McDougall's Moments:
Eat Like a Gladiator
How did Gladiators gain their extraordinary strength and have the energy to
battle? From plant-food. The remains of 60 Roman gladiators who fought and died more than 1,800 years ago in Ephesus (what is now Western Turkey) were found in a 200-square-foot plot along the road that led from the city center to the Temple of Artemis. Isotopic analysis of their bones for calcium, strontium, and zinc determined that the world’s fiercest fighting men ate more plants and very little animal protein. In the historical accounts of the lives of gladiators, these warriors are sometimes referred to as hordearii – literally, “barley men.” The starch barley provided the bulk of the nutrients for their remarkably strong muscles and bones, and for their endurance to win the ultimate sport of life and death. | 