Rumford's Soup was an early effort in scientific nutrition

Nutrition

Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....

. It was invented by Count Rumford around 1800 as a ration for the prisoners and the poor of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

, where he was employed as an advisor to the Duke.

As a reformatory measure, the Bavarian government intended to institute workhouses for those on welfare. Rumford's charge was to provide the cheapest possible ration that was still a high-calorie, nutritious food.

Recipe

• 1 part pearl barley
  Pearl barley
  Pearl barley is barley processed to remove its hull and bran. Barley must have its fibrous outer hull removed before it can be eaten; pearl barley is taken a step further, polished to remove the nutritious bran layer....
  
  
• 1 part dried (yellow) peas
• 4 parts potato
• salt according to need
• Old, sour beer

Slowly boil until thick. Eat with bread.

Rumford's soup is not noted as particularly tasty, but is palatable with long, slow cooking.

Nutrition and modification

Rumford's soup is low-fat, with high protein and carbohydrate content -- protein from the dried peas, complex carbohydrates from the potato and barley, and simple carbohydrates from the beer. Thus, Rumford's soup was close to the optimum solution to the problem of cheap, nutritious food according to the knowledge of the day. Unfortunately, such knowledge did not extend to vitamins or trace elements. As a result, Rumford's soup was often supplemented by corn or herring to supply Vitamin C

Vitamin C

Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

 and Vitamin D

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids. In humans, vitamin D is unique both because it functions as a prohormone and because the body can synthesize it when sun exposure is adequate ....

.

History

Rumford's soup was a common base for inexpensive military rations in Central Europe for much of the nineteenth and twentieth century.