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According to a BBC article for December 18, 2007, the "average medieval peasant" ate nearly two loaves of bread per day (solid bread rather than the airy kind) and about 8 ounces of meat or fish "the size of an average steak." This, the article continues, "would have been accompanied by liberal quantities of vegetables, including beans, turnips and parsnips, and washed down by three pints of ale."
There was little refined sugar in their diet: no biscuits, cake or sweets. Sugar imports started in the 1600s and were not consumed by common Europeans until the mid-1700s. And they burned off calories "in a workout of 12 hours' labour."
Getting fat was not a problem with these people. Still they were doing well if they made it past thirty. Disease went unchecked.
Copyright © 2007 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.
address of this article: http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/diet.html