Slave Diet and Nutrition

[sockknitter]

The book Problems in American Civilization: Slavery in American Society, edited by Lawrence B. Godheart, Richard D. Brown and Stephen G. Rabe, copyright 1993 by D.C. Heath and Company is a collection of excerpts from other books generally about slavery. I have read the piece titled “Nutrition and Nutriments” by Kenneth F. Kiple and Virginia H. King. It is from their book Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet, Disease and Racism (copyright 1981, Cambridge University Press).

Reading the excerpt was an exercise in wonderment for me. Kiple and King give brief discussions of slave diet but no sources are cited, at least in this compilation book. Maybe sources are given in the original book. The authors seem to assume that slaves were almost entirely from West Africa. Their theme is that three factors affected slave nutritional status: diet, genetics and physical environment. In brief, the chapter states these facts of slave life:

Diet

• Slave rations almost universally included at least 3 pounds of fatty pork per week. Slaveowners promoted the idea that fatty pork was the best food for slaves because it was heat-producing. This three pound quantity is generally accepted as factual by the majority of historians and researchers.
• Beef was eaten rarely. This is because beef does not preserve well by pickling, drying or being smoked like pork. Beef was usually eaten in cold weather as a holiday treat, when it could be immediately consumed. If slaves were to be fed beef consistently instead of pork, they would likely revolt. Cattle were allowed to run semi-wild and were kept mostly for their manure production. The goal was to restrict them to fallow fields. “When the cattle became too numerous, their superior traveling powers (over swine) made it relatively easy for them to be driven to towns and cities. There fresh beef could be marketed quickly thus avoiding the problems of beef’s inferior preserving qualities and the absence of a packing industry in the South.”
• There was low milk production in the South. At least 70% of adult black slaves were lactose intolerant and in some places, 100% were. Dairy consumption was mainly by white people and black children.
• Cowpeas (which include black eyed peas, field peas, crowder peas and more) and sweet potatoes were considered more as animal fodder although they were occasionally eaten by slaves.
• Rations usually included 1 peck of cornmeal per week (a peck is a dry measure of ¼ bushel or approximately ½ gallon).
• Slaves didn’t eat much wheat. White people ate the little that was grown. Biscuits were a holiday treat for slaves.
• Slaves didn’t generally like green vegetables. If slaves did eat greens, they generally overcooked them to the point of losing most of the valuable nutrients.
• Plantation owners frequently believed fruit was a source of slave disease.
• Slaves grew gardens on their own time mainly for things to sell.
• Some slaves were given molasses in the belief it was healthy for them.
• Some slaves ate game and fish.

Nutritional results

• Slaves’ protein intake was probably just barely adequate. High quality protein from lean meat was scant. Lower quality protein came from combining the amino acids present in fatty pork, corn and cowpeas.
• Vitamin A intake varied, depending on the type of corn and sweet potatoes eaten. Yellow corn and deep orange sweet potatoes provide much more than white corn and pale sweet potatoes.
• Vitamin C requirements were met only seasonally when slaves could eat fresh vegetables and fresh cowpeas that weren’t overly cooked. “It would seem that most slaves were somewhat vitamin C deficient for much of the year.”
• The B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin and niacin, especially the last two, were generally lacking.
• Vitamin D, synthesized in the human body, was endangered because dark skin pigmentation lessens this ability, especially in winter with its shorter days and paler skies. Vitamin D is tied in with intestinal absorption of calcium. Slaves would have had very little dietary calcium because they didn’t consume dairy products, didn’t like greens, and “the fatty acids flowing from fat pork also interfered with the bodily absorption of calcium” and “High-quality protein content was not an outstanding feature of the slave regimen…finally, the two remaining factors that could have enhanced the absorption of calcium are lactose and vitamin D…but as already noted pigment that was kindly to blacks in their West African homeland militated against an adequate year-round supply of this vitamin in temperate North America. Thus, even if one’s calcium intake is adequate…it will be very poorly absorbed if one’s vitamin D levels are inadequate.”

Now I am left wondering about the sources for these statements of average slave diet. Were there obvious effects from all these nutritional shortcomings? I am wondering about the “typical” diet of black people in West Africa. I wonder about the incidence of diseases and abnormalities in slaves compared to white people. Were slaves more or less prone to certain conditions? (Kiple and King did say that indigenous West Africans had developed greater resistance to malaria and yellow fever than Europeans.) Was it a widespread belief in the whole United States that beef was not as useful for long term storage as pork? Were cattle universally kept more for their manure than their milk? Maybe my questions are answered in the full fledged book. I can’t find a copy of Kiple and King’s book Another Dimension to the Black Diaspora: Diet, Disease and Racism online for an acceptable price, but it looks like it’s worth searching for in a library or used book store. I just don’t think I can read it with total gullibility.

[ole]

Well, Sockknitter, some of what you've noticed matches with what I've heard, and some could be logical extensions.

As might be expected, the slave's diet would be as varied as the owner's permitted. I would suspect that 3 pounds per week was on the high side of average rather than "at least."

Gardening plots were not always made available for slave use -- particularly in areas where every available foot was planted in cotton or another lucrative cash crop.

The discussion of nutrients actually available is more interesting than modern diet-books. One can plainly see that adequate nutrition would have been scarce even among the best tended slaves.

But beef is harder to preserve than pork, and I'm guessing that sausage-making was not among the skills practiced by the bondsperson. It did bring up one question 'tho. The Native Americans did fine drying bison, elk, fish and deer. Are they dried more successfully than beef?

There is one characteristic of cattle that would explain the reliance on other animals: they are enormously inefficient. The milch cow would have been more important. How do you make butter, bake and feed your children milk without them? The beef critter simply ate more than its meat was worth. You could turn pigs into the woods and they would thrive -- all you had to do was fence them out and round up your needs when the weather cooled.

Haven't heard the one about letting the cattle roam. Seems to me they would be long gone, raising hob with your neighbor's crops, or both.

It seems likely that some of the smaller farmers would have found a business in supplying beef so their neighbors didn't have to bother.

But that's getting off the subject: diet. The book you've mentioned sounds worth a second look.

Ole

[johan_steele]

I question some of the info... particularly about greens. Collard, Turnip & mustard greens in particular were a staple in short much of what is in modern "soul food" came from slave rations. Parts of the hog that no one ever though of eating; chitlins for one... YUCK! All were items in the diet of an average slave and much was scavenged... the hungry waste nothing.

[sockknitter]

Originally Posted by johan_steele

I question some of the info... particularly about greens. Collard, Turnip & mustard greens in particular were a staple in short much of what is in modern "soul food" came from slave rations. Parts of the hog that no one ever though of eating; chitlins for one... YUCK! All were items in the diet of an average slave and much was scavenged... the hungry waste nothing.

Yeah. That's how I'd been laboring all these years too. Also I'd heard that it was hogs that were butchered only in cold weather, and they were the ones free to roam. This book excerpt, however, says hogs were confined and fed things like corn and COOKED sweet potatoes while cattle were semi-wild. The whole writeup has me scratching my head a little. That's some of why I'm not willing to spend big bucks on a copy but I would like to read the whole book.

Another chapter in the compilation book discusses ways in which slaves would rebel against the authority of masters. Theft was a very common one. According to that chapter's author(s), slaves stole not only to gain the items but more often just to peeve the slaveowners. One anecdote was that slaves stole an entire crop of potatoes before they were even due to be harvested according to the plantation owner's plans. I would think slaves would have stolen many other foods, too.

[ole]

Sockknitter:

Having acquaintance with country living (after a fashion), you will know that hogs are not easily fenced in. They have a tendency to go where they want to go whenever the fancy takes them -- it's easier to keep them out than in.

They're highly intelligent and adaptable -- going feral within a generation Your average cow was hard put to survive in the woods. With water and graze available, it'll stay put -- even come home at milking time.

I noticed one thing wasn't mentioned as a source of protein: poultry and eggs. Were chickens some sort of luxury?

Perhaps the book is right in that in parts of the country hogs might have had economic importance as a commodity and this might have been taken as evidence that was extrapolated to the entirety. The book is suspect but, if correct, needs to be read.

Ole

[matthew mckeon]

Another source of food would be fishing and trapping, depending on circumstances and the seasons.

In the spiritual "many thousands gone" recites the rations, "peck of corn," etc.

[ole]

Matt:

There would have been fishing, trapping and hunting. To what extent, I couldn't say and can't recall reading more than few references to it. It was likely not a permitted source of nutrition on many plantations and, in any event, would be only temprarily supplementary.

Shane's comments on greens was what I had understood. But then who knows if "soul" cooking developed its reputation post war or under slavery? The slaves got the feet (trotters), hocks, jowls, organs, bellies, and the offal for making chitlins. The masters lived higher off the hog.

Oh well. Looking for more clarification. Perhaps sockknitter or the supermods would care to move the topic to its own thread. Or perhaps there isn't that much life left in it?
Ole

[sockknitter]

Maybe evidence of slave hunting, fishing and trapping could be taken from digs of their cabin sites: animal bones & teeth. Possibly from photographs or references to tanned skin and fur clothing that slaves wore. Maybe I'm wrong in mentally picturing slaves always wearing woven & knitted clothes. Maybe where they lived was all hunted and trapped out. Just casting about for ideas.

[sockknitter]

At the risk of appearing whiny or yacky, I ask why this thread is rated "Bad" as shown by the two stars beside its title in the Book & Movie Review Tent division. I became aware of these rating stars only tonight!

[johan_steele]

Some members who don't like the subject or poster have a tendency to vent their frustration by rating a thread. You had one rater who put two stars on the thread. Judging from the posts the rater hasn't contributed... One has to wonder why only two stars. Congrats Sockknitter you've put something out there that someone doesn't want others to see.

I find the idea interesting and the book... well I'm curious more than anything.