The Mediterranean Diet Isn’t What It Used to Be

Oct. 4, 2021 -- When Mount Vesuvius erupted successful 79 AD, immoderate residents of Pompeii, Italy, sought structure successful chromatic vaults connected adjacent beaches, but to nary avail: The lava flows inactive took their lives. But molten stone did not erase grounds of however they lived and what they ate. Their bones archer a communicative of however the Mediterranean diet has changed implicit time, according to caller research.

In a survey published successful Science Advances, researchers picture utilizing proteins from the bones of 17 of these victims to find the food sources that nourished the radical of Pompeii.

We are what we eat, and our bodies physique caller worldly utilizing the protein we instrumentality in. Bones are successful a changeless authorities of breaking down and gathering up, and the proteins they incorporate volition bespeak what’s successful our caller diet. In the caller study, researchers compared features of protein contented of the bones to those of fish, onshore animals, and nutrient plants from the aforesaid clip play to find who was eating what astatine the time.

They recovered that men ate much food and women tended to devour much onshore carnal products and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Fish was harder to entree and frankincense much expensive, the authors say, suggesting that the higher societal presumption of the men could explicate the sex spread successful their diets.

For the modern human, the findings suggest that the Mediterranean diet, often touted arsenic astir steadfast for us, has changed a spot implicit the past 2,000 years oregon so. Residents of the country astatine the clip of the Vesuvius eruption astir apt ate a batch much fish than the fare includes today, but little successful the mode of grains.

The study’s attack “also provided dietary information of capable precision for examination with assessments of nutrient proviso to modern populations, opening up the anticipation of benchmarking past diets against modern settings wherever the consequences for wellness are amended understood,” the researchers said.