Eat Like a Peasant

Would you like to hear something ironic?

I think we should start eating like peasants again.

Stick with me for a minute…

For much of history, the wealthy ate very differently from everybody else.

Kings, queens, aristocrats, and wealthy landowners could afford the “good stuff”—white bread, more meat, rich sauces, butter, sweets, and alcohol.

Meanwhile, the ordinary folks—the peasants—ate whatever was cheap, filling, and available. Things like whole grains, beans and peas, potatoes and other root vegetables, cabbage, onions, greens, and seasonal fruit.

In other words... Peasant food.

And the funny thing is, a lot of it sounds an awful like what we’re being told to eat today.

White Bread Was Once the Fancy Stuff

Today we think of whole-grain bread as the healthier choice.

But historically, white flour required additional milling and sifting. In many places, that made beautiful white bread something associated with wealth and status.

Poorer people were more likely to eat darker, coarser breads made from less-refined wheat, rye, barley, or whatever grains were available.

Talk about ironic - the wealthy paid extra to have parts of the grain removed?

Today we’re told to eat whole grains because that’s where much of the fiber and nutrition are. Similar stories can be told about polished white rice in parts of the world. We took a perfectly good whole food, removed part of it, and decided the more processed version was somehow better.

Sound familiar?

Meat Was a Sign You Had Money

The wealthy could also afford to eat considerably more meat.

For ordinary people, meat was very rare, and often occasional. Their everyday calories had to come from cheaper foods like grains, beans, peas, lentils, potatoes, vegetables, and bread.

Not because they had read the latest nutrition study…..they ate them because that’s what they had!

But doesn’t that sound awfully familiar?

Simple food? Mostly plants? Lots of beans, grains, vegetables, and fruit. Not a lot of highly processed stuff. And meat, when available, wasn’t necessarily the centerpiece of every single meal.

It’s not all that different from the way we’ve been talking about eating here for years.

Then We Learned to Eat Like Kings

Eventually, industrialization changed everything.

White flour and sugar became cheap. Meat became more plentiful. Highly processed foods became available everywhere.

Suddenly ordinary people could eat foods that previous generations might have considered luxuries.

We could have bacon and eggs for breakfast, cheeseburgers for lunch, fried chicken for dinner, ice cream for dessert, and snacks whenever we wanted them.

We finally learned how to eat like kings.

And ironically, many of the chronic diseases once associated with affluence eventually became commonplace too.

Meanwhile, some of the humblest foods in the grocery store are still potatoes, beans, oats, brown rice, lentils, cabbage, carrots, onions, and apples.

Nothing fancy. Nothing exotic. Just food.

Maybe Simple Is the Point

We spend so much time arguing about the perfect diet.

How much protein do I need? Are carbs bad? What about fat? Should I eat olive oil? Should I avoid potatoes? Should I fast? Do I need this powder, that supplement, or the newest “superfood”?

Meanwhile, there’s a pot of beans sitting on the stove saying...

“Hello? I’m right here.”

Maybe eating well doesn’t have to be nearly as complicated as we’ve made it.

Maybe instead of asking how we can eat like kings, we should start eating a little more like the peasants did—beans, potatoes, whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and simple soups and stews made from whatever was available.

Our ancestors may have eaten those foods because they had no other choice.

But knowing what we know today, choosing to eat a little more like them might actually be one of the smartest choices we can make.