I liked a lot of what you had to say about Orlanthi food, except that I think you over-estimate the amount of meat these people are getting, even mutton and lamb. It's very difficult to get a handle on just what a peasant really ate during the Ancient and Medieval periods, since records simply weren't kept about these sorts of things until the 17th and 18th centuries. However, most historians generally agree that in many way the peasant diet varied little between the 9/10th century and the the 17/18th. Thus some statistics from the 18th century might be of interest to the list.
By analyzing the food rations of retired peasants, as stipulated in support contracts signed by those who took over their farms, we learn that what was considered a reasonable diet for a retired peasant in parts of France consisted overwhelming of bread products, supplimented by smalls amounts of cheese, butter, and salt lard (and supplimented presumably by a small amount of produce from a garden). The average contract provided for a total calorie intake of between roughly 1200 to 2400 calories with most contracts providing around 1500 to 1800 calories. Of these calories, 83-90% came from bread. Most nutritionists calculate that a man doing moderate labor requires around 2400 calories. Even allowing that the food rations of the elderly might be smaller than those of peasants in the prime of life, the implication of this is that most peasants were barely getting enough food to sustain their labor. A man of 65 kg weight (143 lbs) requires roughly 65 grams of protein, whereas the contract diets provide between 38 and 90, with the average being around 47 to 56 grams. Given how closely famine years correlate with rises in mortality and plague, it seems very clear that nutritionally, most peasants were living life on the edge, with only a small percentage of more fortunate peasants eating what today would be considered a nutritionally adequate diet. Meat is almost totally lacking from these rations, and is not something that a retired peasant could easily provide for him/herself.
So what does all of this mean for Glorantha? Well, Gloranthan peasants have one advantage of RW peasants, namely that their magically rituals have a direct and measurable impact of their harvests and livestock. Given all of the rituals to bless plows, livestock, and fields to increase yield, ward off pests and crop blight, and to increase reproduction, these peasants probably get a diet a little closer to an adequate one, and probably have less trouble with famine, crop blight, and livestock disease. However, the forces of chaos and disorder are arguably stronger in Glorantha than they are in the RW, since Gloranthan witches really can make milk sour and crops wither. This probably balances out some of the benefits of magic that peasants have access to, and not all peasants regularly benefit from precious Rune magic. Thus, overall, I would guess that most Gloranthan peasants are nutritionally better off than RW ones, but not much more so.
There is one respect in which RW peasants might be better off than Gloranthan ones. Starting in the 9th and 10th century, the 3-field system of crop rotation was introduced, which increased crop yields by helping the fields regain some of the nitrogen they need. Since Sartar and surrounding areas are based on early Celts, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons, they probably don't understand the concept of 3-field rotation, which means that their crop yields are naturally going to be smaller than RW European peasants. Thus spells that heighten crop fertility probably only equalize that difference, rather than giving Gloranthan peasants a superior level of productivity. Most ancient and medieval farmers enjoyed crop yields of only about 3.5 to 4 bushels of grain per bushel of seed sown (compared to modern yields of about 60 to 1).
Andrew E. Larsen
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