It's a well known fact that we humans need a variety of nutrients to stay healthy-that's why we are encouraged to eat lots of different foods. Bread and water is the diet of an anorexic and they usually don't survive it.
I think you have a bigger point there rose. I think we are addicted to so many things that if we switched instantly to bread and water, we would do more harm than good. I think if we were to start doing this, we would need to wane off the addiction over time.
Back to the OT. If the beef was corned beef, it would have a little less salt content and more surviving nutrients. It's not as good as fresh beef, but easier to digest and more vitamins then salted pork. The big thing would be the corn. Any type of corn is hard to digest, much harder than milled and baked bread. The poorer types of corn can be almost impossible to digest properly. It will keep you alive, but your missing out on a lot of vitamins and minerals. And if I remember correctly, all corn is really light on potassium. So wheat bread would give a small edge in terms of energy and health compared to corn.
I too think wheat bread would be much better than corn. Like you said, corn is not the easiest to get through your system.
The right kind of wheat bread- it would have to be made with the entire kernel of wheat-a lot of wheat bread today is just white bread of color....
So back then it would have been better for you. Very interesting indeed. I bet they could have done well living with a lot of bread.