That’s interesting, thanks.
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Naturally, 9 out of 10 links in a Google search reference that one dubious study.
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Dessert for that thought-food: I was referring to the food processing industry in general; along with having to maintain food-sanitary conditions, testing is also done.
ex: Microbiological testing | meatpoultryfoundation.org
Bob appetit!! 
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Green tomato pie FTW, baby! Comes out tasting like apple pie with the right spices. Also the eponymous fried green tomatoes; look at cooking during the Dust Bowl era if you want ideas on what to do with limited or damaged resources. I believe that was also when a Southern staple, chess pie, was invented.
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Yikes! Even in Brooklyn, as a kid I took it for granted that some fresh food – to an extent – was readily available. That’s because of what I was exposed to whenever I was with my grandparents; in their backyard they grew figs (not bad), tomatoes (right off the vine, excellent, and eaten like apples, sprinkled with salt), and corn (a bit stunted, but serviceable). Plus, accompanying my grandmother, we’d go to a nearby market that provided live suckling pigs (for Christmastime Pernil) and live chickens. This was during the '60s, hence the then commonality of neighborhood “live” stuff. Obviously, no one back then knew Jack about kale, bok choy, artisanal veggies/fruits, you name it. Simpler eats.
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I love nutmeg. One of my very favorite spices. And the Xmas season is one great big extended excuse to get out my special nutmeg grater and put extra in eggnog, spaetzle, pumpkin pie, hot chocolate and more. This year when we roasted the sugar pumpkin and made pie filling I hid the damn cinnamon, NOT my favorite spice. Enkwife got quite cross with me until I showed her where I hid it - I ground a little extra nutmeg into the mix while her back was turned. Next year I am emptying the cinnamon container and just grinding some nutmeg to take its place! I did have some odd dreams the night I ate a wee bit too much nutmeg. Or coulda been the extra nog (with extra extra nutmeg).
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You absolutely cannot make a proper Bechamel sauce without a pinch of nutmeg.
Interestingly, pillbugs (we called them rolypolys) actually ARE crustaceans.
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Another possible explanation, including an intergenerational one:
I agree w other posters here that lowering the ceiling in dwellings built in cold climates will make the place far easier to heat for the benefit of human inhabitants.
Hang on a minute.
squeeeeeeeeeee
Ok…
This smaller the door and doorway, the more heat you are likely to retain in the room. So conserving fuel, like wood for the fire, and keeping a room comfortable, all favor smaller portals.
Very inconvenient time to be living in a place with poor insulation, no central heating, and um yeah buildings with high ceilings.
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One bad apple spoils the barrel. If you are careful about the storage, apples will keep for ages, I remember having trays of apple in a dry unheated shed carefully examined for any damage/disease before they are put in the tray. But if one goes bad the others will follow.
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One funny thing about your example: Apples are known to last for months! Only you need the right strains. Apples was such an excellent fruit because it could be a source of vitamin C all winter.
Something similar could be said for potatoes, parsnips, beets & other roots - you’d normally have to have them in cold and frost-free storage, which meant digging them into the ground.
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This also shows another thing which is agreed upon by historians if not universally known:
People normally lived quite well in the Middle Ages. Villages were self-organizing and getting food using technology that they had known for centuries & the produce of the fields could be supplemented with game and fish and fruits and herbs from the commons.
What happened was: 1) The climate got much worse, 2) The Enclosures, which cut off access to the commons, and 3) a lot of wars.
In the end, people anded up living much worse than they had a few centuries earlier, and our grandparents’ memories of their tough living conditions in the beginning to mid 20th century was actually a report from a pretty long-winded recovery phase. When I was a kid (when everybody was eating enough and everybody seemed to have cars, i.e. the sixties), we were always told that the further you go back in time, the worse people were off. Only, as I said, this is not true. There was a dip around the 17th-19th century.
(Note, I’m speaking of Western Europe. This pattern will not apply to other parts of the world.)
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Yeah, I wonder about patterns in the rest of the world, as they’re going to be variable based on specific conditions as well.
I was also thinking of, as an example, the Dutch during and after WWII - the extreme deprivation caused the Dutch to get shorter, but then subsequent generations shot up in height until they were the tallest in the world.
It’s amazing how much of our notions of “how things always were” is essentially “when I was a kid…” (transmitted to us as kids about when our grandparents were kids, so four generations at the very most).
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There are going to be local variations, but the 17th-19th centuries were pretty shitty across most of the world.
It was the period that saw the peak of white supremacist European colonialism/imperialism. It didn’t end until the World Wars helped the global south acquire the ability to begin successful resistance.
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They’re delicious pickled, too. Easy recipes if you’re eating them soon after, slightly more intricate steps if you’re trying to preserve them long term.
You mean land shrimp?
I was not certain they were edible before googling, just a hunch.
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What a wonderful topic for the new year. Thank You.
Now, You surely heard of the impression that ‘history’
means ‘his story’ and that it is written by the victors.
It may well be that this habit is not limited to historical
events that are related to wars and imperialism.
Very much like the often used wrongful depiction of
Neanderthals as being dull and primitive. They had
running water when Homo Sapiens was still settling
next to a water body.
In regards to what our ancestors were eating, I like
to come back to the first remark. One would be advised
not to believe the mainstream manufacturers of what
goes as food nowadays anything they proclaim to have
been lacking in times past. It is the other way around.
The reason Homo Sapiens evolved to sit in front of a
computer was based on its ability to preserve food. At that,
Salt was the most commonly used preservative. Even
small amounts were sufficient to preserve protein based
food. As mentioned above, fermentation was another route.
It may well be the case that the diet of our ancestors was
way healthier than our present habits - and if only for the
absence of the toxic trash that is in food today.
My personal take on food is simple. You will only know
what You can eat and where You can get it if You don’t
have any food around anymore. E.g. what people call
‘weeds’ and spray with herbicides is actually an excellent
food source. Apparently not anymore - who would want
to eat glyphosate greens? Well, You know, beyond the
masses that do it now.
Insects are also a valuable source of protein. Although
not quite en vogue nowadays, if the shtf, they will be a
most welcome nutritional supplement. 
Last but not least. The countryside was never really
filthy at any point. The early cities were and there are
still some left on earth where ‘filthy’ doesn’t even cut it.
My main crop is Kale. It’s a perennial and can be
harvested all year long - preserved easily by turning into
chips. (Sun dried without power…)
Anyways, may Your new year be filled with healthy food!
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