I took some time off from the toilet paper project because real life exploded. But, things are back on track now.
I started eating a rough approximation of a 15th century English vassal’s diet on Tuesday. The basic information I was able to glean showed me that a vassal’s diet was similar to that of a peasant, but included a wider variety of vegetables and more meat. I did not swap out water for ale, for mundane reasons. I did not think my bosses would appreciate me drinking ale while at work. I’m sure my proportions are off, but I have been unable to ascertain exact amounts of each meal, and for the purposes of my experiment, I do not need to be exact.
This experimental diet mainly consists of bread, followed by vegetables, eggs/cheese, and then meat. All vegetables that I am eating were readily available in England in the 15th Century.
There is so much information to absorb that I had to seriously limit my research to avoid going down a very deep rabbit hole; one that I currently do not want to explore. I got the very basics; just enough for the purposes of this experiment. I will save further research for my persona project.
Breakfast on the first day consisted of whole grain bread and cheese. Lunch was more bread, with hard boiled eggs. I also packed, but did not eat pickles. Dinner consisted of pottage made from barley. I cooked it with vegetable stock, because I needed to impart flavor into the barley. I did not feel that the substitution (the recipes I found all said to cook the barley in water) would dramatically effect the results I am looking for. To that I added cooked chicken, spinach, peas and carrots. It was tasty, but I also really like barley.
Today’s breakfast was bread, beef jerky, carrots and radishes. I experienced a drop in blood sugar because I did not pack enough protein. I took the eggs I was planning on for lunch, and ate them around 10am, which helped immensely. I think if I do jerky again, I need to pack more than 1 serving, since I am using it as a meal and not a snack. However, if I experience any more blood sugar drops, I will need to cease the experiment. I now have to go out to get something else for lunch, and I think that I will just get more cheese to go with the cucumbers and bread.
The plan is to follow the above diet for several weeks and see how my bowel movements change. Then I will clean myself with linen, un-spun wool and straw and record my impressions and each of their effectiveness. All of this will be compiled into a chart, which will be included in the next iteration of my paper.
I’ve already noticed slight changes; I was uncomfortably gassy this morning, and I am much hungrier than when I eat a modern diet. No appreciable changes to bowel movements, but that was not something I anticipated in the first few days.
Meanwhile, the search for additional primary sources continues. So far, the two sources from my last blog post are the only two I have been able to find. My search criteria includes household records. I’m also looking into archaeological digs of sewer systems.