Tag: Historical context

For the vast majority of human history, eating three meals a day was not the standard. Our ancestors, including hunter-gatherers and ancient civilizations, had vastly different, more flexible eating habits shaped by food availability and daily work.

According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, John the Baptist lived in the wilderness on a diet of locusts and wild honey. While this biblical account is well-known, it has prompted debate for centuries about whether the word 'locusts' should be interpreted literally or as a metaphor for something else entirely.

For thousands of years, sugar was valued as a rare spice and medicine, not a recreational substance. The question, 'was sugar considered a drug?', arises from a more recent understanding of its powerful effects on the brain's reward system, drawing compelling analogies to addictive substances.