A report I saw that indicated that Americans don’t have enough copper in their diet got me to thinking: when did (and what) societies start putting an emphasis on healthy eating? I assume that for most of human history we were largely just worried about getting calories and we didn’t care where they came from.
Maybe a simpler way to put it is: when did we first start eating something we didn’t like strictly because it was (nutritionally) “good for you”?
Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic and Arctic were well aware that eating low-fat meat alone was harmful to one’s health, and would not eat prime cuts of game if no fats or carbohydrates was available to accompany the protein.
One of the things the Greeks believed could affect the balance of your humors was what you ate; and therefore, to keep your humors in balance, it was important to eat an appropriately balanced diet.
Of course, they were wrong about the whole idea of humors, but the idea of one’s diet affecting one’s health is still there.
The Talmud (compiled c. 500 CE) has many pieces of advice for healthy eating. Maimonides (c 1200 CE) was a physician as well as a rabbi, and includes nutritional advice in his rabbinical writings.
A lot of ancient societies had strong views on what constituted a healthy diet, generally for the better off. It is only in more modern times that the true knowledge of what was healthy or not became scientifically testable.
Classifying foods into hot/cold and moist/dry lasted a very long time in Europe.
Mesoamericans developed the nixtamalization processing of corn to increase its nutritive value. A lot of other enhancement processes were developed around the world.
The book of Daniel mentions Daniel wanting to eat a healthier diet than the other princes and the other princes being switched to his diet when he seems healthier after eating it. The book was written at least as early as 200-300 BC and describes events around 600BC.
Even bacteria can tell the difference between things that are good to eat and things that aren’t. We’ve just recently applied science to something people have been doing since before we were people.
My Google-fu is weak, but I remember a reference to either ancient Chinese or Japanese dietary advice that you shouldn’t eat too much “polished rice” and fatty meat, unless you want to put on plenty of weight.
Polished rice is usually the route to beri beri.
My understanding, though, is that the diet was a way for Daniel to stay apart from the king and to display the power of God, not for nutrition. The Bible has a lot of food advice (e.g. kosher laws) but they don’t appear to be based on nutrition.
Or in order to keep kosher.
There’s some that is sort of related to nutrition -
Then later in the chapter, when the Israelites are complaining because they crave meat, and the Lord says “You want meat? I’ll give you meat until it comes out your nose!”
Regards,
Shodan