Can't tax meat. People can hunt or raise animals in small numbers. Hard to track. Easy to hide.
Can tax grain. Grain requires fields. Fields are visible. Harvests are measurable. Storage is centralised.
Roman Empire: Grain tax (annona). Every farmer owes portion of harvest to the state.
Result: Farmers grow more grain. Because that's what's being taxed and demanded.
Side effect: Less land for grazing animals. Less meat production. Populations shift toward grain-based diets not by choice but by tax structure.
Egyptian Empire: Same system. Grain taxes. Massive granaries. Centralised distribution.
Result: Egyptian diet becomes increasingly grain-based. Bread becomes staple. Meat becomes luxury for those who can afford it after taxes.
Chinese Empire: Grain taxes. Rice and millet collection. Strict accounting.
Result: Chinese diet becomes rice-based. Meat consumption drops as land is converted to grain production to meet tax quotas.
The pattern repeats across every ancient empire: Tax grain, get grain-based populations.
This wasn't about optimal nutrition. This was about tax efficiency.
Grain is:
Easy to count
Easy to store
Easy to transport
Easy to distribute
Meat is:
Hard to count (animals move)
Hard to store (spoils quickly)
Hard to transport (living animals are difficult)
Hard to distribute
From an imperial administration perspective, grain-based populations are easier to govern.
Side effect: Populations become weaker, shorter, less healthy.
But they're easier to tax and control.
The health consequences were documented even in ancient times. Roman physicians noted that grain-fed populations were weaker than meat-fed barbarians.
But changing the tax system to encourage meat consumption would have made empire administration harder.
So grain taxes continued. Populations stayed grain-fed. Health consequences were accepted as the cost of efficient taxation.
Modern tax systems still reflect this: Agricultural subsidies favor grain production. Government nutrition programs distribute grain products.
Not because grain is optimal. Because grain-based systems are administratively simpler.
The grain-heavy food pyramid reflects millennia of tax policy, not nutrition science.
Ancient empires discovered: If you tax grain, people grow grain. If people grow grain, they eat grain. If they eat grain, they're weaker but easier to govern.
Modern governments learned: Same system, different justification. Call it nutrition science instead of tax efficiency.
Your diet is shaped by what's easy to tax, not what's healthy to eat.
Empires chose control over vitality. Every time.
