ABSTRACT
In any discussion of changes in the standard of diet in the nineteenth century, it is necessary to look at the quality as well as the quantity of food which English people consumed. So far we have spoken of the foods of the period as though they were constant and stable factors, as though the bread, the tea, or the beer of 1850 were essentially the same commodities as today. In fact, this was very far from the case. Adulteration of food prevailed in the first half of the nineteenth century to an unprecedented and unsupposed extent, and had far-reaching social, economic, and medical consequences which must not be overlooked in the debate about standards of life in early Victorian England.
