Kofi - On the ship
I like the rice food they give us but the hard crunchy things have insects in and they are hard to chew. Abeeku helps me eat them. I wish I had a nice juicy piece of fruit - I even dream about it.
Food
Hard Crunchy Things
Both the captives and the crew were usually fed twice a day. They were given yams (like potatoes), beans, biscuits and sometimes salt beef. The biscuits often contained weevils (little beetles) and were tapped to shake the weevils out before they were eaten.
Fruit
The food eaten by everyone on the ship lacked vitamin C. As a result people craved food that contained the vitamin, e.g. fresh fruit.
A long-term lack of vitamin C leads to weight loss, bleeding sores, loss of teeth, scaly skin and depression. Some ships gave both captives and crew doses of limejuice to prevent these problems.