Food in the gold fields
was not spectacular.Beans were one
of the most commonly eaten foods in the gold rush.A form of cooked flour and salt pork were also items that
were eaten very often.If miners
could get out and hunt, they had a better meal. They would hunt jackrabbits,
bears, birds, and whatever else contained meat. Miners drank coffee in the
mornings too.
In addition, food did not have
very good quality.In fact, miners
got malnutrition from the lack of necessary vitamins.People got scurvy too. Scurvy is a disease that made miners
gums (as in gums inside your mouth on your jaws) bleed, and if someone with
scurvy was to be touched by another miner, their skin was so bad, the other
person’s hand could go right through the sick person’s skin. Food was unsanitary. Rats or other
animals like insects got into food.Hunger was very common.