Roman Gladiators Relied on Veggies to Maintain their Physiques

Posted by
Jill Harris
Oct 13, 2009

History Television is running a special series on Ancient Rome this week, and I’ve been taking it all in (it is educational after all). But I sat up from my recliner and took notice when they starting talking about Gladiator diets.

Researchers assumed the mighty gladiators had eaten a meat-rich diet to keep up their gruelling regimes of training and fighting.

Scientists used a new technique to measure the chemical element strontium in the bones of a gladiator skeleton. Strontium correlates to the amount of plant material in the diet.

Contrary to expectation, gladiators seemed to rely on a diet containing almost double the plant materials as other Romans of the day.

Even today, people abide by the myth that we need high amounts of protein from animal meat to build strong bones and healthy bodies. But it’s simply not the case. Read more about Protein for Vegetarians to find out:

How much protein we need
Good vegetarian protein sources

It may be that the gladiators ate a carbohydrate-rich diet to put on weight that would protect them from blows in the fighting ring. But let's face it - they had to be strong too.

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