Work Prophet
Chapter 294 - 52 Carp and Tofu

Chapter 294: Chapter 52 Carp and Tofu

Li Yu had actually been paying attention to nutritional issues for a long time, When the lizard people first emerged from the swamp, they all had various diseases to some degree.

While treating them, Li Yu discovered that many of their problems were actually caused by a lack of nutrition.

Due to the scarcity of resources in the swamp, it was difficult to cultivate crops, leading to a relatively monotonous diet for the lizard people.

Some of them suffered from shortness of breath, easy fatigue, frequent headaches, and in severe cases, walking difficulties, or even dementia, all due to a lack of folic acid.

By contrast, people outside the swamp rarely had such problems because foods containing folic acid were actually quite common.

Bread (or other whole grain foods), beans, broccoli... these were all foods often consumed even by the common folk.

The same goes for riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, which is abundant in yeast, soybeans, and dairy products. A deficiency can cause angular cheilitis, glossitis, conjunctivitis, etc... Fortunately, apart from the aforementioned foods and some vegetables, riboflavin is also plentiful in animal liver, kidney, heart, and eggs.

It was still possible to get supplements within the swamp.

As for outside the swamp, the problem of nutritional deficiency still existed and was very common.

After all, in the universe where Li Yu lived, vitamins were not discovered until the 19th century. Before that, although some dietary guidelines had been published, they were merely based on experience and were mixed with much speculation and errors.

On the Bratis Continent, there was a similar issue. The nobles and the wealthy firmly believed that wheat was the most nutritious, especially finely sifted flour. The finer the sieve, the fewer the impurities in the bread, and the healthier it was considered.

For less fussy border nobility like the Arias family, sifting once or twice was enough to knead and ferment the dough, and Miss Rabbit didn’t mind a little bran.

But for the real grand nobles in the Royal Capital, they had a crew of servants specifically for this task, capable of sifting seven or eight times, and some even more exaggeratedly up to a dozen times. It was said that during a banquet hosted by Count Rodrigo, the flour used for the bread was sifted a total of twenty-seven times.

The bread produced was white as snow, soft in texture, and even the Emperor and Empress could not stop praising it after eating.

Besides bread, various types of meat were also indispensable on the nobles’ dining tables.

Not just all kinds of domestic livestock and poultry, but also game from the forest such as deer, rabbits, antelope, quails, and even swans, herons... were very popular, complemented by various expensive spices for a delicious dish.

However, the Empire’s upper class had an aversion to fruits and vegetables, especially fresh ones, perhaps because they felt unprocessed foods were hard to trust and did not match their status.

Yet, this baseless arrogance could lead to many of them suffering from loose teeth, curly hair, skin diseases, slow-healing wounds, and even personality changes due to a lack of vitamin C.

On the other hand, the commoners, having to eat whatever was available and occasionally foraging in the woods for wild vegetables or mushrooms to fill their stomachs, ended up having a more varied diet than the nobles.

The main problem they faced was too little meat intake, insufficient protein, and deficiencies in vitamin B12 and vitamin D, causing symptoms such as bleeding gums, yellowing of the eyes and skin, malignant anemia, nausea, spinal deformities, rickets, and chondropathy.

Li Yu saw many such patients during his strolls through the villages; some children were born unable to walk. The priests of the Silver Moon Church called these deformed children "God-forsaken," claiming they were tainted with filth from birth.

The mothers of those children had also sought Li Yu’s help, hoping he could heal their children. But for severe rickets that caused bone deformities, Li Yu also didn’t have much of a solution.

Modern medicine is not omnipotent, and Li Yu was no professional physician.

He primarily focused on prevention, striving to minimize the occurrence of such issues from the source.

Li Yu’s plan was two-pronged: on one hand, he planned to preach to his followers about the importance of a balanced diet, and he even intended to incorporate this into their doctrines.

Additionally, to address the common issue of protein deficiency and lack of vitamins B12 and D among the commoners, Li Yu’s approach was to develop fish farming, or more precisely, to dig ponds for fish cultivation.

The reason for choosing fish farming over raising pigs, cattle, or chickens was because the cost of fish farming was the lowest.

To ensure that not only a small ruling class but the majority of people could afford meat, it was essential to drastically reduce the cost of meat production.

This idea, in fact, was inspired by Li Yu’s reading of "Crusade History."

The First Crusade, also known as the Commoner’s Crusade, was essentially a disorganized mob led by Peter the Hermit, who committed unspeakable atrocities akin to a swarm of locusts, and were ultimately crushed by the Turkish army in 1096, suffering near complete annihilation.

However, they did not come back entirely empty-handed, as those who managed to escape brought back some carp with them.

Afterward, the Europeans started to learn from their foes and began cultivating carp in large quantities.

This remarkable species of fish, originating from an ancient country in the East, was known for its strong life energy, rapid reproduction, and swift growth, and didn’t even require special feed; leftovers were sufficient for their nourishment.

It was an excellent source of meat, though a bit bony, but this wasn’t a problem for Li Yu. His only challenge was finding carp.

During his survey of Green Field’s resources, Li Yu had not come across this type of fish, and in fact, no one in the entire Western Border had ever seen carp.

Thus, the Prophet of the Double Rest Sect could only enlist the Golden Fleece Commerce to help him search the whole Bratis Continent for traces of carp, promising to pay a high price of three thousand Gold Coins to acquire live carp in Green Field.

Of course, while waiting for the carp, Li Yu kept busy by planning to start with some dogfish.

The Ancient Romans had once farmed dogfish as one of their sources of meat, but with the fall of the Roman Empire, the once-thriving fish farming industry, like many other technologies, vanished.

Like carp, dogfish were relatively easy to raise among freshwater fish, with delicious flesh and fast growth.

Compared to carp, however, dogfish were more fierce, attacking not only other fish but also small animals such as frogs, wild ducks, and mice; they would resort to cannibalism when food was scarce.

The difficulty and cost of raising them were higher than that of carp, but the advantage was that they were readily available in nearby rivers and could be started immediately.

They could serve as an interim solution and also help accumulate some fish farming experience.

In addition to digging ponds, Li Yu also planned to introduce tofu to Bratis as another means of supplementing protein.

Unlike the carp he still had to search for worldwide, tofu was easy to make; the only ingredients required were various beans, gypsum, and a few simple steps, transforming the otherwise unpalatable beans into something tasty.