Subject: I chose for my hypothetical subject a 25 year old male, 72 inches tall (180cm), weighing 160 pounds (73 kg). This man has a basal energy expenditure of 1800 Kcal (7.6MJ), which means that he expends 1800 Kcal in a day on his basal metabolism, which includes no activities. Alternatively, it means that if he engaged in no physical activity, he would need to take in 1800 Kcal each day simply to maintain his body weight.

Menu: I created four different daily menus, one for each season of the year, using foodstuffs that are known to have been available to Norse era people. Lacking any better information, I used combinations of foodstuffs and proportions similar to what we prepare and consume at our Hurstwic feasts. For example, the flat bread we consume is made up of equal parts wheat, barley, oat, and rye flours, along with whey, honey, and nuts. The main dish is a boiled stew of meat (beef, pork, lamb, or fish) and vegetables (cabbage, leeks, onions, beans, and/or peas).

Each of the four menus was designed to represent foods available during the different seasons of the year. For example, a wider variety and larger quantities of foods were used for the autumn diet, and fresh dairy products were deleted from the winter diet.

As mentioned on the previous page, I was forced to revise upwards my estimates of quantities consumed in order to bring caloric intake more in line with probable caloric requirements of people in that era.

One can easily imagine considerably more ale being consumed than I included in this diet. However, I suspect the ale consumed during a normal day was weaker than modern ales (which is what is in the database of the analysis software), so I intentionally reduced the quantity consumed to compensate.

425g

15 oz.

bread
(flour, whey, honey, nuts)

225g

1½ cup

fruit
(blueberries, blackberries, apples)

350g

1½ cup

fresh dairy products
(cow milk, goat milk)

150g

1¼ cup

processed dairy products
(cheese, butter, skyr)

150g

5 oz.

fish
(salmon, cod)

300g

11 oz.

meat
(lamb, horse, pork)

225g

2 cups

vegetables
(cabbage, leeks, onions)

1500g

1½ liter
50 fl.oz.

ale

Comments: Only two nutrients show significant deficiencies, and in both cases, these deficiencies probably aren't real. Average vitamin D and E intakes are much lower than recommended. In both cases, the deficiencies in the database are to blame. The fatty fish consumed in this diet contain reasonable quantities of the fat soluble vitamins such as D and E, but the database shows no information for these nutrients for these foods. Nuts provide some vitamin E, although again, the database has no information. Liver, which is known to have been consumed, would also provide substantial vitamin D, although I didn't specifically include it in the menu. In addition, light skinned people, such as the Norse, would have no trouble synthesizing needed vitamin D from exposure to sunlight during all seasons except winter.

In summary, it appears possible for Norse era families to have eaten balanced diets, in which they received their needed nutrients, assuming they were able to eat a variety of foodstuffs known to have been consumed during the Norse era.