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Caloric Consumption in Industrializing Belgium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Geert Bekaert
Geert Bekaert
Affiliation:
Economics at Northwestern University, Evanston IL 60208
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Abstract

This article provides estimates of Belgian food consumption in 1812 and 1846 using a national food balance sheet approach. These estimates are then converted into caloric intakes for adult male equivalents. Despite many accounts of an absolute pauperization of the Belgian population during this period, caloric consumption per equivalent adult male is shown to have merely stagnated between 1812 and 1846. There is indirect evidence that inequality in caloric consumption increased at the same time. Energy cost-accounting exercises reveal that the residual caloric quantity available for physical exertion was minimal for large sections of the population.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 633 - 655
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1991

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