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Actually, let's start with that last criterion: how can dietetics help maintain the current (God-given) social order? How do you make sure that peasants and town folk don't even dream of eating the same food that the nobility does? One way, which has been practised for a long time, is to simply forbid them to eat above their station by enacting sumptuary laws. But it's not a very effective one; tell a man this or that dish is too elite for him to eat and he will make a point of eating it only to show that he does belong to the elite. But what if you make made him believe that such food unhealthy for would make himsick? This is where the dietitians come in. All they've had to do is to demonstrate that the humoral constitution of those who engage in physical labour, in close contact with earth and sun, is completely different than in from the humoral makeup of those who were born not to work. And if so, then, absolutely logically, whatever is healthy for the latter is deleterious to the former and vice versa. Farmers, porters, soldiers , sailors and sailors the like should never consume fresh white bread, poultry or fruits, as these foodstuffs, while perfectly good for the high-born, would only serve to plaster their stomachs. And, conversely, the kind of heavy food that befits working people, such as stale rye bread, gruel, cheese, salted herring, legumes and root vegetables, would be completely indigestible for the higher tiers of the society.

| Garlic, as Galen writes {{...}}, is hot and dry in the fourth degree {{...}} Garlic is irritating and burning; it hurts, dries and bloats the stomach, it induces thirst, makes the head spin and clouds the eyes, therefore wise men do well to be wary of it. {{...}} Garlic is greatly beneficial {{...}} to those who travel to foreign lands and overseas, especially where there are venomous reptiles and noxious, foul-smelling waters. Likewise, it is good against the plague, but only to gross people (peasantry), who are accustomed to garlic, {{...}} because it amplifies their innate heat and helps burn all excess matter; but it in a luxurious man it does much harm.

There's only one problem here; : garlic is tasty. And it's not just for the peasantswho find it so. Why then should the nobles abstain from eating something that makes food so flavourful? Thank God for a loophole: you can ennoble lowly foods like garlic by combining them with more exclusive ingredients. Degli Arienti himself admitted in the end that "garlic is always food for peasants, and this even when it is sometimes artificially civilized by inserting it into roasted geese." And this is the difference between garlic and a peasant; : one can hope for eventual social advancement, the other cannot.<ref>{{Cyt

If we were able to bend Galenic theory for the purpose of justified justifying social inequality, then perhaps we can also use it to justify geographic differences in what people eat? In the Middle Ages, people throughout Europe were trying to eat according to the same ancient nutritional doctrine which they read quite literally. But eventually those in the north realized that Hippocrates and Galen had lived in the Mediterranean basin. Why assume that what was good for them is also good to those living in other climate zones? Northerners, after all, have different temperaments that the southrons, so it's only natural that they should follow a different diet than the Greeks and Romans did. But how do you know what is good for the northerners? Well, it's simple: whatever food their organisms have got used over the centuries. In other words, if there's something a given nation really likes to eat and drink, then this is what is healthy for them. Perhaps wine was good for Galen, but the Dutch are more suited to drinking hoppy beer; ancient dietary experts may have preferred tender veal over beef, but beef and mustard is works work better to offset the cold climate of the English; and the Scots, living in harsher climes still, may even safely consume oatcakes, even if they these would surely make everybody else sick. It's due to this great discovery that separate national cuisines could arise in Europe.

What else can we justify with humoral dietetics? Let's see… What about religious fasting? Have you ever wondered why eating meat is forbidden during a Catholic fast? Well, that's because red meat heats your body and strengthens then choleric and sanguine humours, which are conducive to promiscuity and other sinful carnal pleasures. Fish, on the contrary, cool your body down and temper your proclivity to sin, which is why it is allow allowed during lean periods. Such periods include Lent, Advent and the eves of various holidays, as well as so-called Ember Days, which include three days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) in each quarter of the year. It would be difficult to find a theological or liturgical rationale for these quarterly fasts, but what you can find is a humoral reason.

How is it possible? Did medieval dietitians and cooks conspire to bend nutritional advice to their employer's tastes? That's not impossible, but one can find other explanations too. For example, it could be that , from among a vast number of possible combinations of ingredients that dietitians found acceptable , cooks were able to find, through trial and error, the ones that are also tasty, while the inedible ones have been forgotten. But it's also possible that we find these combinations tasty simply because we've got used to them over centuries of following a humoral diet. In the 21st century, people will still season their pork with mustard, sprinkle their fish with lemon juice and salt their cucumbers with salt without ever thinking that all this is actually required by the humour-balancing rule.