Historians are unanimous in stating that although man is omnivorous, he has been essentially carnivorous for millions of years.
From the beginning and up to the Neolithic Period, approximately 10 000
years ago, man was a nomad who lived by hunting and picking wild fruit
and vegetables and his diet was basically made up of game (protein and
lipids) as well as wild berries and roots (carbohydrates with low
Glycemic Indexes and high fiber content.) Most authors agree on the fact
that our ancestors also ate, accessorily, vegetables (leafy vegetables,
vegetable shoots…) and undoubtedly, from time to time, wild cereal.
These vegetables also fell into the category of carbs with very low
Glycemic Indexes.
The energy primitive man expended on a daily basis was enormous, not
only because he had to contend with immense physical demands but also
because his living conditions were extremely precarious, particularly
due to the erratic weather conditions.
One wonders how these « high-level sportsmen » were able, for millions
of years, to satisfy such a large caloric demand with the limited
carbohydrates at their disposal and, above all, without any of the slow
sugars *, which are considered essential by modern nutritionists.
During the Neolithic Age, as these men became more and more sedentary,
man’s eating habits suffered the first of the dramatic changes to come.
Animal breeding allowed him to continue to have meat to eat (although
not exactly the same kind of meat) while the development of agriculture
let him plant his own food and produce cereals (wheat, rye, barley …,
later on pulses (lentils, peas…) and lastly, vegetables and fruit.
One would imagine that, by becoming sedentary, primitive man had started
a process which would lead him on the path to improving his existence.
Notwhithstanding, at a nutritional level, the contrary seems to have
occurred. Compared to the hunter-food pickers of the Mesolithic Age, the
farmer-cattleman had considerably reduced the variety of the food he
ate. In fact, very few animals could be domesticated or bred and only
certain vegetables could be grown. We could even say that the
farmer-cattleman was forced to rationalize or, to put it in modern
terms, to optimize his activities.
This revolution in our ancestors’ lifestyle left its mark. Firstly, it
affected human health. As a result of the tendency to grow one sole
crop, people’s diets became deficient; that which shortened their life
span. Furthermore, agriculture (even if on well-irrigated and fertile
soils such as those in Egypt and Mesopotamia) is a much more physically
demanding chore than hunting for food and game as in the Mesolithic Age
and even the hunting of large animals of the High Paleolithic Age.
Primitive man lived in harmony and in balance with nature. When his
natural food moved from one place to another with the different species’
migratory movements or with the seasons, man migrated as well. Upon
becoming sedentary, man imposed new limitations and restrictions on
himself.
By abandoning his terrestrial paradise in order to master his food
sources, the farmer-cattleman was forced to face numerous new risks:
capricious weather conditions, the limits set by having to choose less
productive and more fragile varieties and species as well as soils which
were often unsuitable to his needs. The Biblical history of 7 lean
years clearly illustrates the uncertainty and capricious nature of this
new lifestyle.
What’s more, the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding generated
the need for these communities to develop birth and productivity
policies (to put it in modern terms). Farmers, fearing that they would
not have enough to eat, began to try to produce more than they actually
needed and, to this end, began hiring extra hands.
Without really being aware of what they had let themselves in for, the
grower and his family set a vicious circle in motion. They unknowingly
set the framework for uninterrupted population growth, that which
aggravated the risks and repercussions of periods of food shortages.
When harvests were poor the effects became even more catastrophic.
Naturally, this article is not an attempt at retracing the detailed
history of human eating habits from the times when man lived in caves.
This would require more space than can be dedicated to this article and
there are some excellent reference books on this subject. (1)
Nonetheless, we cannot pretend to address the problem which concerns us
(the preponderance of obesity in our times and civilization) without
looking back on the preceding periods and landmarks of human eating
habits. Regrettably, these considerations are way too often ignored by
contemporary nutritionists.
What I propose here is an analysis of the historical moments that
conditioned the evolution of Western man’s eating habits. I also wish to
point to the landmarks which show us where man lost his way and ended
up on a path to obesity, diabetes and heart illness.
What is evident is that, from the Neolithic Age up to Antiquity, from
one country to another and from one religion to another, man’s choices
of food and dietary models have varied enormously. Despite this large
diversity we can, by means of an innovative angle, compare the different
foods (and their nutritional value) by classifying them into food
categories according to their metabolic potential*.
Egypt
There are numerous figurative and written sources on Ancient Egypt which
acquaint us with its agricultural and eating habits. These sources
testify that, throughout all of its history, Egyptians disposed of a
wide variety of food choices.
Egyptian agriculture was complemented by livestock breeding. Of all of
the animals man chose to breed, the pig was probably the most common
food favorite. Cows and sheep were also an essential part of Egyptians’
diet. The Egyptians, however, had a marked preference for poultry
(geese, ducks, quail, pigeons, pelicans…)
They planted and harvested large amounts of cereals in the fertile Nile
basin and also produced vegetables (onions, leeks, lettuces, garlic) and
pulses (chick-peas, lentils…)
Considering the diversity of these resources, we could say that
Egyptians’ diet was varied and well-balanced. The problem however was
that supplies were not at all regular and depended on the Nile’s
variations.
Furthermore, as in the following civilizations, eating habits varied
from one region of Egypt to another but, above all, from one social
class to another. The rich and privileged, like in the Middle Ages and
Modern Times, enjoyed a much more abundant and rich diet. The poorer
sectors of society had to do with cereals, vegetables and pulses.
From what we know today on the basis of highly developed modern research
methods, the Egyptians apparently were not always as healthy as one
would imagine, at least not those who only had access to a diet solely
based on cereal (carbohydrates). Many of the papyrus and mommies
analyzed give proof to the fact that life expectancy was well under 30
years of age, that the Egyptians’ teeth were often decayed and that they
suffered from arthrosclerosis, heart disease and even obesity. A
special hall in the Cairo Museum gives evidence to this fact. This
exhibit is dedicated to a series of obese statues which testify to
Egyptians’ corpulence, at least in the case of certain ethnic groups.
This contrasts with the impression given by most hieroglyphs.
Greece
In the Greek world, cereals supplied 80% of people’s nutritional fuel.
This food preference, more than a geographic and economic choice, was
the result of policies ensuing from a particular ideology.
The Greeks were convinced that they were a civilized people. Contrary to
barbarians, who limited themselves to picking wild fruit and
vegetables, hunting and living off of what nature offered them freely,
the Greeks had the feeling that by farming they determined their own
eating habits and thus improved the human condition.
For the Greeks, meat was contemptible since it did not involve an active
effort. The only thing man had to do to eat meat was to set the animals
out to pasture on lands which he did not toil.
Hunting was considered a servile activity, a sign of poverty and the
result of a precarious situation and, as such, undignified for a
civilized man. It was the lot of populations who had no other choice; it
was a marginal activity which went against the principles of the world
of the Cité, the pillar of the Hellenic World.
Certain types of food —wheat bread, wine, olive oil and, to a certain
degree, cheese— were the mark of civilized man’s status. Noble food was
that which was not naturally available but required, in one way or
another, some type of man-made process. Man’s claim to civilization was
the domestication and transformation of nature by processing what he
ate.
Nevertheless, whatever the philosophers of the time might have thought,
daily reality in Ancient Greece did not exactly fit their ideals. The
ideal dietary model of the times did not contemplate the diverse
vegetable soups and stone ground cereal pottage or dried vegetables
which were common peoples’ ‘daily bread’.
This is not to say that, for the population at large (excepting
carnivorous soldiers in the Hellenic tradition who drew their Herculean
strength from animal meat), meat was still a luxury and practically
taboo since it was reserved for sacrificial rituals. Lambs were mainly
bred for their wool and milk from which cheese was made. Bovines were
scarce and only used as pack animals and to be milked.
Fish (and even shellfish) was, on the other hand, widely consumed even
if it was not the product of human processing. The fact that fishing was
a sophisticated act and not precisely an easy chore might have served
to justify the fact that it was not classified as unfit for civilized
men. Fish, however, might also have escaped the restrictive nutritional
ideology of the times out of pragmatism. Not only was fish abundant, it
was also a traditional Mediterranean dish.
Thus, although generalizations are always hard to put into perspective,
one could say that the Greeks did not consume enormous amounts of
proteins. To the point that one could even speculate that this
deprivation among a large part of the population might have been at the
root of several health problems. This might explain why it was precisely
Greece that gave birth to “modern” medicine under the guidance of
Hippocrates.
Rome
In Rome, meat played a much more significant role. The Romans are the
recipients of an Italic tradition of pork breeding which they inherited
from the Etruscans. Even if meat does not play a central role in their
eating habits, meat is what supplies most of the animal protein that
they consume.
Nevertheless, the Romans’ food symbol is, like that of the Greeks, bread
(wheat), particularly for the Roman soldier. The emblematic foodstuff
for the Soldier of the Legion is in effect wheat bread which he
accompanied with olives, onions, figs and oil. Bread for the Roman
Soldier was important to the point that protested when he was served
meat.
This vegetarian diet, which is nonetheless fortifying, is what made
these men heavyset and stout; and this is not a legend. It is to be
noted that Roman soldiers were expected to respond, endure and resist.
Their strength (inertia) is due to their ability to stay still and
withstand under enemy attack. When the Roman army needed mobile, alert
and fast combatants, it sought them out among its barbarian allies.
Joining the Roman Legion was an honor for roman peasants. It implied
social freedom and allowed them to become a full-pledged citizen. Wheat
bread, a noble food, is the only food up to the standards of this
prestigious status.
The fact is that the Roman of the people ate very small amounts of
wheat. Apart for pork, poultry and cheese, and occasionally fish, his
diet was basically made up of vegetables (mainly diverse stone ground
cereals.)
Wheat farming is a sign of a certain economic status, the privilege of
the upper classes. However, wheat is not solely for the privileged
sectors of society, it is also the food which helps the authorities to
tie the people over when famine strikes. Paradoxically, even though this
is food for the rich, wheat is distributed to the poor during periods
of scarcity.
As a conclusion, one could say that the Romans’ eating habits were a bit
more balanced than the Greeks due to the diet’s higher protein content.
Only the soldiers had a truly deprived diet. It might not be so
farfetched to wonder (even if historians and analysts have not braved
this correlation) if the Roman soldiers’ deficient diet might have had
something to do with the fall of the Roman Empire.
The High Middle Ages
The Romans, when colonizing the Mediterranean and European regions which
were inhabited by people which they considered barbarians,
systematically passed on their ideology and customs to the peoples
conquered. They probably met the most resistance when attempting to
impose their foods and eating habits.
The Roman and Mediterranean civilizations were totally opposed in this
sense. On the one hand, there was the meat, milk and butter civilization
and on the other, we can observe a bread, wine and oil civilization.
The agricultural and the city myth fiercely confronted the forest and
village myth. The antagonism between these opposing eating habits
reached a peak towards the 4th and 5th century when the balance of power
turned to the benefit of the barbarians.
Whatever, even after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman model left
its mark on the peoples of its former colonies. The main vector for this
integration was no other than Christianity, the true inheritor of the
Roman world and its traditions whose alimentary symbols were familiar:
bread, wine and oil. As soon as the Churches and monasteries were built,
clergymen turned to plant wheat fields and vineyards in the surrounding
areas.
Rather than talking of the conversion of the barbarians to Roman
ideology, it would be more suitable to speak of a symbiosis of two
cultures. Integration of Roman ideology did not really threaten
barbarian traditions; one could say it even strengthened them. Hunting,
pasture animal breeding, river and lake fishing, picking fruit and
vegetables were elevated to the rank of noble activities on equal
footing with agriculture and cultivating grapes for wine. Forestry was
common and a noteworthy social practice. While vineyards were measured
in wine barrels, crops in bushels of wheat, and fields in hay stacks,
forests were, comparatively, measured by the number of pigs (whose
ancestor is the wild boar), an exchange unit dear to the Celtic
Civilization and still in vogue in the Germanic world.
The “agro-sylvo-pastoral” system supplied these populations with a very
wide variety of foods. Animal protein was particularly important (meat,
poultry, fish, eggs, milk products.) Secondary cereals (barley, einkorn,
millet, sorghum, rye…) which were much more common than wheat were
often accompanied by pulses (beans, string beans, peas and chick-peas).
Vegetable gardens were tax exempt and supplied an important ingredient
for preparing the soups commonly used to cook the meat. The fact that
animal and vegetable resources were complementary ingredients, assured
the European peoples of the High Middle Ages a balanced diet.
Numerous studies on the human remains which have been discovered from
this period indicate that people were apparently quite healthy. Their
physiological development and growth indexes appear normal. Their bones
seem in good shape and there seems to be very few deformities. Their
teeth are basically healthy and not worn down. When they are worn down
or rotten, it’s a sign that their diet is basically made up of stone
ground cereals.
Everything indicates that, as opposed to the succeeding centuries, the
High Middle Ages was not plagued with illnesses from deprivation nor
malnutrition. This diversified alimentary production model of the times
operated under stable demographic conditions, that which contributed to
keeping periods of food shortages from reaching catastrophic
proportions.
Although not a time of plenty, the High Middle Ages was not as sordid
and obscure as some would have us believe. As concerns the food
available, both at a qualitative and quantitative level this period was
basically satisfying, anyway more so than those that followed.
The Low Middle Ages
As of the mid 10th century, the food production balance established
during the High Middle Ages gradually began to lose its foothold. The
agro-sylvo-pastoral system, which had functioned relatively well under
stable demographic conditions, was no longer capable of satisfying
community needs; even if it continued to operate in a number of regions,
particularly in the mountains.
As the number of people increased, it began to get harder and harder to
satisfy their needs through this subsistence economy. Apart from an
increase in the number of mouths to be fed, structural economic
conditions had radically changed: commerce had brought about the
emergence of a true market economy. Furthermore, landowners (keepers of
political power) discovered that they could take even greater advantage
of their lands by extending their crops to untilled pasture lands and
intensifying peasants’ labor.
Emphasis was then made on growing cereals. Partly because they were easy
to preserve and stock but also because they could contribute to
satisfying demands of new commercial circuits. Europe’s agrarian
landscape is gradually transformed. Deforestation becomes a systematic
way with the land and enormous forests begin to disappear. Cereals
became peasants’ staple food and the basis of their diet. As limits were
set on chasing and pasturing rights, meat soon disappeared from peasant
dishes to become the privilege of the few, the upper classes. Even if,
during the Bubonic plague of the mid 14th century, population growth is
what allowed Europeans to survive and helped to bring meat back to the
farms, gradually, distinctions between the food which is eaten by the
rich and that available to the poorer classes become more and more
marked.
There are two social categories that continue to enjoy nutritional
privileges: aristocrats, who are traditional meat eaters and city
dwellers from all social classes. The authorities’ constant fear of
rioting due to food shortages guarantee these city dwellers a wide
variety of foods and meat is one of the central dishes.
This contrast between an “urban” and a “rural” dietary model is
particularly noticeable at the end of the Middle Ages throughout all of
Europe. In Italy this distinction had already existed for several
centuries and it became particularly widespread under Roman impulse.
The “urban” model actually responds to a market economy while the
“rural” model continues to be a subsistence economy. The factors which
oppose these two models are both quantitative and qualitative. Urban
dwellers’ white bread contrasts with peasants’ dark bread much like
fresh meat (particularly lamb) found in the cities contrasts with the
salted pork (cold cuts) eaten in the countryside.
Accordingly, this difference is also reflected in peoples’ health.
Peasants were obviously at a double disadvantage in comparison with city
dwellers. They not only suffered from malnutrition because they lacked
proteins, they also had to endure extremely hard working conditions.
Modern Times
This period is marked by several events which continue to further modifying these populations’ eating habits.
Firstly, the urban phenomenon which continues to promote market
economies. Cities draw more and more people. But what is more
significant are the rates of population growth which, in view of
insufficient scientific progress to increase production levels, bring
about dramatic structural changes in food production and supplies.
Europe has approximately 90 million inhabitants by the 14th century. It
grows at a 10% rate and by the 17th century it has 125 million
inhabitants. During the 17th century there is a population leap and by
1750, there are approximately 150 million Europeans and almost 200
million at the beginning of the 18th century.
This unprecedented population growth is at the heart of a renewed
practice of deforestation. As in the past, the lands devoted to
cultivating cereals were expanded to the loss of the amount of land
vowed to cattle farming, hunting and crop picking. As a result of
increased farming activities, grains became the central ingredient in
peoples’ diet and this reduced the variety of the foods and the amount
of proteins consumed.
People began to eat less and less meat, particularly in the cities
where, as we noted above, meat eating had managed to survive during the
preceding period. In Naples, for example, during the 16th century
approximately 30,000 bovines were sacrificed per year for a population
of 200 000 people. Two centuries later, only 20,000 were killed for a
population of 400,000 inhabitants.
In Berlin, in the 19th century the ratio of meat consumed per inhabitant
was twelve times lower than in the 14th century. In the Languedoc, at
the end of the 16th century, most women only bred one pig per year, at
the beginning of the century they bred three pigs.
These reductions in the amount of food people consumed naturally varied
from country to country and from one region to another. Reduced animal
protein intake, nonetheless, left its mark and repercussions on people’s
health. Numerous statistics point to the fact that this even affected
people’s size. Throughout the 18th century, the soldiers enlisted by the
Hapsburgs as well as Swedish recruits, seem to have been on the average
shorter. In England, and particularly in London, towards the 18th
century, teenagers’ were apparently shorter than their ancestors.
Germans, at the beginning of the 19th century, seem to have lost some
inches in comparison to the average size of the 14th and 15th century
German generations.Furthermore, the more dependant people became on
cereals, the more peoples’ health and mortality rates suffered as a
result of the cereal crises due to bad harvests.
Several authors quote examples of the prosperous Beaucerons who, in
times of severe cereal crises, sought refuge with the poor of Sologne
whose more archaic, and thus more varied, food production allowed them
to resist these crises. Likewise, mountain people escaped shortages
insofar as their varied diets always combined agricultural, livestock,
hunting and fishing products. This is why mountaineers, who ate a wide
variety of foods, were bigger and stronger than most. The fact that they
were healthier explains why they were much more active and enterprising
than the rest.
Another factor at the root of the degradation of peasants’ diets was the
transformation of the rural landholding system whereby farmlands
gradually passed to the hands of the rich (gentry and bourgeoisie…) In
Ile-de-France during the mid 16th century, only one third of the land
still belonged to the peasantry. A century later, there were even less
small landowners. In Bourgogne, in certain villages, small landowners
had practically disappeared after the Thirty-Year War. Peasants whose
lands were particularly fertile and close to the cities were the first
to be dispossessed. The servility imposed on the peasantry together with
the hardship of their work, noticeably aggravated their living
conditions; even if this allowed for the surplus production which was
sold and exported to the more economically advanced countries.
One of the main concerns of the times, at least in France, was
maintaining constant food supplies. Although, traditionally, municipal
authorities were in charge of keeping up food supplies, the central
government constantly feared the risk of popular rioting should there be
bread shortages. This is why the King decided to stock grains to cover
periods of shortage. This regulatory policy, however, was often seen as
an attempt at monopolizing wheat for speculative purposes, to raise
prices.
At the end of the 18th century, as the situation started to become more
and more critical, public officials became increasingly aware of the
bread issue (the problem of depending on wheat as the sole crop) and
they sought the means of diversifying food crops. Parmentier suggested
growing potatoes but, since Europeans had viewed potatoes as “pig feed”
ever since this plant was first brought to Europe in the 16th century,
his proposal was not well received. It was not until the 19th century
that potatoes were fully integrated into people’s eating habits.
Other means of diversifying food supplies are even less successful. In
Italy and the South-West of France, corn cakes were used as substitutes
for barley and millet flat cakes and pottages. The problem with corn
cakes was that they did not supply Vitamin PP and communities whose
diets were based on corn were prone to suffer pellagra epidemics.
A good number of foods were also brought from the New World (tomatoes,
Mexican beans, turkey…) however, considering the length of time it took
for these foods to be adopted into people’s eating habits and
agricultural practices, it is impossible to say that they drastically
changed Europe’s nutritional landscape.
Apart from potatoes, which in countries such as Ireland became the basis
of Irish people’s diet (incurring the same risks as with wheat in case
of shortages), there are two other phenomena which deserve special
attention due to their significant future impact on contemporary health
issues.
There is first and foremost the introduction of sugar into the general
population’s eating habits. Sugar was not something new but, while it
was still produced from sugar cane, it remained an expensive and thus
marginal ingredient. The French, at the beginning of the 19th century,
consumed approximately 1.6 pounds of sugar per person. Thanks to the
development of the process of extracting sugar from beets in 1812, sugar
prices began to fall and sugar gradually became a popular food item (16
lbs a year per person in 1880, 34 lbs in 1900, 60 lbs in 1930 and 80
lbs in 1960). Even so, the French still consumed less sugar than the
rest of the Western World.
The second phenomenon is the invention of the cylinder mill in 1870
which makes white flour available to one and all at reasonable prices.
Since the time of the Egyptians, man has not ceased to seek the means to
refine (sift) wheat varieties in order to produce white flour. At the
time, wheat was coarsely sifted, the milling was simply passed through a
strainer. This basically served to remove part of the bran which
covered the wheat grains. Our ancestors’ whole bread was then no other
than what is known today as hovis brown bread, in other words,
semi-whole grain bread.
This sifting operation was long and costly, (done manually) making this
bread a luxury available only to the privileged few who could afford it.
The invention of the cylinder mill at the end of the 19th century and
its widespread use at the beginning of the 20th century radically
changed the nature of flour. Its nutritional content was dramatically
reduced to the point of becoming nothing more than starch. Precious
proteins, fibers, essential fatty acids and other vitamin Bs were almost
totally eliminated in the process.
The fact that flour suddenly began to be disregarded at a nutritional
level, did not really constitute a mayor health problem for the richer
sectors since they could compensate with an otherwise varied and
balanced diet. For the underprivileged classes, however, for whom flour
remained the basis of their diet, eating flour which had suddenly been
deprived of all nutritional value could only tend to aggravate a diet
which was already sorely lacking and unbalanced.
Apart from lacking nutritional values, sugar and white flour —like
potatoes— have the sad privilege of the negative effects they produce on
our bodies (hyperglycemia, high blood sugar) which, as we know, are the
highest risk factors of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
The Contemporary Period
Our times start at the beginning of the 19th century and are
characterized by a certain number of mayor events, which to diverse
degrees, have had a significant impact on the way our eating habits have
evolved. The Industrial Revolution provoked a rural exodus and a marked
urban expansion. It also signaled the triumph of market economy over
subsistence economy as well as the phenomenal development of
transportation and international trade.
Food industrialization became a gigantic business. The production of
traditional food-stuffs (flours, oils, jams, butter, cheese…) that were
formerly prepared manually are now the product of mass, and at times
gigantic, industrial processes. The invention of conservation methods
(appertisation (heat preservation), and later freezing) is, however,
what allows man to condition a great number of fresh foods in the form
of preserves and frozen foods. (fruit, vegetables, meat and fish…)
As customs and society evolve, women lose sight of their role as
housewives, and female emancipation opens the way to the development of
ready-made foods (frozen dinners, mass dishes…)
Expanding means of transportation and world trade make it possible for
many more people to consume exotic products (oranges, grapefruit,
bananas, peanuts, cacao, coffee, tea...) and eat fruit out of their
ordinary seasons (strawberries for Christmas and apples and grapes in
the spring..)
The sign of the times, which has expanded even more rapidly during the
past 50 years, is the globalization of a destructured way of eating as
in the US model of which the fast food phenomenon is but one aspect.
Luckily, some countries have preserved a certain attachment to their
traditional eating habits. This is notably the case of the Latin
countries whose traditional eating customs still resist and persist. One
can even observe a certain cultural revival of Latin culinary and
gastronomic traditions.
Local resistances will probably not suffice to slow down the inescapable
standardization (globalization) of dietary models like that of the US
which has managed to penetrate all of the world’s cultures. We have seen
that wherever these perverse eating habits become a common part of
people’s lifestyle, as in the case of the country where they originated
(the US), they provoke widespread obesity, diabetes and heart illnesses;
three afflictions which encumber modern man’s existence.
This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) has been denouncing this
situation since 1997, warning the world regarding what it considers a
true pandemic.
* Foodstuffs’ metabolic potential is its qualitative value at a
nutritional level. Traditional dietetic was content to speak of, for
example, fats or carbohydrates in general. Nowadays, we know that we
have to distinguish between the different foods in each of the
categories. Some fats have the potential to generate heart problems
(they can, for example, raise cholesterol levels) while other fats are
potentially positive. This is the case of olive oil which reduces
cardiovascular risk factors. Likewise, we now have to distinguish carbs
by their Glycemic Indexes (GIs.) Foodstuffs with high GIs (sugar,
potatoes, refined flour) are potentially negative since they can cause
us to gain weight or to suffer form diabetes.
(1) Food: A Culinary History, Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari [Columbia University Press:New York] 1999 / Histoire de l'alimentation, Editions Fayard, 1996.
(Syria)
(rum) meaning to be high, rise up. Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads High, Elevated. NOBS Study Bible Name List reads Elevated.
('armon),
meaning citadel or palace. The use of this word is largely limited to
the often returning message that God will burn up the various "palaces"
of certain nations (Amos 1:3, 7, 10, 12). Palaces were typically built
on elevations, but symbolically they denoted the capital of nations,
their apices.
While the food of the common people was barely adequate at best, and
during the recurring corn dearths sadly lacking, the affluent certainly
knew how to live it up: Meat, water fowls, vegetables, fruit and wine
were part of their diet, as was the ubiquitous bread in one of its many
guises. On the whole, Egyptians don't seem to have overindulged;
according to the testimonies we have, they looked remarkably fit.
Cooking was done in clay ovens as well as over open fires. Wood was
burnt as fuel, and sometimes charcoal, even though it was scarce. The
quantities of charcoal mentioned in the Harris papyrus or the diary of
Medinet Habu were small. It was transported in 
Faience dish
Amarna princess eating roast duck