Although the UK faced many public health issues, could it be that Victorian Society had a healthier lifestyle than we do?

Many of us have the fantasy of being a time traveller, going back to the time of Charles Dickens to see how the people in our history books really lived. Lately we're taking a trip back to the roots of Steampunk... the Victorian Empire, for the record the date of Victoria's reign is between 1837 and 1901. After wondering How does Steampunk draw inspiration from the Victorian era? or the discovery of Victorian Christmas.

Even though medicine and sanitation standards were lower than they are now, of course, one can ask questions. There were hard times, such as the epidemic that killed so many people in the East End of London in the mid-Victorian era. At that time, few slum dwellers had ovens or cooking utensils. Many did not even have plates or spoons. They lived mainly on bread, porridge and broth. It is not surprising, therefore, that poor children were malnourished, anaemic, stunted and very small. Their food was also not so unpleasant for the time, although they often went hungry.

A study that compared the heights of Victorian youths by class and income – On British Pygmies and Giants – makes particularly shocking reading for an industrial powerhouse of this rank. The study found that young recruits at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, who were largely from the middle or upper classes, were among the tallest young men in the world at the time, averaging nearly 175cm (5ft 9in).

By contrast, 16-year-old boys from the slums who were recruited by the Marine Society, a charity set up to provide the navy with a steady supply of labour, were 22cm shorter. If you weren't from the slums, then things were much better. In some ways, the English during the Industrial Revolution had a healthier diet than we do today, because they ate much more nutrient-dense foods and consumed much less sugar and processed foods.

Victorian Eating Habits

Victorian Era Food Chart

Victorian Era Food Chart

Category	Examples	Description
Breakfast	Stone-ground bread, lard, watercress, cold meats, cheese	Nutrient-dense meals, often with vegetables and healthy fats, sometimes accompanied by beer.
Vegetables	Onions, cabbages, leeks, carrots, turnips	Available in abundance in the markets, consumed in large quantities.
Fruits	Apples, cherries	Apples in winter and cherries in summer, the fruits were eaten according to the seasons.
Nut	Chestnuts, hazelnuts	High-fiber nuts, often roasted and sold on the street.
Meats	Mutton, oily fish (herring, sprats), seafood	Meat was expensive, so fish and seafood were common alternatives, rich in omega-3s.
Soups and stews	Brown Windsor Soup, vegetable soups, meat stews	Consumed mainly in autumn and winter.
Drinks	Tea, bitch	Tea was commonly consumed, while saloop, a sweetened hot drink, was popular.
Desserts	Cherries Jubilee	Dessert made for celebrations, made with ingredients such as eggs, sugar, lemon juice.
Specialties	Kedgeree, Jellied Eels, Marrow Tartine, Cold Boiled Turkey in Gravy	Unique dishes like Indian-inspired kedgeree, jellied eels, and boiled turkey.
Celebration meal	Sunday lunch	Traditionally made with roast meat, vegetables, and potatoes, eaten with family.

• In Victorian times, the growth of the railway network made it much easier to transport foodstuffs from the countryside to urban markets, greatly improving the quality and quantity of produce available there.
• A typical breakfast might consist of stone-ground bread, smeared with a drizzle of lard (consisting largely of healthy monounsaturated fats), accompanied by a large bunch of watercress, rich in vitamins, minerals and micronutrients. The wealthier ones were accustomed to starting the day with cold cuts, cheese and beer.
• The markets were full of cheap seasonal vegetables, including onions, cabbages, leeks, carrots and turnips. The main fruits were apples in winter and cherries in summer.
• The Victorians also ate plenty of healthy, high-fiber nuts, such as chestnuts and hazelnuts, which were often roasted and purchased from street vendors.
• Afternoon tea was usually offered in all homes , especially those of the wealthy class. In summer, people stuck to lighter dishes and chicken. In winter and autumn, soups and stews were used.
• Meat was relatively expensive, although a sheep's head could be bought for around 3d (£2.50 in modern currency). Instead, they ate plenty of oily fish and seafood rich in omega-3. Herring, sprat, eel, oysters, mussels, cockles and whelks were all popular, as were cod and haddock.

According to a study published in the Royal Society of Medicine, 'How did mid-Victorians function, eat and die?', the combination of huge amounts of physical activity (most people did physically demanding jobs, which meant they were active for 50 to 60 hours a week) and a diet rich in fruit, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables meant that the Victorians suffered less from chronic and degenerative diseases than we do.

Dr. Paul Clayton (no relation to the eponymous video game), one of the authors of the study, claims that they were "90% less likely to develop cancer, dementia and coronary heart disease than we do today." This certainly meant that diseases like type 2 diabetes, which plagues modern society, were almost non-existent.

Was the Victorian England diet low in carbohydrates?

Although they ate many more calories than we do, due to their physical activity, obese Victorians were relatively rare. William Banting, a Victorian undertaker, was an exception. He was apparently so fat that he had to walk down stairs backwards. His family were funeral directors to the Royal Household who oversaw the funerals of the Duke of Wellington, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria herself.

William Banting, however, is best known for being the first person to popularize a low-carb diet. In a self-published pamphlet in 1863, A Letter on Corpulence, he described how he lost over 40 pounds in a matter of months by cutting out foods like bread, sugar, beer, and potatoes. Despite a scornful response from the medical profession, his modest booklet became a bestseller, and "to bant" became a popular term for dieting. One of Banting's descendants, Sir Frederick Banting, would later win the Nobel Prize for being the first to use insulin to treat diabetes.

Other Victorian innovations from 1837 to 1901 included:

Famous chefs.

Throughout the 19th century, the most fashionable cuisine was French cuisine. Its dominance was encouraged by books by famous chefs, the most famous of whom was Marie-Antoine Carême (1783-1833). Her book The Art of French Cuisine, translated into English in 1836, was highly influential. Such works would no doubt have influenced the cuisine served in grand houses such as Witley Court in Worcestershire and Audley End in Essex.

Middle-class households also turned to books for guidance. The most successful was Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management (1861), which innovatively specified exact quantities and precise cooking times. A revolution at the time.

The modern breakfast.

Over time, breakfast foods were replaced by porridge, fish, eggs and bacon - the "full English". By the end of the 19th century, however, this relatively healthy start to the day was being challenged by the manufacturers of sugary breakfast cereals, pioneered by people like Dr John Harvey Kellogg. This was the tipping point towards the modern world, which preferred to feed its population at the lowest cost, despite the devastating health effects.

Dr. Kellogg, who had strange views on sex and eugenics, is said to have invented Corn Flakes as part of his health regimen to prevent masturbation, a subject he was absolutely obsessed with. He was convinced that replacing meat and eggs with bland foods, such as corn flakes, would reduce arousal in young men. He also recommended a daily enema.

Sunday lunch.

For many Victorians, Sunday was the only day off they had (a 12-hour day, six days a week, was common). It was also the only day they ate meat. This gave rise to the custom of buying a small joint of beef, pork or mutton to share with the family, accompanied by plenty of vegetables, potatoes and gravy. If you couldn't afford a roast, there was always offal, such as liver, tongue or heart.

The three-course dinner.

The Victorian era saw the introduction of two or three course meals during the Queen's reign, with the courses arriving in sequence, one at a time. Before this, the courses tended to arrive all at once. Queen Victoria, who was something of a glutton, was able to eat seven courses in less than half an hour. As everyone was served after the Queen, and once she had finished, all the dishes were cleared away, there was a good chance that you would leave one of her magnificent banquets very hungry.

Let us now look at some typical specialties of this period.

Marrow toast.

Yes, bone marrow. Bone marrow toast was supposedly a favorite of Queen Victoria, according to her former chef Charles Francatelli, who included the recipe in his 1861 book, The Cook's Guide and Housekeeper's & Butler's Assistant.

The Kedgeree.

It originated from the colonization of India by England, as curried foods were increasingly popular among the English during the Victorian era. It is essentially the British version of khichdi, an Indian dish of spiced rice and lentils.

The Brown Windsor Soup.

This is everyone's favorite soup during the Victorian era in England. Royalty, the middle and lower classes alike, all gobbled up this soup like never before. According to The Foods of England project, Brown Windsor Soup was known as "the very soup that is credited with building the British Empire"...

With a dish this popular, you'd think it'd be made with the best of the best ingredients.
But in reality, it's made with beef gravy, malt vinegar, pepper, dried dark fruits like dates and figs, and an optional splash of mulled Madeira wine. Sounds a bit like mud to us. But hey, if it was good enough for the Queen...

Jellied Eels.

Jellied eels originated in the East End of London. The dish was made with chopped eels that were boiled in stock. The mixture was allowed to cool, causing the fat to set and gel. It was served cold. They are still found in some areas of London and are considered a delicacy by some.

Cold boiled turkey in sauce.

This "turkey galantine," prepared in England, is nothing like the traditional American roast turkey that is served at Thanksgiving. This Victorian turkey recipe, from Mrs. Crocombe's 1880s cookbook, calls for a whole turkey, boned and stuffed with a sausage and a pistachio, to be wrapped, boiled in broth and served cold, jellied and covered with a kind of mayonnaise.

Saloop.

Hot drinks were popular in a world where drinking unboiled water was often risky. Saloop had been popular since the 1600s. It was a hot, supposedly nutritious and highly sweetened beverage made from ground orchid roots. Toward the end of the 19th century, the base of the drink was replaced with sassafras bark, flavored with milk and sugar. Regardless, saloop was considered a delicious drink to start or end the day. With any luck, the drink was made with the proper roots or bark, not with used tea leaves picked from a trash heap.

Cherries Jubilee.

A dessert invented to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. This fanciful dessert contains ingredients like 5 eggs, sugar, lemon juice, flour, salt etc. Cooking was a lengthy process in Victorian England so this dessert was definitely meant for the upper class.

It doesn't necessarily sound unpleasant, but it's different from what we're used to by now.

Thank you for reading vaporists, I hope I have made you discover a little more about the Victorian era. See you soon for another article on the fascinating world of Steampunk.