The Lost Code

Diet in France

In France, the average diet was not as well rounded as it was in the colony. French peasants ate mostly bread, soups, and gruel and their diet consisted almost solely of grains. One or two poor harvests was all it took for bread prices to rise and famine to strike. Famines then led to epidemics that were the veritable scourge of the time. As a general rule, the diet of French people in the 17th century was very deficient. Malnutrition, famines, and epidemics had a major impact on life expectancy. In that era, one in four children did not live to see their first birthday, and only half reached age 25.