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The Danish diet has the largest variety of fish, with flounder, herring, haddock and cod all in certain quantities on the supply list.
In all other examples, salt-cured cod and herring are the most common fish, appearing prominently in these lists, although in all cases they are second only to beef and pork.
While comparative evidence suggests that carbohydrate intake was very stable in the Middle Ages and early modern times, the composition of protein sources shows interesting variations.
It is worth noting that there seems to be no fish in the recipes of medieval Mediterranean kitchens.
Regarding the Catalan Aragonese fleet, Lawrence Mott wrote that he found the lack of fish surprising because "Sicily has a huge fishery overseen by the Crown."
He concluded that "either availability or cost, certainly a controlling factor in the disappearance of fish".
While all of our 16th-century northwest European examples include some species and varying amounts of fish, four dietary examples from the late 17th and early 18th centuries illustrate a lack of fish in the naval diet and these examples seem to reflect a broader trend away from fish.
By 1700, most of the protein consumed by the Swedes came from beef.
Tang Xin Soderlinde observed that from the 60s to 70s of the 17th century, the supply of fish to the Swedish Navy began to decline.
Soderlind argues that this has nothing to do with the decline of the remaining Catholic customs in Sweden during this period, and argues that the rising cost of Norwegian cod, as well as the rising cost of butter used to make cod, led to the demise of cod as a naval supply.
In addition, she noted that by the late 17th century, "the British Maritime Commission considered fish to be inferior to other foods" and a similar decline in fish consumption could be observed in the Swedish land population, but "60-70 years earlier in the navy."
The French example diet in Table 5 was prepared for the militia defending the fortress of Saint-Malo in 1759.
The diet of these people was "based on the habits of the Navy" of all examples, this French example had the highest proportion of beef and, like other examples of this period, did not contain fish.
In our study, this is the only terrestrial diet, but it shows the potential to extend the analysis to other diets used in closed environments, such as sieges.
In 1677, Samuel Pepys drafted a new naval recipe for the English Admiralty.
It includes fishing days three days a week on which either cod or cod is eaten A similar list from 1689 to 1697 includes fishing days three days a week, on which cod is eaten, but oatmeal can replace when fish are scarce and cod now makes up a lower percentage of total protein compared to the English naval diet of 1565.
After 1733, cod ceased to be part of the Royal Navy's official ration list.
It is still sometimes eaten, but it pales in comparison to the consumption of beef and pork.
Between 1750 and 1757, the British Food Bureau collected data on the quantities of different naval supplies.
Between 1750 and 1757, 54,642,437 pounds of bread and 110,049 barrels of beer were supplied to the Royal Navy.
In addition, 4,498,486 pounds of beef and 6,734,261 pounds of pork were transported.
By comparison, only 166,943 pounds of cod were provided, indicating that the total weight included 39 percent beef, 59 percent pork, and 1.5 percent stock fish.
Figures in the report show that with the exception of stocked fish (air-dried cod), no food decays more than one percent of the time, compared to 7.9 per cent of the cod supply that rots before it is consumed.
Around this time, the British Admiralty declared that sailors "deserved the best of all in their class" and therefore the unreliability of cod appears to have been a major factor in its decline as a naval ration.
In addition, salt-cured foods were thought to have caused the onset of scurvy in sailors, and in the 1733 ration list, cod was replaced by oatmeal, which is clearly not a comparable source of protein, as can be seen from Table 5 to the mid-18th century, beef, pork and cheese were the main sources of animal protein in the British naval diet.
However, further research is needed to determine whether price is a factor in the Navy's decision to remove fish from their supply lists, and it is also possible that the quality of dried and salt cod has changed over time, which has influenced the decision to remove cod from ration lists.
Alcohol is an energy-intensive substance, available at 7 kcal/g, but not as readily available as carbohydrates and must be processed by the liver.
Alcohol is processed at a rate of about one pint per hour, and excess alcohol remains in the bloodstream leading to drunkenness.
About five percent of alcohol is excreted in the urine, but we decided to include all the calories from alcohol in our total.
Beer is the most common drink of the Nordic naval powers, while the Southern European fleet most often carries wine.
French ships were often loaded with mixtures of wine, beer and cider, as we did in the 16th century.
In the late eighteenth century, the number of alcoholic beverages carried on naval ships increased.
For example, when ships sailed the Caribbean, rum became a common alternative to beer, however, beer remained the staple drink of most Nordic fleets.
The percentage of alcohol in beer drunk by Navy personnel is an open question.
In early modern Europe, beer was also an important dietary component for the terrestrial population.
In early modern England, beer was considered a healthy drink and was widely consumed because fresh water was considered potentially harmful.
Beer is considered particularly helpful to laborers.
However, alcohol has a special meaning in the marine environment.
If necessary, the inhabitants of the land could drink water, while the naval personnel could only drink the water they brought to the ship.
Buckets of fresh water will deteriorate in a few days in the cabin.
Sealed barrels of beer and other alcoholic beverages can last longer before they go bad and provide an important source of water for sailors.
Beer becomes sour when stored in barrels for a long time, but it is still suitable for human consumption.
In addition, as we can see, alcoholic beverages are an important part of the energy intake of naval personnel.
The energy value and percentage of alcohol of Navy beer is an open question with no clear answer.
The debate surrounding beer is a great example of accurately reconstructing historical dietary difficulties.
Craig Maldrew estimated the alcohol and caloric content of different beers in early modern England.
He believes that light beer, or "small beer", has an alcohol content of 2% and contains 200 kcal (0.473 liters) per pint.
The beer is primarily for children, Maldru said, and says it doesn't last as long as strong beer, but "will be preserved to some extent" by hops, and modern bitter beers with less than 4 percent alcohol content contain an average of 142 kilocalories per pint.
Muldrew estimates that medium-concentration beer has an alcohol content of 5-7 percent and 400 kcal per pint.
This is the most common beer drunk by workers.
Modern bitter beers with a pint containing more than 5% alcohol contain 199 kcal per pint.
Muldrew noted that early modern beers contained more malt residual sugar than modern beers due to lower levels of fermentation.
This means that early modern beer has a higher sugar energy content at the same alcohol content than modern beer.
Using this data, Muldrew made his own calculations of the British naval diet since 1565.
Muldrew used his estimated 400 kcal of medium beer, which resulted in a daily intake of 3200 kcal from the rationed 8 pints of beer.
Our result was a result of using less than 4% modern bitter beer, resulting in a result of 1,136 kcal per day.
Given these results, Muldru's calculation of the energy value of Navy beer seems unrealistic.
Including 1 pound of biscuits and 2 pounds of corned beef, his total daily intake is 7,230 kcal, and we estimate that the same food intake is 4890 kcal, and the difference in energy values of beer and bread is the main reason for the difference.
Given the needs of one worker we know today, our data yields a more credible result in terms of energy.
Maldru did not use a low-energy-density small beer in his example because he believed it was not as durable as strong beer, while medium beer was seen as the standard for office workers.
However, Janet MacDonald claimed that the eighteenth-century British Navy did consume small beers with an alcohol content of 2-3% A 17th-century recipe states that naval beer consumed at sea should contain 18 quarts of malt and 18 quarts of hops.
Beer consumed in the port should contain 20 seasons of hops and "a sufficient number of very good hops to maintain its shelf life" As this quote proves, a high ratio of malt and hops is necessary to extend the shelf life of naval beer.
Hops contain humulin and hops, two substances that kill many harmful microorganisms and may help preserve beer without high alcohol content, which can make beer very bitter.
Tang Xin Soderlind also said that Swedish sailors drank beer with an alcohol content of 2.1%.
The list of brewing supplies in Sweden in 1599 also shows a high proportion of malt and hops in naval beer.
That same year, beer brewed for seafarers contained twice as much hops as beer brewed for soldiers, highlighting the importance of hops preservation in naval environments.
In our calculations, we used an average of five modern bitter beers with less than 4% alcohol, as described above, this average contains 142 kilocalories per pint This beer has an alcohol content close to that of a small beer, but its energy density is still lower than Mulderu's estimate.
There is no doubt that modern beer contains fewer hops than earlier equivalent beers, and the same alcohol content may also contain less energy, but we believe that this equivalent beer provides the optimal balance between energy and alcohol in our calculations.
Reconstructing historical beer recipes for naval fleets could inform the future.
In our case, the Swedes, Spaniards, and Britons have very similar alcohol intake.
Danes and French have the highest daily alcohol intake on average, but as mentioned earlier, both examples are based on supply lists, so we must consider oversupply.
Daily alcohol intake is shown in our core example.
Recommendations for safe drinking vary from country to country.
The latest guidelines from the UK's Chief Medical Officer recommend that men and women should not drink more than 14 units in a week to avoid the health risks of excessive alcohol consumption One unit is equivalent to 8 grams of alcohol, so the recommended weekly intake is 122 grams of alcohol.
As we can see in Table 6, only Swedes don't spend more than their weekly limit in one day! In Sweden, for example, total weekly drinking would still be 609 grams, or 76.1 units, about five times the modern recommended limit.
In modern terms, Danish and French sailors consumed the equivalent of 10-13 pints of beer or cider per day, while British, Swedish and Spanish consumed about 6-8 pints per day.
Even if we use lower-alcohol beverages in our calculations, these examples still far exceed modern standards for safe drinking.
How does such a high alcohol intake affect sailors? Have they been drunk all the time? Roger said there is evidence that this is true.
He wrote that "it is not surprising that there were officers in the British Navy who were 'always drunk'" drunkenness was clearly a factor in crime and lack of discipline on board, but sailors valued alcohol, and "it was impossible to refuse to give them alcohol" In general, it took the liver an hour to process a pint of alcohol, so the acute effects of alcohol consumption could be reduced in the short term if the rationing of the day was done in one day.