[evtothedev]

> At the time, root vegetables had not yet arrived in Britain, meaning that in winter, farmers could not rely on their usual crops to feed livestock such as pigs and cows. They were therefore bereft of beef and bacon, and turned to alternative sources of meat.

What the heck is going on in these two sentences.

First, I suspect they meant to say that potatoes hadn't yet arrived. Turnips, for example, go back for over a thousand years.

Second, is the implication they couldn't keep any livestock over winter because of a lack of root vegetables? Because what about barley? Or silage?

Makes you start to question the rest of the article.

[hobs]

It also implies beef and bacon had to die every winter or something, which is obviously not the case.

[bluGill]

Beef and pigs had to die every fall - except for a "small" amount that you would raise for next spring to start the next generation. If possible you would prefer not to store food for animals that you don't need to, so when the snow flies you kill all the animals and then freeze it (snow = freezing temperatures), storing it and using for the rest of the winter to the best of your ability to store it. Smoking and other preservatives methods would also be done to any meat in fall, again so you don't have to harvest food to feed those animals all winter. Harvest uses a lot of labor, so storing food to feed animals isn't a good option when you can just kill them and eat later.

Of course you need a lot of animals around to raise the next generation. Still if you plan to eat it in winter the best best was kill it in fall.