In episode 4 of Nutrition History from Parts Unknown, we are taking it back 500 years to the glory days of bread, a time when Europe’s medical community was unanimous in its praise of bread as a health food.

Bread became Renaissance Europe’s most widely celebrated dietary staple. It was thought to promote wellness through a number channels:

• Its sticky and elastic gluttinous proptires were considered essential to a well-functioning digestive tract
• its warm, moist thermic properties were perfectly suited to, and promoted, an ideal moist and warm human body temperament,
• and finally it placed second only to meat in terms of providing pure nourishment.

A complex and convoluted dietetic system, highly influenced by the medical thinking of Ancient Greece and Rome, informed these pro-bread takes, which we are going to delve into on today's show.