With the Paris Olympics just around the corner, Stéphane Solier’s podcast “Régime des athlètes olympiques”, broadcast on France Inter last June, comes at just the right time. The latter reflects on the high-protein diet of ancient Greek athletes. Epictetus, in his Manual, describes the severe discipline athletes had to undergo to win at Olympia, including a strict diet with no pastries or cold drinks, but rich in grilled meat and wine.
This diet evolved between the VIᵉ and Vᵉ centuries BC, moving from a diet based on wheat porridge, fresh cheese and dried figs to increased meat consumption, under the influence of figures like Dromeus of Stymphalus.
The enormous quantities of food ingested by legendary athletes such as Milon of Crotone, capable of consuming superhuman quantities of meat and wine, gave rise to medical and moral debates as far back as antiquity. Latin moralists saw this regime as a model of folly.
Today, modern reinterpretations of these diets show a form of continuity but also an adaptation of dietary practices over the centuries.
To find out more about the “Olympic athletes’ diet”, listen to the podcast here.
