
      By comparison, my all-time record for a 50 stands at 5 hrs (an icy New Year's Day on my wonderful QH mare - she could keep up w/the Arabs if the temps stayed low!)

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  8. I often think about what my grandmother ate "in the old country" (Romania) in the late 1800's. They must have been desperately poor as there were 15 children. I don't know how often meat graced their table, but as a small child I remember true "nose to tail" eating as things like beef tongue, lungs, tripe, sweetbreads, liver, and stuffed intestine (kishke), chicken feet and chicken livers were served. My mom remembered eating cow brains growing up, too. Vegetables were typically what my grandmother grew up with: cabbage, beets, onions, carrots, potatoes. These are foods that could be stored in a long winter without refrigeration. Dessert was mostly stewed dried fruit "compote" and occasionally a sponge cake or coffee cake. A real treat in her house was chocolate orange sticks. She made her own noodles from scratch and bought an egg bread (challah) for the sabbath. During the week she ate a dark rye bread. She ate hot cereal for breakfast--usually cream of wheat or malt o'meal with salt, butter, and milk, never sugar (I was shocked when I saw people put sugar on oatmeal for the first time in college!). Scrambled eggs or soft boiled were often served for breakfast, too, with buttery challah toast made in the oven. Sauerkraut, pickles, and sour beet borscht were common, smoked or canned fish, and plenty of full fat dairy (whole milk delivered to her snowy back porch, sour cream, cream cheese, and hard cheeses often made up a "dairy" meatless meal).

    I don't know if she had access to all the meat and dairy regularly when growing up, but she ate pretty much the foods she was raised on. There was bread, noodles, and potatoes, and hot cereal, but meals were never "grain based" except hot cereal mornings. She never skimped on fat--she saved me the marrow bones because I loved them. And much of her food was cooked in schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) because religious Jews can't use dairy butter when meat is served at a meal.

    I blame the switch to "heart healthy margarines and vegetable shortening" and removal of organ meats and animal fats from her diet for her late in life health issues.

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    1. those are likely reasons indeed! it sounds as though the foods she grew up with protected her before that....

      i think it was Mary Enig who pointed out what a boon Crisco seemed to be to kosher kitchens -- a vegetable fat which performed like lard or butter in baking or frying... Thank goodness for coconut oil, huh? :-)

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    2. Your grandma diet is so similar to the food I grew-up on! I even still make noodles for my husband - he likes the the chicken soup with noodles, and the home-made one doesn't get soggy. It is ,actually, very simple thing to do and doesn't take much time. Borscht and sauerkraut are also frequent on out menu. From my trips to Russia I always bring a lot of dried porcine mushrooms.
      I am pleasantly surprised how many foods from my traditional cuisine I can have on a LC diet(not noodles and banns staffed with cabbage). It wouldn't be the case with all meat diet. Most traditional food recipes are designed around sparing of meat.
      From observing my relatives, I can tell than traditional way of eating still allows a lot of foods which promote modern deceases, but later in life, and without a wide-spread obesity in a population. Traditional diets are way better than modern way of eating, but less healthy than a diet designed around individual health needs, or even a "Paleo" diet. For many people "better" is often not good enough.

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  9. A great post JanKnitz your ancestors ate real food, not the junk and failed science experiments most eat today. Offal has far more nutrients than the lean muscle meat most of us eat today.

    One thing is for sure, you do not have to be well heeled to eat well today. But you need to cook. Eat as our grandparents ate is a good start.

    Kind regards Eddie

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    1. :-) my husband points out that it's too bad that "everybody" is learning how tasty the cheaper cuts of beef and pork are -- the increased demand will drive the price up!

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  10. The Paleo Diet blog has had more goofy posts lately than Weston A. Price. You might call one the raw milk miracle site, the other, the raw vegetable miracle site. The Paleo Diet blog seems to be giving vegetarians and people with eating disorders permission to eat a little meat.

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    1. I've never been a reader of the former, though i have looked in from time to time. :-) I don't believe in the miraculous qualities of ANY food, though liver and raw oysters come closer than plants and dairy can....

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  11. Back to poultry, though, there might be some real old timers around who still remember the campaign slogan, "a chicken in every pot." (They'd be pushing 100.) People who enjoy the classics should recall the practice of saving up for a Christmas goose, or the practice of employees receiving one as a bonus. (See this for one: http://books.google.com/books?id=buc0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA171&dq=adventure+blue+carbuncle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6BJ0VMC1PIuYyATE9YCgAQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=the%20adventure%20of%20the%20blue%20carbuncle&f=false)

    That should be a clue as to how expensive poultry was!

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    1. oh, ABSOLUTELY! :-) True period fiction can sometimes give us pictures of the past that they never intended -- it's just extra dressing on the set of their stage, and as it addresses people who are living in the middle of it, there's no chance they can get away with BS. This trick doesn't work with modern fiction SET in the past -- those books that tell writers about details of past life are FULL of nonsense -- I've looked at some!

      My mother and grandmother used to quote that "chicken in every pot" line, and i had a children's book i vaguely remember that mentioned "chicken -- that's for Sunday," i.e. the most special day of the week in 20th-century America. :-) In my poultry-science class at K-State, i learned how very UNECONOMICAL small birds are -- you're paying for an awful lot of bone and connective tissue, which for us broth-lovers isn't BAD, but for the poor is mighty wasteful.

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    2. And my mother still holds a grudge towards her stepmother for roasting a pet hen of hers for Sunday dinner when she was a child - "She was the only one I could catch"! Needless to say, Mom abstained...

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    3. poor kid! that was a dirty trick -- and very possibly a passive-aggressive intentional act. :-(

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