The high consumption of meat, sweet potatoes, and peas made the slave diet not only adequate, but it actually exceeded modern recommended daily levels of the chief nutrients. […] Many slaves had far better clothes than poor whites. […] Comments of observers suggest that the most typical slave houses of the late antebellum period were cabins about eighteen by twenty feet. […]
Such housing may sound mean by modern standards but actually compared well with the homes of free workers in the ante bellum era. […]
The medical care was good. Generally, the slaves received the same medical care the family received.
Source: Southern Slavery As It Was, Steve Wilkins & Douglas Wilson, P. 16