Since the Neolithic Age, people have lived from farming and animal husbandry. Simple meals of cereal porridge remained the typical diet of ordinary people until the Middle Ages. Vegetables were considered the food of the poor. In contrast, meat and fish were available in sufficient quantities to the upper classes. Hunting no longer played a role in nutrition; it had become a privilege of the nobility, who pursued it as a sporting pleasure.
The difference between rich and poor became greater and greater: while there were repeated famines among the poor population until modern times, food no longer served the nobility merely for survival, but also for culinary enjoyment. Gluttony became a status symbol of the upper classes. Through increasing long-distance trade, new, sometimes exotic foods and spices from distant countries reached Europe as luxury goods.
Even today, people in some parts of the world are starving. In Europe, on the other hand, there is overproduction, and some foodstuffs even have to be destroyed.