The slaves [in Rio], who work like horses ... eat nothing but rice & coarsely ground maize boiled together in water. Some of the masters add to their ration on a Sunday a small bit of putrefied cod. Now we whites, who expend no muscular strength, eat 5 perhaps 10 times more nourishing food than they do; consequently we digest badly what we eat: we are thin, or else loaded with an excess quantity of fat. The negroes are all in good condition. Their is neither thinness nor obesity among them
Victor Jacquemont: Letters From India 1834
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