[jpatokal]

The main point you're missing is that people were tied to local produce. Cold snap during summer? Potato blight? Sorry, you're going to starve. Even when the harvest came through, staying healthy through the winter and spring was a major problem, with all sorts of vitamin deficiency diseases like scurvy, beriberi, pellagra and rickets endemic.

[cactusface]

There's definitely more food now. Most of it is lower quality than what was eaten before, when it was eaten of course. For survival reasons, I would choose availability over quality any day. However, we have more than enough food to survive, so much so that we throw it away. So maybe quality could go up a bit. Like say by banning the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in milk producing cows.

[maxerickson]

Antibiotics are banned in dairy cows (at least, in the US and EU). They can be used to treat illness, but the milk produced while they are used must be discarded.

Growth hormones are banned in the EU, not in the US, but many US dairy producers advertise the fact that they produce milk without using them.

[cactusface]

Sorry, I thought there were antibiotics in US milk.