No discussion of food and diet beliefs of the time is complete without considering the beliefs of medicine at the time. The article only obliquely hints at thi

No discussion of food and diet beliefs of the time is complete without considering the beliefs of medicine at the time. The article only obliquely hints at this "although it had to be considered whether or not a specific meat was suited to one's "humour", occupation, and even nationality". It's a belief that seems to have held from ancient Greek times and shares much with ancient Chinese and Egyptian beliefs. The four humours were associated with different qualities, personality types and body types, and consisted of 4 basic substances we were all made up of. Food was thought to be important means of cure and compensating for the humours, and balancing those elements. It's basically a set of beliefs that dominated for 2,000+ years. See http://kheper.net/topics/typology/four_humours.html http://kheper.net/topics/typology/four_humours.html or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism for a bit more depth. Of course if you were a poor labourer I doubt much of this entered into your thinking on food!