Living conditions in early modern Britain - food and water
People’s living conditions continued to affect their health in the early modern period. The range and quality of people’s diet depended on their wealth. Although access to water supplies improved for some people, water was not very safe for anyone to drink, rich or poor.
Food
The wealthy
The wealthy had a more varied diet than the poor. It included:
- lots of meat, such as beef, veal, mutton, rabbit and pigeon
- fish
- some vegetables and fruit
- alcohol such as wine, ale, beer and mead, all of which were safer to drink than water
The rich also began to eat new kinds of food imported from Asia and America, such as chillies and pumpkins. This further improved the variety of their diet.
However, wealth brought dietary hazards as well. The rich ate more sugar, which was being grown on Britain’s plantations in the Caribbean. High consumption of sugar led to rotting teeth and obesity among the wealthy. They used sugar in hot chocolate, coffee and tea. Coffee, brought from Arabia by the merchant ships of the East India Company, was particularly popular. A survey of 1734 showed that there were 551 coffee houses in London.
Their unbalanced diet also meant that many suffered from This is a type of that can occur more commonly in people who consume a lot of fatty food and alcohol.
The poor
The diet of the poor was more basic. It had not changed a great deal since medieval times. It included:
- bread
- vegetables
- occasional treats, such as eggs, cheese, fish or meat
The poorest labourers mainly ate pottage, which was a thick vegetable stew or soup. This diet meant that they lacked vitamins and iron. Their low wages also meant that they endured periods of hunger, particularly during bad harvests, when food prices rose sharply. were less common during this period. However, when they did occur, families would starve.
Water
Hygiene
People tended not to wash as regularly as they do today. Soap at that time was made from animal fat, which was more suitable for washing clothes than skin. People also believed that dirty water could get in through their pores and make them ill.
People living in the countryside continued to bathe in the local river or pond. In the towns, bathing was difficult unless you had servants, a bathtub and spare fuel to heat the water.
Staying clean therefore usually required people to change clothes regularly, although it was only the wealthy who had many of sets of clothes and the servants to wash them. Poorer labourers might only have had one set of clothes, which could be infected with lice and fleas.
Drinking water
People obtained their water in much the same ways as people in the medieval period had:
- those who lived in the countryside had wells, springs or streams
- in the towns, people could collect water from a or buy water from a water-seller
However, in the early modern period, some towns started to bring in water from the countryside to This meant that people could pay for their house to be connected to water pipes.
