Obesity in ancient Egypt
Ten or twelve years ago we wrote in Protein Power about the data contained in the vast amount of ancient Egyptian mummies. We pointed out that several thousand years ago when the future mummies roamed the earth their diet was a nutritionist’s nirvana. At least a nirvana for all the so-called nutritional experts of today who are recommending a diet filled with whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and little meat, especially red meat. Follow such a diet, we’re told, and we will enjoy abundant health.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way for the Egyptians. They followed such a diet simply because that’s all there was. There was no sugar – it wouldn’t be produced for another thousand or more years. The only sweet was honey, which was consumed in limited amounts. The primary staple was a coarse bread made of stone-ground, whole wheat. Animals were used as beasts of burden and were valued much more for the work they could do than for the meat they could provide. The banks of the Nile provided fertile soil for growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables, all of which were a part the low-fat, high-carbohydrate Egyptian diet. And there were no artificial sweeteners, artificial coloring, artificial flavors, preservatives, or any of the other substances that are part of all the manufactured foods we eat today.
Were the nutritionists of today right about their ideas of the ideal diet, the ancient Egyptians should have had abundant health. But they didn’t. In fact, they suffered pretty miserable health. Many had heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity – all the same disorders that we experience today in the ‘civilized’ Western world. Diseases that Paleolithic man, our really ancient ancestors, appeared to escape.
The press has been filled with reports of the recent discovery – thanks to DNA analysis – of the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt for around 15 years 3500 years ago.
According to the New York Times, Hatshepsut’s mummy is that of an obese, diabetic 50 year old woman with bad teeth. All the conditions that nutritionists today would have us believe would be prevented by Hatshepsut’s diet. It certainly didn’t work for her. And she is not a special case – most Egyptian mummies show the same disorders, especially the bad teeth. The skeletal remains of Paleolithic man, who consumed a meat-based diet, showed strong, perfect teeth. Bad teeth are the hallmark of carbohydrate consumption.
Here is an X-ray of Hatshepsut’s mouth. You can see cavities, lost teeth, and evidence of severe tooth abscesses, which had to have been miserably painful.
Hatshepsut’s statue pictured to the right shows her in her idealized form. I’m sure most of the Egyptian graphics and statuary of the time represented people in a thin, healthy state instead of the shape they were really in. Based on the mummy data many ancient Egyptians were obese, which is clearly not represented in their contemporary artistic renditions. If one were to look through on issue of Cosmopolitan or GQ or virtually any magazine to day and look at the people in all the ads, one would think no one is obese now. Which clearly isn’t the case. I suspect that the ancient Egyptians intuitively figured that thin and trim people were more attractive than obese ones and created their pictures accordingly.
One other interesting aspect of Hatshepsut’s mummy is that it appears that she died from metastatic cancer. Cancer has been tough to find in mummified and skeletal remains, leading most researchers to assume that the rates of cancer today are driven by environmental contaminants that weren’t present in ancient times.
The moral of this tale of ancient poor health is that a whopping load of carbs – even non-refined carbs – didn’t do Hatshepsut a whole lot of good, and they don’t do us much good either irrespective of the bleatings to the contrary by today’s nutritionists, who are woefully unaware of the history of the high-carb diet.
iv stayed with very primative people deep in the amazon rainforest. they eat meat maybe once a week, fish a little more often but protien is hard to come by so they supliment it with grubs, snails, caterpilars. about 80-90% of thier calories comes from boiled yuka (yam) and from a drink made from chewed and femented sweet potato- almost entirely carbohydrate. the eldest tribal members had very good teeth, the younger did not as they have recently(past 20/30years) been exposed to sugar for the first time. carbohydrates cant rot your teeth, they do however promote the bacteria that produce acids that can rot teeth. rich egyptians may have eaten a lot of honey, milk if it is boiled also becomes sugar. sweet acidic fruits are full of sugars and acids that rot teeth. your research is rediculously biased and unfounded
Interesting article. I’m researching into dietary habits in ancient Egypt and related pathology. Could someone advice some concerning bibliography?
Thanks
The modern people of Crete eat very much like the ancient egyptians and theyenjoy amazing health. I have been to Crete and it is impossible to tell people ages if they are not smokers. I thought a woman who was 72 ws in her early 50s! They look glow with health and their skin is luminous. They eat bread as a big part of their diet but also fish, fruit, veggies and sweets…oh and tons of olive oil as well as nuts.
I can’t help but wonder why this article from NPR, “Egyptian Mummies Diagnosed With Clogged Arteries,” doesn’t make any mention of your theory: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/09/135269340/egyptian-mummies-diagnosed-with-clogged-arteries
[...] this belief are Atkins, Carbohydrate Addicts, Zone, South Beach, Dukan, and Protein Power. Authors have specifically invoked the Egyptian mummy diet paradox as solid evidence to support their [...]
This article is entirely incorrect on nearly every point.
First of all, to generalize the diet of an entire population based on the state of one of their Queens is irresponsible, at best. As has been pointed out in other responses, the amount and variety of food available to the Queen is not the same as would have been available to the general population, nor would she have a typical level of physical activity within her society.
Secondly, it has been made abundantly clear that the people who built the pyramids at Giza ate an astronomical amount of beef and fish- enough beef to feed tens of thousands of workers EVERY DAY for 30 years, not to mention MILLIONS of fish bones, not only throughout the industrial baking and butchering complex, but also in the mess halls and living quarters excavated there.
It is true that these same people also ate bread and drank a bread-beer, but they also spend thousands of calories a day building pyramids and engaging in back-breaking support work for the builders. These activities engaged a far more significant proportion of the civilization than a single Queen.
Finally, it is the fact that early homo sapiens sapiens ate more than just meat that ensured their survival. Testing of neanderthal remains shows that they, unlike their modern human counterparts, ate ONLY meat, and because of this, they did not survive.
Thus, to suggest that the eating of carbohydrates is the root cause of humanity’s obesity issues is misleading, poorly researched and just plain wrong.
Next time, discuss your armchair theories with currently working anthropologists and archaeologists before jumping to egregiously erroneous conclusions.
Gretchen, you are so far behind the curve it’s actually cringeworthy! Please discuss your theories with currently working anthropologists, especially paleoanthropologists. It’s well known in anthro circles that Neandertals not only ate plant foods, but they also cooked said plant foods.
[...] to learn how pre-agricultural human adults were taller than their post-agricultural decendents, had less cavities, and suffered virtually no diseases of civilization that plague modern [...]
I have an odd question Dr. Eades…
How much of these problems was just a matter of becoming more socially active rather than hunter/gatherer active. I mean there’s a real difference between what farmer’s do to harvest grains and what Paleo- men/women did to hunt animals. Could the difference in health be attributed to the sustained hunts, rather than the stress of the harvest of grains?
[...] many of the modern disease that we do but the studies of hunter gather studies show none of them?http://www.proteinpower.com/drmi…http://www.proteinpower.com/drmi…Although only a Dentist, what about Weston A Price's finding [...]
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