Oh, absolutely there was peaks and troughs in terms of the healthiness of historic diets; the Romans noted the German diet produced a very obvious superior outc

Oh, absolutely there was peaks and troughs in terms of the healthiness of historic diets; the Romans noted the German diet produced a very obvious superior outcome. A more recent trough occurred in the late 1800s/early 1900s: mid-Victorians lived much longer, and grew much taller, than late Victorians in England. We've only relatively recently recovered from that (mostly - not in terms of life expectancy at age 5, but certainly on other factors like height.) You definitely have to take a very expansive view.