Where did the saying 3 square meals a day originate and why?
In the days of the old wooden sailing ships, food and fresh water was always a problem, therefore feeding a hardworking crew would have been very difficult. Meat and fish was dried and salted to be stored in barrels. There would have been few vegetables once the ship had been at sea for any length of time. Fruits were unheard of except perhaps apples stored in barrels. Hence the expression “one bad apple” would contaminate all within the barrel. It must have been soul destroying to open up a fresh barrel of apples only to find that they were all bad and had to be thrown over the side. With no fresh vegetables and little fruit, the sailors diet was seriously deficient in vitamin C. The result was a common disease known as scurvy. To overcome this Royal Naval ships crews were given a daily ration of Lime juice and even in my days in the Navy this ration is still made available when certain arduous conditions prevailed. This was noticed by the American before the war of independence and h
