“A man in the Berwick garrison, in 1597, when times were
hard and inflation had increased rapidly, got a daily ration of a twelve-ounce
loaf, three pints of beer, one-and-a-half pounds of beef, three-quarters of a
pound of cheese, and a quarter of a pound of butter – this was a considerable
reduction in what his ration had been some years earlier.”[i]
In the old days, you needed more calories.
And more muscle. There’s a lovely moment in Michael Crichton’s
“Timeline”, a novel about a group of time travellers who go back to fourteenth
century France to test their historical understanding. One of them, a fit young
fellow, gets challenged to a joust. The squire assigned to help our horonaut
into his armour looks at the American’s gym-buffed physique and enquires
politely, “You have had a fever?”
For today’s soft life, a man needs c. 2,500 calories a day[ii]
but many eat much more.[iii]
However in wartime it’s a different story – in the cold, sodden trenches of WWI
“it was the stated aim of the British Army that each soldier should consume
4,000 calories a day”.[iv]
In WWII, the Japanese – then a smaller-bodied people because
of a shortage of protein in the national diet – were issued less in the way of
rations, but supplemented it with local foods and vitamin pills.[v]
American field rations varied from the 2,830-calorie “K” (short duration;
overuse could lead to malnourishment) to 4,000 calories for jungle warfare and
4,800 for mountain missions.[vi]
In 1970s civvy Britain, it was lino floors, no central heating and
much walking. Maybe that’s where I’ve gone wrong. I could save a fortune if I
turned off the CH and garaged the car; but would the cost of a high protein
diet wipe out the advantage? Still, I’d be fitter…
Mine’s a double quarterpounder with cheese – Cheddar, not that
yellow plastic stuff.
[i]
George MacDonald Fraser, “The Steel Bonnets” (1971) - Collins Harvill edn, p.55
[ii] http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51
[iii] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2722815/Daily-calorie-intake-countries-world-revealed-surprise-U-S-tops-list-3-770.html
[iv] http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/502452/The-Battle-to-feed-Tommy-The-diet-of-a-WW1-soldier
[v] http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/intelligence-report/japanese-army-rations.html
[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_ration
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