Medieval Peasants Ate Better Than You

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]In history class, most people are told that medieval ymen were typically malnourished and starving. Yman apparently only ever ate slop and grl when they could just manage to afford it. Of course, unfortunately for some ymen, as our history classes tell us, horrible famines struck every other week or so, and half the population would die of starvation right there and then from not being able to afford food.

[00:00:22]Supposedly, these medieval ymen were so deprived of nutritious foods that they hardly ever grew taller than a little over 5t or so. We are also told that thanks to a lack of modern dentistry, most yman lost all of their teeth. Well, those are all complete lies. This video is going to cover the diet of a medieval yman compared to the diet of an average modern person. How ymen were fit and healthy from working outdoors compared to people now who sit all day. And how going barefoot outside has surprising health benefits.

[00:00:59]Again, for this video, we will be focusing more on ymen, free landowning peasants, as opposed to surfs, who were peasants bound to a piece of land owned by a noble. One common misconception is that yman basically ate just slop and grl. They had no healthy food, which led to a variety of health problems. This isn't quite true. It should be pretty obvious to the average person with common sense that societies of people who quite literally grew their own food for a living would be eating rather well. Yommen typically ate porridge, brown bread, a variety of vegetables, pork, and fish. Pies, peas, pork ribs, and rabbit were all foods ymen enjoyed having on a regular basis. Bacon was said to be a particular favorite of yman, to the point that most yman raised their own pigs. Pretty much all this food was grown and raised in the local area the yman lived in. In fact, the yman grew and raised much, if not all, their own food. Many ymen even grew a wide variety of herbs which they would use to season their food. Also, while we are at it, apparently there is a myth that yman ate spoiled meat and used the spices to cover up the taste. That's blatantly false. Ymen were not stupid.

[00:02:10]They knew how to preserve foods.

[00:02:12]Sultting, drying, smoking, pickling, etc. were all very well-known practices.

[00:02:17][music] It is often commonly said ymen drank ale ale from a [music] young age because the water sources most of them had back in the medieval times were terrible. Ae would help kill bacteria. However, this isn't quite true. Water purity was location specific. It is pretty easy to see why some big cities might have [music] worse water than a sleepy village out in the countryside. Ale was a popular drink, but not all ymen were forced to drink it out of necessity. In any case, let's compare the Yman fair with what we eat today. What do we eat today? Processed food, natural foods sprayed with chemicals, genetically altered natural foods, foods full of preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, pasteurized non- raw milk. Our animals that we eat are often grown and raised in essentially factories. On top of that, a lot of our food and even drinks are filled with microplastics. Let's not even bother getting started on the junk food. As for medieval water supposedly being impure, modern city water cannot be called pure at all. Modern city water is pumped full of chemicals. Chlorine and fluoride being two of the most obvious examples. Who do you think had a healthier diet, Yman or us? There is a reason people willing to pay much more for eggs will often drive out to local farms and homesteads instead of just driving 5 minutes away to the local grocery store to get the eggs and meat for cheap. Another popular myth about medieval yman is that they were much shorter than people today. This comes from two assumptions. The first is that many buildings in medieval times were small and had small doors. Cottages were very small enclosed [music] spaces. This combined with the false belief that yman barely ate anything except grul formulated the myth that ymen were short. However, many archaeologists examined skeletons of medieval ymen and found that ymen were in fact pretty much about the same height as we are today.

[00:04:06]And as we have already seen, Yman did not eat just slop and grl. In addition to grains, they regularly ate vegetables, fish, and pork. As a matter of fact, salmon was considered to be a pretty normal food for ymen, which strikes probably many of us as strange since salmon is now considered to be a quote unquote expensive food. [music] True, the yman didn't eat much beef.

[00:04:26]Then again, it isn't as though the average modern person eats steak for dinner every night. As has already been mentioned, the average medieval [music] peasant ate far more nutritious foods than the average modern person does. So where did all of the peasants were short miss come from? Well, part of it had to do with the small cottages, short doors, and ceilings that the yman lived in. But there were practical reasons for all these short structure designs. First, we have to remember that human beings are meant by nature to be outdoors. Medieval people understood this and accordingly spent most of their time outdoors. This goes for both the men and the women.

[00:05:00]Their houses were basically just a place to keep out the wind, the rain, and the cold temperature and to sleep at night and store anything that they didn't want damaged by the weather. So, medieval people spent most of their time outdoors and only really used houses when they had to. The only grand large building they would usually construct was the local Catholic church. So, what about the short doorways? Well, the short doorways help keep out the wind and the weather. It's easier to seal a small door against the cold weather than a large door. Plus, in the winter, a small door when open lets less heat out of the house than a large door does. So, no, just because people had small doors and low ceilings does not automatically mean they were short. However, there was one time period in history where people were short due to bad rations and a variety of other problems. That period was the industrial revolution. This was ironically because when the industrial revolution began, many people left their agrarian lives in the country and moved to the city. With so many agrarian people in the city, the available food plummeted. Many people starved in the cities and people in those generations were a bit shorter than they should have been. So, ironically, ymen were normal height. But when technology was first introduced, [music] the average height of the industrial workers shrank. Yet, industrial workers now often have the general reputation among people for being quote unquote well taken care of health-wise, while peasants are remembered as being quote unquote short and malnourished. Rather odd, isn't it, how the facts were flipped around. Also, isn't it odd how so many problems seem to link back to the industrial revolution? Now, typically, if a civilization experiences famines or serious food deficiency problems, the people who grew up in that civilization will be short. This is why you have Americans much taller than their grandparents who grew up in foreign countries. Many elderly grandparents who grew up in, say, communist controlled countries [music] are often stunted. Yet their children who grew up without the same problems have normal heights as do their grandchildren. Thankfully, medieval yman did not typically suffer from this problem as many people falsely believe.

[00:06:55]Many people like to claim that people in the past [music] had horrible rotting teeth because they didn't have access to dentists. On top of that, a popular myth is that yman did not clean their teeth.

[00:07:05]In fact, medieval yman did often brush their teeth with the end of a chewed twig, and they [music] used ground cloves and salt as toothpaste. Modern History TV did a cool video on that.

[00:07:16]I'll link it in the description. Most modern toothpaste is poisoned with fluoride. While it is true Yman did not have access to modern dentists, they actually didn't need modern dentists on the level that we do now. Why? Because, as has already been covered, ymen ate far healthier foods than we do. No sugar, no artificial food, no preservatives, etc. In fact, the more altered food became from its original form, the more cavities seemed to start popping up. For example, in early medieval times, ymen [music] ate brown bread. White bread made from refined flour was more expensive. Yet, as people would eventually find out, white refined flour caused more cavities. In fact, when the Spanish arrived in South America, most of the people there had even better dental health than the Spanish did. When the Spanish introduced refined white flour, it was discovered among the native population that the natives who ate refined white flour started having more dental problems on average than they had before. The people who struck to their own traditional diets did not see the same increase in dental problems. There were some instances of teeth causing problems in the Middle Ages. There was even a job as a quote unquote tooth puller, but people didn't regularly get cavities like we do now. Many archaeologists have examined skulls from past civilizations and found the teeth to be surprisingly healthy.

[00:08:32]Now, medieval yman did consume a lot of calories with the food and ale. Many people will be wondering, wouldn't the ymen be fat after consuming so much?

[00:08:41]Well, the answer is actually no, because ymen were far more physically active than we are now. So, now that we have covered diets, let's move on to physical exertion. It has often been said in the past that invading America would be a terrible mistake because usually when you invade a country, you only have to fight that country's military. Many Americans love to boast that the average American would fight off invaders just as well as the American military would.

[00:09:03]There is a famous quote attributed to the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto during World War II. Quote, "You cannot invade mainland America. There would be a rifle behind every blade of brass." End quote.

[00:09:15]We don't know whether he really said that, but Americans love to brag and boast about that quote regardless.

[00:09:20]However, it is rather doubtful Americans would fight well if they were invaded today because most Americans today are horribly fat and out of shape. I've gone hiking on many relatively easy hikes with many Americans before. And it doesn't take long for the Americans to be panting and [music] out of breath. It doesn't even have to be a difficult hike. Just make the Americans walk in an upwards incline at even a short distance away. And many of the Americans are soon gasping for air as though they've just run a marathon. Let it be known the health of the average American is usually pitiful. Some Americans try to fix this by going to the gym. Since there is no daily action in their lives requiring physical movement and exertion, they are forced to go to the gym to try to replicate some artificial form of physical labor. In the past, this wasn't ever a problem because people usually preferred [clears throat] manual labor in agrarian settings. What is more satisfying? getting a workout, doing your daily work outdoors, or finishing your daily work in a cubicle, and then having to spend your free time going to a gym to perform basically pointless motions designed to make you suffer. At least when you suffer doing farm work, there is a point and reward to your suffering. In the gym, you basically just torture yourself every day in order to try to stay healthy.

[00:10:26]Going to the gym is nowhere near as satisfying as getting a workout through outdoor labor on your own land. Farmers, in particular, are famous for being very fit. In fact, you can go on to YouTube and look up videos of farmers versus military men where both the farmers and military men undergo physical competitions to see who performs better.

[00:10:42]If I'm not mistaken, the farmers usually beat the military men to win these competitions. Another bonus point for outdoor manual labor. It keeps people fit in their old age. I knew a farmer in his mid60s who was still working just as hard as he had when he was younger. He was incredibly energetic and spry for his age. His wife kept urging him to quote unquote stop working so hard and relax. Her argument was, "You aren't young, and at your age, you can't handle this sort of work anymore." The farmer told his wife, "Honey, my health and energy levels are excellent. The reason they are excellent is because I work this hard. If I stop working this hard and I sit around all day, for one thing, I'm going to feel useless and miserable.

[00:11:20]But on top of that, if I stop working, my body will atrophy if I'm not using it. Doing strenuous outdoor work is not killing my remaining health. It's actually keeping my health up." I've heard multiple other farmers and people who have farmers as relatives report this same phenomenon. If the farmers are able to keep working often into their 80s, they are usually quite happy and their health seems to stay fine.

[00:11:40]Meanwhile, their city counterparts who have nothing to do besides sit in their house and watch Netflix often quickly see their health deteriorate until they are frail, fragile, and deprived of energy. One priest I knew in his late 60s was also very spry and energetic. He told me other people he had known for years since he was young, were nowhere near as energetic as he was, despite being the same age or even younger than he was. This priest spent most of his days doing yard work and manual outdoor labor around the property he lived on.

[00:12:08]He told me that he believed all that constant outdoor labor was the key to his great health and high energy levels.

[00:12:14]Another guy I read about planned to live off-rid during his retirement, growing and raising most of his own food. Many people were horrified. Didn't he know that when he was old, he would be too weak and frail to do any outdoor work?

[00:12:25]Old people needed to sit on the couch and rest. He responded rather fiercely that his grandparents had been working on their farms just as hard as ever until the day that they died. On the other hand, he knew plenty of retired old people who were miserably sitting on couches binging Netflix with nothing else to do. From his point of view, being old and feebly sitting on a couch being pampered and cared for and nannied until he died was worse than death. He believed working outdoors would keep his health out. Plus, he would be working on a garden and raising a few small animals, not running marathons every day. Even if, by some incredibly strange twist of fate, he somehow overexerted himself and died early, then at least he would die happy. At any rate, it would be what better to die working on his property and outdoor projects than to die sitting miserably on a couch binging Netflix. We need to stop acting as though sitting in chairs all day, never performing outdoor labor is perfectly normal. It isn't. Human beings are naturally designed to be outdoors and use their bodies for manual outdoor labor. When we thwart this design by sitting in chairs and staring at screens all day, we will eventually suffer the consequences for it. For example, it has been discovered that walking barefoot on the ground and coming into contact with the natural earth is good for your health, not just your mental health.

[00:13:36]Doctors have done tests where they take a blood sample from someone and discover the person has poor blood circulation.

[00:13:43]They then send that person to go stand on a patch of dirt or sand for 10 minutes. After that, they take another sample and usually find that the blood circulation has improved dramatically.

[00:13:52]This is a relatively unexplored area of the medical industry. Many people call it either earthing or grounding. It has been reported to have three main health benefits. One is improved cortisol management. Cortisol oversees stress levels in the brain. Two is reduced inflammation. And three is better sleep at night. So the rough theory is that the earth has a mild negative electron charge. The human body has a mild positive electron charge. Many of the positive electrons can influence things such as stress, inflammation, etc. The idea is that touching the dirt helps to regulate and balance all this out, and that's what nature intended. We don't know much about this because it hasn't been researched all that much. There are some rumors that it has not been researched much because walking on dirt is free. Usually when you go into a doctor, the doctor prescribes relatively expensive medications and the medical industry and the insurance industry make bank. Imagine how much money the medical industry would lose if the doctor told you, "Nah, don't bother paying for medications. Walking on dirt will fix your problems." So basically, the medical industry has no monetary incentive to research this. So they haven't. As a matter of fact, for many years, some doctors even warned patients about walking barefoot outdoors. They were worried about being infected with hookworms or something similar. However, many people who try walking barefoot outdoors have reported that they felt much better stress-wise. ABS started sleeping better at night and report lower levels of inflammation. All these health benefits and so many more were lost when humans by and large stopped working in the outdoors. Who knew that quite literally touching grass would improve your physical health? I was going to discuss famines, diseases, and general health care of peasants in this video, but that was too much to include in one video. That will have to wait for future videos. Also, quick new announcement. I recently started a new Substack page. Plenty of my followers have been asking me for book recommendations or book reviews or they'll ask a question that takes a small essay to cover. So, if you are interested in reading all of those things, you can read them over on the Substack. And if you are interested in asking questions yourselves, you can always email me or drop recommendation in the substat comments or something like that. I'll pin that in the comment section.