People living in poor, rural communities had the best eating habits in Victorian Britain, according to new research.
“If you take the diets in Britain in that era, they would nutritionally be akin to the Mediterranean diet today,” said Dr Peter Greaves, who led the study.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“The rural diet was often better for the poor in more isolated areas because of payment in kind.”
The most nutritious diets were found in isolated parts of England, the mainland and islands of Scotland and the west of Ireland.
This was reflected in the diseases that people died from, says The Times. “Tuberculosis, which is associated with worse nutrition, was twice as prevalent in cities,” it reports.
After the 1860s, while rural economies stood still, “in urban communities things slowly improved”, Dr Greaves says. “People got a bit wealthier and there was more availability of food.”
He argues that such a diet would be relatively easy - and affordable - to stick to today.
“If you walk into a supermarket you will still find cheap vegetables so people could still eat like this,” he says. “I think the problem today is that people have too much choice.”
Not everyone on social media was convinced, however.