Don't look at many people in modern times, especially some young girls are brainwashed by the overwhelming business propaganda, thinking that only thin into a hemp pole is good-looking, in order to lose weight and even take the method of not eating, but in fact, this practice is not only easy to cause a rebound, but more importantly, it will seriously affect their physical health, the real weight loss should be appropriate control diet and adhere to the combination of exercise.
With the continuous development of the social economy, the people's living standards are also constantly improving, and there will never be a situation of hunger to nibble on the bark of trees and eat grass roots; but as the saying goes, "the people take food as the sky", in ancient times, it can even be said that before the founding of New China, how to not be hungry has become the top priority of the people's lives, as for eating enough and eating well, it is really a day that ordinary people dare not think.
Many people are misled by some of the current nonsense film and television dramas, thinking that ancient life is very interesting, the mountain jungle to find a pure land of their own, planting crops, raising chickens and ducks, two glasses of two light wine, life is not comfortable. But this is not the case, in ancient times there was not enough money, if you do not have the corresponding social status, just an ordinary person, replaced by adapted to the modern convenient life you may not be able to live a day.
The level of productivity in ancient times was very low, to what extent? It's no joke not to see oil and meat all year round, basically only a bowl of meat can be eaten during the New Year. Speaking of this, many people may wonder, was ancient Chinese society not an agrarian society? What about the chickens, ducks and pigs in the house? Why not take it out and eat it? And old cows, isn't the nutritional value of beef higher?
First of all, you must not know the ancient taxation, just taxation is enough for the poor to work for a year, what chicken, duck and fish meat to the time of taxation must be handed over to the local government; not to mention that in ancient times a lot of land belonged to the big landlords, the people also had to pay rent to the landlords, they could not eat enough and had excess assets to raise poultry and livestock, it was simply a dream. As for cattle, in ancient times cattle did not belong to food, but to agricultural tools, and the people who dared to commit suicide by eating meat from cattle were to go to jail.
If the dynasty was clear at that time, the taxes were light, and the life of the poor people was relatively better, but if there were frequent wars and heavy taxes, at this time the people of Li would really be in the depths of the water and unable to move. Otherwise, why were there so many peasant uprisings in ancient times, because it was really impossible to go on, but no one who had a little living life would risk his life to revolt.
Moreover, at that time, the level of productivity in the countryside was low, there was no mechanized harvest of all the rice fields as it is now, and in the face of insect infestations and droughts, the peasants not only had no food to eat, but also had to sell their own family things to meet the government's taxes.
So at that time, few poor people could afford to eat, and they usually went to the mountains to dig wild vegetables and sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are really a good thing, drought-resistant and high yields, it can be said that I don't know how many lives of people who can't afford to eat have been saved. But sweet potatoes were introduced to China in the 17th century, including the high-yield crops we know today, potatoes, corn, etc., which were slowly introduced to China with the discovery of geography, not to mention the improved crops of hybrid rice.
So what did the ancient people eat before that? Ancient "five grains" really do not include what we call rice today, the five grains recorded in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classics are "japonica rice, adzuki beans, wheat, soybeans, yellow millet", Li Shizhen recorded 33 kinds of grains in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", of which 14 are beans, to put it bluntly, most people with a full stomach in ancient times were eating beans.
The Song Dynasty was already one of the richest dynasties in ancient China, known as the Rich Song Dynasty, so the people of the Song Dynasty could be said to have eaten the best in the ancient dynasties, but this so-called best food was nothing more than eating wheat rice. What is wheat rice? "Wheat rice, grinding wheat and mixing the skin and cooking", to put it bluntly, wheat is broken and mixed with wheat bran.
Whether we see the prosperity of Beijing from the "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty" or the occasions when we see those drinking and having fun in the poems, I hope that everyone understands that these represent only the ancient capital city and the life of the ancient literati class, from which we cannot see the ordinary people living at the bottom.
The people take food as the sky, this sentence is deeply engraved in the hearts of ancient people, and with the transmission of blood relations step by step to this day, when complaining about life, you may wish to think of those ancestors who shaved food in the soil. Not wasting food, learning to be grateful, and cherishing this hard-won good life are the things we should learn.
But then again, it is precisely because ancient ingredients are very precious that the people will find more ways to delve into food, on the one hand, according to different environments, rely on mountains and water to eat, find ways to increase more things that can be eaten, on the other hand, they will find ways to make more delicious food through different cooking methods.
Therefore, Chinese cuisine is one of the countries with the most diverse types, the most diverse taste and the most extensive ingredients in the world, and thousands of years have not only precipitated a heavy cultural heritage, but also accumulated a wealth of cuisine.