Today we have highly processed soy and corn in various forms. Progress!
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Honestly, in the US, at least, we've run into the opposite problem - we eat too much meat for a healthy diet (on average, at least).
Suffering from success.
True. Eat your fruits and veggies raw, kids!
You don't gotta eat em raw for health sake. Some are better for you cooked even.
But it builds character.
But I crave starches and saturated fats.
Fine, live fast, die young.
Here for a good time, not a long time!
Well, at times and in some places, medieval Europeans ate probably even more. In the 15th century, Barcelonians ate an average of 140 pounds of meat per year, almost triple of today's consumption.
Post-Plague diets were much improved from pre-Plague diets, and regional variation (especially in areas where pastoralism is strong, like northeastern Spain) was present, but the article also uses later livestock yields for estimating Barcelona's consumption when livestock of the period were only 50%-75% as heavy before the advent of modern breeding and the four-field system in the 18th century.
I'm actually very interested to read about the households of the Earls of Stafford and Warwick, though, that sent me down a rabbit hole of Renaissance/Late Medieval diet that I suspect I will very much enjoy.
Explanation: Despite the arcadian romanticization of the farmer's life, historically subsistence farmers had it quite... rough. Not least in the issue of food - processing grain was labor-intensive, and less-labor-intensive porridge (and flatbread, especially ash cakes) was a major source of calories for the poor.
Some people actually like grain water, though. Barbarians!
Humans be like Staple Crop
It's bad etymology unfortunately. One referred to time and the other to grinding. The closest I got is that a luncheon was original a chunk of a food item. Nuncheon was a "noon-drink" which makes sense when you consider that many workers would consume alcohol as their primary lunchtime calories during certain parts of history.
My favorite part of going to Medivel Times is eating their authentic medieval European food like tomato soup, baked potato, and corn on the Cobb.
Sometimes I think about how dead I'd be in those times as a person with celiac
It's entirely possible that such diseases are more prominent in modern environments.
I guess it's also possible that such people may have just died in childhood instead.
There are lots of gluten-free options. Oats, sorghum, barley. It's not all wheat.
Well actually yeah I'd love some
Agriculture was a trap
When I started eating vegan, I had a bit of an existential crisis, because all my foods were either plants or salt. (I'm not really into mushrooms so far.)
That existential crisis settled down when I realized that it's not terribly different from non-vegan diets, since milk, eggs and meat are derived from plants just as well. And presumably, mushrooms are in some roundabout way, too.
Except then I got an existential crisis, because the entire human food chain foots on plants. We're made from 100% plant material, how are we not just salty plants?
You need one existential crisis step further. With very rare exception (some life we've found living near thermal vents in the deep sea) all calories are derived from the sun through photosynthesis. I suppose you can muddy the waters with man made light sources powered by non-solar energy, but with the rare exception of nuclear power (or tidal, since that's moon's gravity, or geothermal, and a few other niche sources, but even out together these make up such small percentages), most man made energy is just harvesting the sun's energy with more steps. Oil, that's just ancient plant matter. Wind, that's just air currents which only exist due to heat energy from the sun. Solar, lol. Not that grow lights even make up enough to matter, but it's a fun part of the existential equation.
We eat the sun.
I've often had the thought of an alien planet where all life evolved photosynthesis. Nothing eats each other. And then they touch down on our planet and just see that it's just like a bunch of creatures devouring each other and they're horrified and never want to come back. And that's why we don't have alien visitors.
Fission is just harvesting the power of another sun from billions of years ago
Just salt me and call it a day; I'm ready for the next stage of human diet
I'll pickle you.
Mushrooms are fucking gross dude. Imo instant dish ruiner.
How about rice?
Bulgur, I mean.
Get me some cheese to melt on that baked grain and I'm in.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus, who posited that the path to human happiness was (sustainable, appreciated) pleasure, once supposedly impressed a ruler so much that the ruler offered him vast estates, should he wish it, as a reward for his wisdom.
Epicurus just asked for some bread and a bowl of hot cheese, so he could "feast like a king".
Gotta appreciate the good things in life!
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, respectively.