Junk food seem like a relatively recent phenomenon. But our desire for indulgent, not-so-healthy meals appears to date back at least 500 years — to the Renaissance — a new analysis of European paintings shows.

Salty, high-carb foods — such as bread, sausages, and other meats — were among the most commonly depicted items in paintings of meals from the 16th century. Relatively few depicted fruits and vegetables.

"Crazy meals involving less-than-healthy foods aren't a modern craving," explains lead researcher Dr. Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and author of "Slim by Design."

"Paintings from what's sometimes called the Renaissance Period were loaded with the foods modern diets warn us about — salt, sausages, bread, and more bread."

For the study, published in the journal Sage Open, researchers started with 750 food paintings from the past 500 years and focused on 140 paintings of family meals.

According to the authors, these paintings often featured food that was “indulgent, aspirational or aesthetically pleasing.”

Of the 36 "Renaissance Period" paintings, the researchers found:

• 86 percent depicted bread.
• 61 percent depicted meat.
• 22 percent showed vegetables.
• The most commonly painted vegetable was an artichoke.
• The most common fruit was a lemon.
• The most common protein was shellfish, usually lobster.

"Our love affair with visually appealing, decadent, or status foods is nothing new," says co-researcher Andrew Weislogel, Ph.D., curator of Earlier European American Art at Cornell University's Johnson Museum of Art. "It was already well-established 500 years ago."