Elizabethan Era Diet

The biggest change over time in our eating habits has been how involved we are with our food. In the 1700s colonists grew many of their own crops and hunted their own game. Most individual families also had a dairy cow in their backyard, especially in New England. This was a tradition that they brought back with them from England. They would use the milk for cooking steamed puddings, cheeses, and custards. It also provided colonial families with fresh milk in the morning. Preparing meat was very laborious and difficult in the 1700s. Colonists had to prepare a dead animal, not just parts of it. The cookbook we read in class walked us through how to dress a turtle and the entire process of preparing it used to take hours. This shows that food would not have been made every day. Colonists had to grow their fruits seasonally and did not have the opportunities to go out and purchase what they did not have.

In order to not only identify but solve our problems regarding food we must acknowledge the origin of those problems. In this paper I will be examine the S.A.D. (standard American diet) Within the context of history and culture and perhaps determine the causes of our relatively sudden and unhealthy turn in terms of production and consumption. The main reason behind examining the western diet in a historical context is the fact that diet is proven to be a key determinant of chronic disease risk and if we understand the origin of our eating habits, we have the opportunity to correct some of or past mistakes. I will be covering a period of about two centuries, acknowledging anything I

One of the important things during the time of the Renaissance was food. Food was very important to the people. They cooked and served food in a unique way. Others had ovens and others did not. Others who did not have ovens, they cooked their food over an open flame. In Renaissance times, food relied on what your social class is. There were the upper class people and lower class people. The upper class people had more choices of what they wanted to it and the lower class people didn’t have many choices of what they wanted to eat. Some of the foods were expensive. For them to have food they had farm. The upper class owned farms and they planted crops and harvested the crops for food. They raised animals for them to have meat and milk.

I chose to address the questions what are the strengths and weaknesses of the American diet, as well as, what is distinctive about American food. I chose these questions to focus my research paper on because of the relationship between the American diet and health care. The United States is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, due to immigration, which is what makes it so distinctive. The diet also has many flaws including the cause for rising medical issues. I have a pre-nursing major, so diet plays a big role in the medical field. My purpose for researching the American diet is to be able to…. With the Industrial Revolution, the inventions of many new products such as processed foods, refrigerators, and fast food chains.

Another influence on the diet is the food can be purchased. It is important that healthy food is available or you would just start to eat junk food simply because it is in the house. People who live in their own houses, which are unable to cook or shop by themselves, would need to make sure that the food and drinks that they would need to buy are available when they are needed and wanted. Lunchtime can usually be provided

Once the colonists’ left England and arrived in North America, their diet changed dramatically. Instead of having the foods they were accustomed to, they had to adapt to fit their environment. The colonists were also accustomed to a regular eating schedule that they would soon have to change. The colonists would eat an early breakfast, an early dinner and a late supper, lunch were not included; however, all this schedule and way of doing things would soon change.

The food we eat and how it impacts our day is a substantial part of being a human being. Food is very effective in a vast majority of ways and can impact a person variously in negative and positive ways. The food we eat is definitely linked to the healthiness and lifestyle that we acquire. In “Escape from the Western Diet”, by Michael Pollan and “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” by Mary Maxfield, to the very interesting point of views are sought out, and I am firmly behind one of them. One author believes that the food we eat is an extreme determining factor in how our lives are lived, and the other believes the food we consume has no actual impact on the well being of human lives.

During the Elizabethan era various types of foods were eaten and extensive details were added to these foods. Social classes also played a big role in what the rich or poor ate.

Food of the Elizabethan Time People’s food of the Elizabethan time period depended on their social status and their financial abilities while malnutrition, diseases, and deficiencies made it harder for them to find food. The rich and the poor both had high risks of deficiencies because of the lack of sanitary foods and places and lack of nutrients. The food consumed varied depending on wealth and social class. In the Medieval period meat was a sign of wealth which carried over into the Elizabethan era. New inventions and the rapidly growing industries contributed into the new food of this time.

The main problem for many people prior to the 19th century was that people were not getting enough food. Being overweight was often restricted to the wealthy. The first diet food that was created was invented in the 19th century by Rev. Sylvester Graham, who made the graham cracker. Quoted in the article “When did Dieting Begin”, by Ali Luke, “The graham

The food in the Middle Ages (1000-1500) differed between upper-class diets and lower-class diets. There was not a variety of food choices available for Middle Age people. The food they ate depended on where they lived, what they lived by, and whether they were rich or poor. In some ways the middle ages diet was the same but in other ways it was very different to our diets.

English fisherman always had an abundance of cod, herring, oysters and mussels ready to be exported. A large quantity of red meat was eaten by privileged families. Cookbooks from the prosperous families wasted little of the animal, and often had recipes for tripe, calf's feet, and lambs head. On the other hand less prosperous families dined differently.

Ellen White was ahead of her time, especially in her knowledge of health and education. According to George Knight, “Average life expectancy at birth was 32 in 1800, 41 by 1850, 50 by 1900, and 67 by 1950 (30).” When Ellen White died, she was 87 years old. This shows us how healthy Ellen White’s lifestyle was. People in the mid to late 1800’s ate a lot of desserts and meats. Ellen White did not follow this pattern. She found a more balanced diet in eating vegetables, fruits, and grains. From Ellen White health habits, I can learn how to live a healthy

The Western Diet mainly consists of fried foods, refined grains, sugar, high carbohydrate and fats, and meats (3). It has been hypothesized that having a Western Diet increases one’s chances for developing depression. There has been a great deal of research into why the western diet increase’s one chance of having depression. A common sense reason maybe that the Western Diet consisted of large amounts carbohydrates, fats and sugars which promotes obesity and then causes depression (1). More scientific evidence suggest that having a improper diet like the Western Diet negatively affects peripheral and central dopamine, which are neurotransmitters (chemical which transmit signals across the synapse from the nerve cell to the target cell)

Renaissance diets differed greatly from both their Dark Age ancestors, and their opposite class. The poor, or lower class, retained most of their pre-Renaissance menu options. They ate mostly coarse dark bread, pasta and buckwheat polenta, all made of cheap grains rather than wheat. Meat was reserved for the wealthy, and the poor almost never got a taste. However, a servant to a master of a wealthy class