The irony being that for a long time beer was loaded with unfiltered yeasts, which made it far more nutritious. The advent of spirits and filtered beers, especi

The irony being that for a long time beer was loaded with unfiltered yeasts, which made it far more nutritious. The advent of spirits and filtered beers, especially as it tended to arrive alongside whiter breads, was not good for the health of the poor. You see similar things occur for different reasons across different nations and at different times when key dietary staples change, or are lost. Pellagra in the US from over-reliance on corn, Beriberi in Japan from eating too much white rice and too little protein, and so on. The history of monoculture agriculture and emerging food science is a history of starvation, malnutrition, and gross misunderstandings of epidemiology. Fortunately we’d never make the same mistakes today! Heh...