Did the crew have a balanced diet? Did they get their ‘five a day’ fruit and vegetables? Our hands-on activities encourage children to find out for themselves and think about how our diet today compares. Children weigh out the ration of ship’s biscuits for one man on one day – about 500g in modern measurements. Very dry and salty (often with added protein in the form of weevils), they gave little nutrition, but were cheap and filling. However, the evidence shows that they weren’t just living on ship’s biscuits – in fact none survived in the wreck. Their diet included pork, beef and bacon, preserved and stored in wooden casks; and we know they ate fish, salted or air dried, from the bones found. They would also have eaten butter, cheese and dried peas. We also found stones from fruit such as plums. The rich had more choice. We know that their food was flavoured with pepper and hops, and perhaps herbs. Compared to the choice of food we enjoy today, the Tudor diet was fairly boring!
As for drink, beer or ale was safer to drink than water, which would quickly have become contaminated. Each man was allocated seven gallons of beer per week; several fine wooden tankards found on the ship are displayed in the Museum. But their diet was significantly lacking in fresh food, and the lack of vitamin C would have resulted in the risk of scurvy; some of the skeletal remains indicate this, as well as iron deficiency and/or anaemia. Few of the crew would have lived for longer than 30 years, as the work was very hard, and injuries from accidents on board in a time before ‘health and safety’ were a constant hazard.
