LARDY LARDY: FOUNDING FATHERS' DIETS FILLED WITH FAT

LARDY LARDY: FOUNDING FATHERS' DIETS FILLED WITH FAT

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Wireless Flash) -- Americans may have horrible diets now, but it's nothing compared to how the Founding Fathers stuffed their faces. In honor of Independence Day, nutrition experts at the American Institute for Cancer Research are giving George Washington and crew a thumbs down for their dependence on fat, salt and booze. Researchers estimate wealthy colonial Americans gorged themselves on 5,000 calorie-a-day diets consisting mostly of fatty cuts of salt-cured pork and beef, refined corn and little or no veggies. The group also tsk-tsks the Yankee patriots' beverage choices: mostly hard cider, ale and rum because drinking water was often unsafe. Interestingly, the organization gives a better score to the diets of poor rural colonists, who ate mostly vitamin- rich root vegetables.