We Cooked Our Food

In the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing up overweight people were rare.  Extremely so.  My wife and I went to the same high school in the same period of time. And in our school there was a total of maybe two or three kids that were overweight. 

Food was plentiful and cheap.  Stay at home moms making three square meals every day for papa and the kids. We ate enormous amounts of food because were all extremely active.  And abundant amounts of inexpensive, quality food.

Restaurant meals were pretty much non existent.  Maybe fish and chips from the truck at the shopping centre on Fridays.  As teens we might also get a burger on a Saturday night.  But the first McDonald’s didn’t arrive in Ontario, Canada until 1968.  Before that, burger joints were using real food.  Even at the beginning, McDonald’s and other fast food joints, as they came along, used real food. Fewer additives.

Then The Whole Food Industry Changed

First Food Pyramid was introduced in Sweden in 1974.  A full ‘official’ food pyramid was introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1992.  But there was a somewhat lesser version of this around in the USA in the 1980s.

High Fructose corn syrup began replacing sugar in the mid 1970s.

Glyphosate was synthesized in 1950 and initially used in metal work.  Monsanto patented the herbicidal use of glyphosate in 1971 and began the commercial sales of the herbicide in 1974.

Much controversy around glyphosate and whether or not it has harmful effects.   Either way it was another change in what we eat.

Seed Oils

A quote from Heart and Soil

“Rapeseed oil [Canola Oil] gained attention during the 1970s, although its high toxicity in large quantities prompted Canadian scientists to develop a less toxic variant called canola oil by the 1980s, coined by the Rapeseed Association of Canada (RAC). Over the following decade, they created genetically modified varieties to improve resistance to pests and herbicides, contributing to its popularity…”

Lots more at that website on the subject of seed oils if you a more complete eduction on the subject.  Suffice it to say, seed oils are not good for you.  We didn’t eat them in the 1950s and 1960s.  If they were available, they were used minimally.  Whereas restaurants used seed oils exclusively, at home butter what the go to for frying.  Crisco came along later.  But we all liked the taste of butter better.  Like Betty Botter.

“Betty Botter bought a bit of butter

but the bit of butter was bitter

so Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter

to make the bit of bitter butter better.”

Cook with Ghee or lard, etc

Is Social Media to Blame?

A lot of people are blaming the last ten years or so of social media.  In that it is making children and young people more docile.  Sitting staring at their screens.

Back in the day we were all readers.  We had television but that could not be used so much as a baby sitter as that kids stuff was primarily Saturday morning cartoons. 

And back then, if a parent said ‘no TV’ then, well, there was no TV!  And bed time/lights out WAS bedtime.

Dieting - Should I Diet - No Diet

Nobody really did ‘diets’ in the 1950s and 1960s and some.  There was the odd hippie ‘macro’ diet or some such. Some us would try something for a few days in our teens.  But whatever it was there had to be lots of calories as we were all so active. 

In our early teens it was nothing to bicycle several miles to a semi wilderness park where we could explore. 

We, as kids and teens had lots of meat, lots of vegetables (we had to eat those) and lots of carbs.

Eating well and lots of activity, that was our ‘diet’.

Food additives

As mentioned above, food additives were jammed into our food more and more from the 1970s and on.  I’m sure there were some earlier but insignificant by comparison to later.

Inflammation

This next is a very sensitive topic.  Please don’t consider me an ‘anti-vaxxer’.   That said, I do worry about the huge increase in the sheer number of vaccines given to children from the 1980s and 1990s.

We didn’t have this volume in the 50s and 60s and many of us are still around.  And living well.  Quite healthy.  We all did get our basic few and still lived to tell about it.

My biggest concern is the effects this volume can have on a child’s or young person’s immune system.  Inflammation can result from weakened immune systems which can affect food digestion and other issues.

My point here is that it is one more big change that in that period of time may or may not be good. 

High End Athletes  “Eat Your Vegetables”

Athletes involved in International sports have to eat well.  They just have to.  And most eat a very well rounded diet.  Meat, vegetables, fats and carbs.

Not too many fat Olympic athletes! 

Here are a couple of websites that show some of the meals that high end athletes eat:

Hopkins Medicine 

Olympics 

and

Healthline 

Look through these and you will see by far the majority of these diets include a wide range of foods. Including vegetables, meat and carbs.  Of varying amounts and types.

South Beach Diet

There was a well-known diet book came out 20-25 years ago.  Was called The South Beach Diet.  Pretty sure I still have a copy around here somewhere. 

I’m quite certain that the reason it was so successful, is that it was getting people to cook their own meals.   Eat at home.  They were balanced meals that you would prepare yourself. 

There are many other similar programs now - successful because they get you home and into the kitchen. 

Fat Free Diet

I really barely need to mention this stupidity.  The ‘fat free’ diet has been thoroughly debunked numerous times elsewhere.   Too bad it created more overweight and unhealthy people over the years.

I hope all this helps.  Would love to hear your comments. (Maybe 🙂 )

Keep cooking.