Was Diet Responsible for the Salem Witch Trials? [View all]

Because Halloween is coming up and we're all feeling extra-spooky this time of year, Bon Appetit has dredged up the original thesis from the 1970s that suggested a bad crop of rye was the culprit behind the "bewitched" villagers during the Salem Witch Trials.

Historians have long disputed the cause of the mass hysteria in 1692 that left more than 20 villagers dead and dozens more accused of witchcraft. Possible explanations over the years have ranged from medical hysteria to teenage boredom, but in the seventies an undergraduate named Linnda Caporael linked the villagers' symptoms to ergot, a fungus that grows on rye -- which happened to be the main grain grown by Salem Village at the time.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2012/10/was_diet_responsible_for_the_s.php