Chapter 295 Carp and Tofu
Li Yu has actually been paying attention to nutrition issues for a long time. When the lizard people first came out of the swamp, they all had some diseases on their bodies.
When Li Yu treated them, he discovered that many people's problems were actually caused by lack of nutrition.
Due to the lack of materials in the swamp and the difficulty of farming, the lizard people's food source is relatively single.
Some of them have shortness of breath, fatigue easily, frequent headaches, and in severe cases, difficulty walking or even dementia, which are all caused by a lack of folic acid.
In contrast, people outside the swamp rarely have such problems, because foods containing folic acid are actually quite common outside.
Bread (or other whole wheat foods), beans, broccoli... these are foods that even civilians eat regularly.
In the same way, there is riboflavin, also called vitamin B2, which is abundant in yeast, soybeans, and dairy products. Insufficient intake will cause angular stomatitis, glossitis, conjunctivitis, etc. Fortunately, in addition to the above-mentioned foods and In some vegetables, riboflavin is also found in large amounts in animal livers, kidneys, hearts and eggs.
It can still be replenished in the swamp.
As for outside the swamp, the problem of nutritional deficiencies still exists and is widespread.
After all, in Li Yu's universe, vitamins were not discovered until the 19th century. Although some dietary guidelines had been issued before that, they were only based on experience and mixed with a lot of conjectures and fallacies.
There is a similar problem on the continent of Bratis. The nobles and wealthy people here firmly believe that wheat is the most nutritious, especially finely sifted flour. The more carefully sifted, the less impurities in the bread and the better it tastes. healthy.
The little border aristocrats like the Arias family, who are not particularly particular, can sift the dough once or twice before kneading it to ferment, and Ms. Rabbit doesn't mind a little bit of bran.
But for the real nobles in the royal capital, they have a group of dedicated servants to do this kind of thing. They can screen them seven or eight times, even more than ten times. It is said that Count Rodrigo once held a banquet. The chef sifted the flour used to make bread twenty-seven times.
The bread was as white as snow and soft in texture. Even the emperor and empress were full of praise after eating it.
In addition to bread, various meats are also essential on the tables of nobles.
Not only various domestic animals and poultry, but also game in the forest, roe deer, hare, antelope, quail and even swans, egrets... are all very popular, supplemented with various precious spices, it is a delicacy.
However, the upper echelons of the empire are very repulsive to fruits and vegetables, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. They probably feel that unprocessed food is difficult to reassure people and cannot match their status.
However, this inexplicable self-confidence will cause many of them to have loose teeth, frizzy hair, skin diseases, difficulty in healing wounds, and even personality changes due to lack of vitamin C.
On the contrary, the common people eat whatever they can, and from time to time they go to the woods to dig some wild vegetables and pick up some mushrooms to satisfy their hunger. The diet is more extensive than that of the nobles.
The main problems they face are too little meat intake, insufficient protein, and lack of vitamin B12 and vitamin D, which can cause bleeding gums, yellowing of the eyes and skin, pernicious anemia, nausea, spinal cord deformation, rickets, rickets and other symptoms.
Li Yu had seen many such patients when he was wandering around the village. Some children were born unable to walk. The priests of the Silver Moon Church called these deformed children the abandoned children of God, saying that they had been contaminated by filth since birth.
The mothers of those children also asked Li Yu for help, hoping that he could restore their children to health, but Li Yu had no good solution for the skeletal deformities caused by severe rickets.
Modern medical treatment is not omnipotent, and Li Yu is not a professional doctor.
He is more from a preventive perspective, trying to reduce the chances of such things happening from the source as much as possible.
Li Yu's plan is a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he preaches to believers the importance of a balanced diet. He even plans to add this part of the content to the precepts in the future.
In addition, in response to the common problems of protein deficiency, vitamin B12 and vitamin D deficiency among civilians, Li Yu's response was to develop aquaculture, or to be more precise, to dig ponds and prepare to raise fish.
The reason why we raise fish instead of raising pigs, cattle, and chickens is because the cost of raising fish is the lowest.
If we want most people, not just a small group of the ruling class, to eat meat, the cost of meat production must be completely reduced.
Speaking of which, Li Yu found inspiration from "History of the Crusades".
The first Crusaders, also known as the Civilian Crusaders, were basically a ragtag group of people. Under the leadership of Peter the Hermit, they burned, killed, and looted all the way. Like a swarm of locusts, they committed countless appalling evil deeds, and finally died in 1096. They were defeated by the Turkish army and almost completely wiped out.
But they were not without gains. Those who were lucky enough to escape also brought some carp back with them.
After that, the Europeans began to imitate their enemies and raised large quantities of carp.
This kind of magical fish actually originally came from a distant ancient eastern country. They are famous for their tenacious vitality, fast reproduction speed, and rapid growth. They don’t even need to prepare special fish food, they can grow by feeding them some leftovers. very good.
It is an excellent source of meat. Although it has a lot of thorns, this is not a problem for Li Yu. The only problem is how to find carp.
Li Yu did not find any trace of this kind of fish when he was conducting a product survey in Luye. No one in the entire Western Region had even seen a carp.
Therefore, the prophet of Shuangxiu Cult could only entrust the Golden Fleece Chamber of Commerce to help him search for traces of carp on the continent of Bratis. As long as the live carp could be transported to the green field, Li Yu was willing to pay a high price of three thousand gold coins. acquisition.
Of course, Li Yu was not idle until the carp came, and planned to get some pike to raise first.
The ancient Romans once bred pike as a source of meat. However, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, the originally booming fish farming industry also disappeared like many technologies.
Like carp, pike is also a relatively easy-to-raise freshwater fish with delicious meat and fast growth.
However, compared to carp and pike, they are more ferocious. In addition to attacking other fish, they will also attack small animals such as frogs, wild ducks, and mice. If they lack food, they will kill each other.
The difficulty and cost of raising them are higher than carp, but the advantage is that they are easy to obtain. They are available in nearby rivers and can be raised immediately.
You can do it as a transition first, and you can also accumulate some breeding experience.
In addition to digging fish ponds, Li Yu also plans to introduce tofu to Bratis as another means of supplementing protein.
Unlike carp, which has to be searched all over the world, tofu is easy to make. It only requires various beans, gypsum and a few simple steps to produce it, making beans that originally have a bad taste become delicious. (End of chapter)