How Food Built And Killed The Mongol Empire
A helpful dietary lesson from your favorite Khans
The Kahn’s Dietary Choices Left Much To Be Desired - Created By Author In Starryai
“Had the descendants of Chinggis spent less time at the table, they might have lasted longer on the throne, and produced more stable, more capable, and even farther-flung government. But in enjoying too thoroughly the pleasures enabled by the vast empire they had seized, their even greater original intention, to conquer the world, became once again only the subject of drunken boasting, as it had been among Inner Asian nomads during the millennium before the coming of Chinggis Khan.”
— John Masson Smith, Jr in “Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire” via Journal of Asian History
Between the 13th and 14th centuries the Mongols created the largest empire the world had ever seen. But what powered it? I’m not talking about composite bows and horses, but what food powered its people to such feats? You might imagine a healthy diet fit for a nomadic warrior on the go. But you’d be wrong. Heaping helpings of fat and alcohol fueled the Mongols to conquer civilizations across the globe.
In other words, they ate like the average teenager. Now, take that same teenager and stick him in Cancun with unlimited alcohol, and you aren’t far off from the later Khans and their nobles.
While these meals saved poor Mongols from starvation, they thickened the blood of their successful ancestors, poisoning their health and future prospects. When one asks what factors destroyed their empire, a few obvious culprits are brought up.
Division between family members and civil war
An empire so large it became unmanageable
A loss of the Mongol’s tribal edge and ferocity as they became civilized
But they had a hidden Achilles’ heel: diet. In many ways it sounds too close to home with modern civilization’s eating problems.
So, consider this history a dietary warning from your favorite Khans to junk food lovers of the modern world. But before we go on, we need to ask a question. How did the Mongols start down this path?
Mongol’s Love Affair With Milk And Fat
“[The Mongols] have neither bread nor herbs nor vegetables nor anything else, nothing but meat … They drink mare’s milk in very great quantities if they have it; they also drink the milk of ewes, cows, goats and even camels.”
— John of Plano Carpini (1240s)as quoted by John Masson Smith, Jr in “Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire” via Journal of Asian History
The Journal Nature reports that the peoples living in the area now known as Mongolia kept livestock from about 1500BC. Analysis on skeletons near this time show evidence of milk consumption. Although milk wasn’t a native technology.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute believe the ancient Mongols picked it up from nomadic western herders who traveled into their area. However the Mongols made it their own, turning milk into an artform. Likely out of a mixture of taste and necessity.
John Masson Smith in his scholarly article mentioned above reminds us life in the Steppe lands was a “hard, cold, nomadic life.” So, calories and fat were needed— especially since meals weren’t always a guarantee.
Horse meat, mutton, sheep, or mare’s milk were part of this survival diet, for a reason. Smith notes modern beef consists of 1,073 kilocalories (kcal) per pound and whole milk from cows at 400 kcal per pound as a reference point. Now, compare that to Mongol foods.
Mutton 1,834 kcal per pound
Horse meat 1,855 kcal per pound
Sheep’s milk 511.6 kcal per pound
So, sheep and horses give you the best bang for your buck in a caloric and fat sense. In fact, the only low-fat product they made came out of necessity. Smith says their sheep and horses only produced milk five months of the year. So, they made a low-fat milk powder to keep for these times.
They also liked mare’s milk (qumis), but for a different reason. It could be fermented. However, it never packed that much punch, coming in at 3.25% alcohol or less. So, the Mongols needed to drink large quantities.
Mark Cartwright at the World History Encyclopedia explains the Mongols could be incredibly creative with the limited supply of milk. They made yogurt, butter, dried milk curd (qurut), and cured cheese by letting winds batter it on top of their tents.
They also wasted nothing out of necessity.
They slaughtered animals by squeezing their heart out of their chest through an opening, so they didn’t lose an ounce of blood. This was used for sausage. Mongolian archeologist Luvsannorov Munkh also reminds us sinew from the legs of various animals were used to make their composite bows.
Gaining An Empire But Keeping Bad Eating Habits
As mentioned previously, the Mongols high fat-based diet kept starvation at bay in lean times. Their alcohol binges were also kept in control by limited amounts. However, this was a ticking timebomb.
As the Mongol lords became more affluent, they kept the standard diet, desire to imbibe, and cut out the physical labor required in their traditional “hard, cold nomadic life.”
Munkh’s replicated bow has a seventy-eight-pound pull and he mentions Mongolian boys started riding horses at three and hunting in childhood. So, they could burn off the calories and fat. But affluence removed those hobbies from the leadership.
Cartwright explains it took sixty mares to make a season’s worth of the alcoholic qumis. Suddenly Mongol lords had this many. Mixing this with horse meat and mutton only complicated health issues.
According to Smith, the newly wealthy Mongols suddenly started developing issues with gout. It spread throughout the Golden Horde and Qubilai Khan suffered from it for almost thirty years. The Mayo Clinic reminds us this is prevalent in those who eat lots of red meat, are overweight, and regularly drink alcohol.
The Mongol men checked all these boxes. But the women kept up. William of Rubruck, a French friar who visited the Mongols, found the women of the court to be as large as the men and could keep up with them when drinking.
So, now there’s a mixture of culturally promoted alcoholism and a poor diet. While one could only speculate, it must be assumed diabetes and cardiovascular problems populated Mongol leadership.
Smith goes through a lineage of Mongol rulers as well. It seems they die earlier as the empire gets more successful, plus they have less children. Obviously, not a good thing for an expanding empire.
In fact, Ögödei Khan is believed to have died during an all-night drinking binge at only fifty-six. This caused the Mongol army to withdraw from an invasion of Europe.
Reliving The Past On Today’s Plates
While we may not be able to see the world through the Khans’ eyes, modern cultures tend to live with their nutritional sensibilities. Healthcare biotech firm A-Mansia has compiled a list of stats about obesity in the modern world, which are stunning.
In 2020 almost 40% of the world’s global population is considered obese
The global impact of obesity costs about 3% of global GDP, which puts it close to the costs of smoking, terrorism, and armed conflict
The WHO has called diabetes the “21st century epidemic”
Most may have images of destruction and horse warriors when thinking about the Mongols, but maybe they should conjure another image: a dinner plate.
As Smith reminds us, the greatest empire the world ever knew ate and drank itself to death. It appears we’re not far behind. Our new sedentary lifestyles behind keyboards mirror the lives of the Mongol lords. Our fate may match theirs too.
It’s something to keep in mind every day.
We don’t need to pull a seventy-eight-pound bow or ride a horse. But our bodies were meant to move. Lavish fats were also meant to keep us during tough times, which are now rare.
Diet helped conquer an unconquerable empire, and it can do the same to us. Take this as a helpful dietary lesson from your favorite Khans.
-Originally posted on Medium 2/3/22