Today's Economic History: : The Transformation of Hunger Revisited: Reply: "The higher [early industrial] calorie levels reported in Gazeley, Newell, Bezabith (2015)...
...are a function of a conversion of food quantities to calories that is weighted towards contemporary, calorie-rich foods. Their conversion uses the full distribution of contemporary foods and should not be applied to historical populations. Since Gazeley, Newell, Bezabith assume that industrial workers in the past had access to contemporary foods, the revised calorie levels reflect contemporary diets rather than historical diets.
