Modern Retro Woman

I’ve started a new ritual: Finish-Up Friday. The intention is that I’ll finish projects and tasks that are languishing. Since I’ve got too much stuff on my plate, my goal was to remove some tasks from it by finishing them up.  I was able to get a lot of sewing done yesterday and was eagerly looking forward to another amazingly productive day.  Alas, it was not as productive.  I’m having some trouble with my homework.  I’ll write about it over on Grandma’s Sewing Cabinet when I get it worked out.

The bright spot in the day, however, was dinner.  I know…it is sad when that is my highlight.  And the reason it was my highlight was because of how easily it went together thanks to the meal planning guides from both Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Garden. I simply plugged in food using the Betty Crocker chart, used the Better Home & Gardens list to give me ideas and this is the outcome:

Appetizer or Soup: Skipped

Meat and Potatoes: Braised chicken breasts and mashed potatoes with gravy (Groups 3 and 5)

Green or Yellow Vegetables: Green beans with butter  (Groups 1 and 7)

Salad (Raw Vegetable):  Cabbage and Carrots lightly mixed with mayo and sour cream (this satisfied Group 2 because we are out of citrus)

Fruit: Tropical blend, thawed (designed for smoothies), mixed with cottage cheese (Groups 3 and 4)

Bread and Butter: Skipped bread (Group 6) but had the butter on the beans.

Dessert: The fruit and cottage cheese provided enough sweetness that dessert wasn’t needed.

So, we had six out of the seven groups with dinner.  Because of the variety, dinner felt special even though it was very easy to prepare and we noticed that we could cut down on the serving sizes (I had only given us about 2 oz. each of the chicken).

Well, I managed to do it.  It is hard to admit but I think everyone has figured it out, already.  I put too much on my plate.  I went to the super buffet and loaded it up because I forgot that I could take seconds.  Each item on my plate brings me tremendous joy (most of the time) but the stuff loaded on the plate is spilling off of it and I’m beginning to have a mess to clean up.  Thankfully, I know that the biggest item on my plate–my winter-term class–will be over in just four more weeks (and then I will be in class three nights a week but the learning is spread out over 16 weeks instead of 6 intensive weeks).  I’m just wishing I had some Saran Wrap to help me hold everything together in the remaining four weeks!

One huge way to reduce stress, waste, and save money is to be an efficient food manager.  Anne mentioned Once a Month Cooking and asked if it was okay to do as a modern retro woman.  I say, “Absolutely!”  I have long been an advocate of “freezer cooking” as a way of saving time.  The great thing about it is that there are very few rules about how to “feed the freezer.”  My method simply calls for “encore meals” to be put into the freezer.  Since there are only two of us and most recipes serve 4+ people, I wrap up the leftovers into two serving size packages and stick them in the freezer.  With that simple trick, I have created my own frozen dinners without all of the salt, high-fructose-corn-syrup, and unpronounceable chemicals that manufacturers have to put into their boxed frankenfood.  I use canning jars (straight up and down, not ones with shoulders) and Pyrex storage containers for food storage in both the fridge and freezer.  Just be wise and don’t try to put hot foods in glass containers into a freezer, leave head space for expansion, and don’t put the container directly from the freezer into a hot oven.  Glass doesn’t like the sudden temperature change.

As you will see from this film from the mid-1950’s, homemakers have been feeding their freezer for a very long time.  I have a cookbooklet from Sears from 1962, entitled “How to Prepare Foods for Freezing.”  I have even seen some vintage cookbooks with little “freezer friendly” notations next to recipes.

I found this video about how to use plastic wrap (I learned in my textiles class that Saran really is considered a textile–it just isn’t woven like other fabrics).  It is about 20 minutes long and provides a few helpful tips–including how to wrap food for the freezer.

Click here to watch video if player doesn’t work

I usually try to run my errands on Friday mornings.  The stores are stocked up for the weekend rush, so there is a better selection on the sale items, but they aren’t crowded yet.  So, in honor of the shopping I will do in a couple of hours, I bring you The Shoppers Creed from Meta Given’s The Modern Family Cookbook (1953; previously published in 1942).  My intention is to spend some time next week examining what she says about meal planning and so forth.

The health of my family is in my care; therefore–

I will base my market list on meals planned according to “THE DIET PATTERN,”

I will choose foods of quality and in quantities that will provide the nutritive elements planned for.

Stretching the food dollar is part of my responsibility; therefore–

I will take advantage of what the seasonal markets offer in variety, quality and price, to the end that I may exchange my dollar for maximum values.

My family’s enjoyment of food is my responsibility; therefore–

I will use the possibilities of the market to provide variety, excellent quality and novelty within the limits of my food budget.

Purchasing food is an important link in the business of feeding my family; therefore–

I will make every effort to weigh possibilities offered by various markets, by various foods, and the forms in which they are offered from season to season, to the end that I may take pride in a job well done.

****

In the comments for the Wartime Meal Planning, Part 1, post, Beth remembered reading that Americans throw away as much as 40% of their food, so I did a little digging around the Internet.  What I found is that Beth was right–Americans in general throw away as much as 40% of the food supply all along the production line from farms, retailers, restaurants, and households.  That is a lot and up from 30% in the 1970’s. Families appear to waste about 12-14% of their food.

Environmentalists are alarmed at the impact of that food being dumped in landfills while charities are trying to divert some of that food to feed the hungry (see The Food Not Eaten and the Wasted Food blog by author Jonathan Bloom for thought-provoking information on this topic).  But I want to focus on the impact on the household budget.

For the average American, we could give ourselves a $500 annual raise simply by being more careful in our food planning.  While that doesn’t seem like a lot, if we look at it in terms of “life energy” described in Your Money or Your Life, that $500 can take on new meaning.  In California, for instance, minimum wage is $8.00 per hour.  For someone earning minimum wage, that food waste equals 62.5 hours of work or a week-and-a-half of work.  For someone earning $25 per hour, that $500 represents half of a week of work (20 hours).

Although I enjoy being a wise money manager (see  How to Manage Money Like Your Grandmother), I’ll admit that My Honey is much better than I am at translating purchases into “life energy” spent.  He’ll say, “Is this item worth 5-10-20-30-or-60 minutes of grinding metal?” (the step in the metal/sculpture casting process that he is good at but hates doing).  More often than not, it isn’t worth it and it will go back on the shelf.

As the Home Manager, it is my responsibility to eliminate waste wherever possible so that my husband’s life energy isn’t wasted, too.  As I make my purchases today, I will keep in mind the Shopper’s Creed.

Whew!  It has been a whirlwind few days and I’ve missed my little coffee klatch with you ladies!  I started a “draping” class yesterday where I am learning how to design patterns by draping muslin on a dress form.  You’ve probably seen them do it on Project Runway, if you’ve watched the show.  Anyway, it is all day, three times a week for the next six weeks.  My professor sent out the list of supplies so I had to run downtown last week and pick up the stuff I didn’t already have in my toolbox.  Naturally, I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned over on the Grandma’s Sewing Cabinet Blog.  In the meantime, you may notice that I’m posting a little later in the day because I will be doing it after I get home from school.

You know, when I started this exploration of the recommended eating for good health plans, I had no idea how it was going to change my life–especially the information we’ve been talking about related to rationing during World War II (and special thanks to Kathy for her contributions/resources to this discussion).    I’ve been watching several Your Share cookbooks on eBay and will probably use some of my upcoming birthday money to buy a copy (in addition to that brooch I showed you guys a few weeks ago from Pop Goes My Vintage…if I also achieve my fitness goals for the month).

Now, you all know that I generally eschew what I call “franken-food” (processed foods designed in a lab with all of the stuff Americans seem to like to make it easy to eat: soft food that melts in your mouth, lots of fat, lots of high fructose corn syrup for flavor and to extend shelf life, and chemicals to trick your brain into thinking that the stuff actually tastes good).  That said, because of this series, I’ve realized what an eating rut we’ve fallen into.  There’s a world of high quality food out there waiting for us to enjoy it!  I found myself being my mindful of what I was buying at the farmer’s market the other day.  I’ve promised myself that I’m going to take my lunch with me to school, even if it a PB&J sandwich because that PB&J would be better for me and taste better than anything I could find in the school cafeteria.  I guess, to make a short story long, this series and the ensuing conversation have truly inspired me to get out of our food rut.  So, I thank you!

As I was doing some research for today’s blog posting, I came across several snarky reviews of the famous Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook that was first published in 1950.  The reviewers, without even trying the recipes, dismissed the reprint of the cookbook as nothing more than a recipe in nostalgia because no one has all day to prepare meals anymore.  Well, maybe not.  But as I’ve said over and over again, most meals can be prepared in an hour or less.  In fact, tonight’s dinner–steak, potatoes, artichoke hearts, and some fruit and dairy to be determined later, will probably take about 15-20 minutes to prepare.  And I can guarantee that it will be yummy!  These snarky women are probably the same ones who post recipes on All Recipes or Recipezaar saying to buy a prepared food and follow the directions.  I’m glad you all are with me on this campaign of mine to bring back real cooking.  I love what Amazon says about the cookbook…

…that back then we ate simply, in the days before the word foodie was invented. Many of the recipes suit today’s harried lifestyle, as you see in Six Layer Dinner, combining eight cups of vegetables with a pound of ground meat, and Dainty Tea Brownies topped with colorful chopped pistachios.

So, what did Betty Crocker recommend as good nutrition that “brings double happiness?”  In 1950, the Basic Seven Foods were still being endorsed.  However, the Betty Crocker cookbook doesn’t go into as much detail as the Better Home’s and Gardens cookbooks.  However, this cookbook gives us a little bit more concrete help–the kind I think Ann was asking for–in the meal planning department.  They say, “The basic seven is easy if you follow this pattern…”

For Adequate Meals:

Breakfast: Fruit, Cereal and Milk, Bread and Butter

Lunch: Main Dish, Vegetables, Bread and Butter, Fruit

Dinner: Meat and Potatoes, Green or Yellow Vegetables, Salad (raw vegetable), Bread and Butter, Fruit

Milk for children at every meal

For Complete or Abundant Meals

Breakfast: Fruit, Cereal and Milk, Egg or Meat, Bread and Butter

Lunch: Main Dish, Vegetables, Bread and Butter, Fruit, Cake or Cookies or Pudding

Dinner: Appetizer or Soup, Meat and Potatoes, Green or Yellow Vegetables, Salad (raw vegetable), Fruit, Bread and Butter, Dessert (Pie or Cake)

The same basic pattern should be used for all members of the family.  Simply adjust it to meet invidiual needs of age, work, activity, and special diets.

Growing Children (1-16 years): Need more food for size than grownups; serve according to size and age of child

Adolescents (14-20 years): Need more food than at any time in their lives.  A few pounds overweight at this period is an asset for health; Double and triple servings.

Adults (20-100 years): Need food according to size and activity.  Women during pregnancy and lactation require additional food for certain elements; Small servings for inactive, Medium for moderately active; Large for very active.

***

This is probably one of the few places where we’ll see variables in serving sizes.  I appreciate that these folks are saying, “Hey!  If you’re inactive, you don’t need to eat very much.”  I think the modern “serving size” listings on food is a double edged sword.  Sure they help us with things like keeping track of nutritional information but the downside is that it is a one-size-fits-all kind of thinking when it comes to serving size.  I can guarantee that I shouldn’t be eating the same serving sizes of most food as someone who digs ditches all day.  Additionally, we’ve lost our sense of what constitutes a serving.  I think a lot of us mistakenly believe that one serving = one helping.  But the folks at Betty Crocker remind us that eating is not one-size-fits-all.  And if we don’t pay attention to it, we won’t even be able to fit into our “Thanksgiving Stretchy Pants” anymore.

So, is the take away, once again, that we really don’t need as much food as we think we do?

We’re in luck! Avis Films has created an educational movie that will help us understand the “foundation foods” we should eat every day.  Apparently this film didn’t like to call them The Basic 7.

The propaganda is strong encouraging us to be members of The Clean Plate Club.  But, also note when the film says it is okay to eat and what Sally is given for an afternoon snack (her big brother doesn’t get an afternoon snack because he gets home from school too close to dinner time).  Finally, from the looks of this film, everyone also made sure they got enough sleep (which is also key to making sure everything functions properly).

Yes, the film is leaning toward campy but it is also a great insight into the educational propaganda about food at that time.  It is about 10 minutes long.

Click here if the video player doesn’t work for you

I don’t know how the examination of menu planning from the 20th century is impacting you, but it has really been giving me some things to think about.  It’s not that this is the first time I’ve looked at the information.  In fact, last March I posted about how I was going to lose weight by eating like my grandmother! Reading that posting showed my why I didn’t lose the weight I wanted–I fell off of the eating like my grandmother bandwagon with a big ol’ thud by not incorporating those fruits and vegetables and eating too many desserts (even if it tasted like the onion that had been stored in the container before the desert…See the comments from the fudge post).

Perhaps I needed to take this walk down “memory lane” to remind me how much our grandmothers depended upon their kitchen gardens.  Anyone who is older than, say, three knows that recommendations for healthy eating change faster than a Midwestern sky during tornado season–eggs and margarine being prime examples of this.  But, one thing that seems to remain constant is the directive to “eat your fruits and vegetables.”  In fact, The Basic 7, that we’ll be looking at today, consists of three different groups related to fruits and vegetables.

What are your thoughts?

Eat Your Basic 7 Every Day

For Health…Some Food From Each Group…Every Day!

Group 1

Green and Yellow Vegetables (Raw, cooked, frozen, or canned)

Green Vegetables: Artichokes, asparagus, beet greens, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, chard, chicory, collards, dandelion greens, endive, escarole, green peppers, kale, lambs-quarters, leaf lettuce, mustard greens, okra, parsley, green peas, snap or string beans, spinach, turnip greens, water cress, other greens

Yellow Vegetables: carrots, pumpkin, rutabagas, squash-winter or Hubbard, squash-yellow summer, sweet potatoes, wax beans, yams, yellow turnips

Group 2

Oranges, Tomatoes, Grapefruit* (or Raw Cabbage or Salad Greens)

Oranges, Tomatoes, Grapefruit: Citrus juices, grapefruit, kumquats, lemons, limes, oranges, tomatoes, tomato juice, tangerines

*Note from Dr. J: Grapefruit interacts with many medications.  Check with your pharmacist to see if it will interact with any of your medication before eating it.

Raw Salad Greens: Cabbage, chicory, dandelion greens, escarole, green and red peppers, lambs-quarters, leaf lettuce, parsley, water cress, other raw greens.

Group 3

Potatoes, Other Vegetables and Fruits (Raw, dried, cooked, frozen or canned)

Other vegetables: Jerusalem artichoke, beets, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumber, eggplant, fresh lima beans, kohlrabi, leeks, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, potatoes, radishes, salsify-oyster plant, sauerkraut, summer squash, turnips-white; All vegetables not mentioned elsewhere

Other fruits: Apples, apricots, avocados, bananas, blackberries (the kind you eat, not talk into), cantaloupe*, cherries, cranberries, currants, dates, figs, gooseberries*, grape juice, huckleberries, loganberries*, muskmelon, mangoes, nectarines, papayas*, peaches, pears, persimmons*, pineapple*, plums, pomegranates, prunes, quince, raisins, rhubarb, strawberries*, watermelon, youngberries; All fruits not listed elsewhere

*Seasonal alternates for Group 2

Group 4

Milk and Milk Products (Fluid, evaporated, dried milk, or cheese)

Fluid-whole, fluid-skim, buttermilk, cultured milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, dry whole milk, dry skim milk, cream, cheese–all kinds, ice cream

Group 5

Meet, Poultry, Fish, or Eggs ( or Dried Beans, Peas, Nuts, or Peanut Butter)

Meat, Poultry, Fish (Fresh, canned, or cured): Beef, veal, pork (except bacon and fat back), lamb, mutton, variety meats (–liver, heart, etc.), miscellaneous meats (–bologna, etc.),  poultry (–chicken, duck, goose, turkey, guinea, squab), rabbit, fish (–fresh or salt water, shellfish, other sea food), game, eggs (–fresh, dried, or frozen)

Dried Peas, Beans, Nuts: Black-eyed peas, cowpeas, field peas, split peas, Great Northern beans, kidney beans, Lima beans, navy beans, pinto beans, soybeans, other dried beans and peas, lentils, peanut butter, nuts

Group 6

Bread, Flour, and Cereals (Natural whole grain –or enriched or restored)

Breads: Whole-wheat, enriched white, pumpernickel (enriched rye), rolls or biscuits made with whole-wheat or enriched flour, oatmeal bread

Flour and Meal: Whole wheat, enriched white, whole corn meal, other whole grains

Cereals: Whole wheat, mixed whole grain, rolled oats, brown rice, prepared cereals–whole grain, restored

Crackers (Dr. J note–It just says “crackers” without any elaboration)

Group 7

Butter             Margarine (With Vitamin A added)

Foods Commonly Used but Not Included in the Seven Food Groups

In buying foods from this list, remember that they furnish mostly calories and few minerals, vitamins, or good quality proteins.

Milled cereals and products made from them: White flour (not enriched), white rice, white bread or rolls (not enriched), cornstarch, white corn meal, hominy grits, macaroni, squaghetti and other pastes, crackers (white flour not enriched)

Sugars, sirups: Sugar, candy, molasses, corn sirup, can sirup, maple sirup, sorghum, honey, preserves, jams, jellies

Other Sweets: Cakes, cookies, doughnuts, pastries, sheret

Fats and Oils (Other than butter and fortified margarine): Lard, salt pork or fat back, other shortenings, bacon, suet, mutton tallow, salad oils, french dressing, mayonnaise, other salad dressing, all other fats not included in other lists.

Cover to the Cooking Supplement

When the Meredith Publishing Company published their Cookbook in 1941, they certainly had no idea that the United States would be thrust into World War II by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th.  From what I can tell by searching the Internet, by 1943 Meridith had added “A New Wartime Cooking Supplement for Your Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book” supplement to subsequent printings of the DeLuxe version of the cookbook (maybe our historian extraordinaire, Lidian, might know for sure).

I actually have two different printings of the cookbook–the 1941 version that I drew the information from for yesterday’s balanced meal post and the fifth printing from January, 1944, that contains the war supplement.  The information in the Nutrition section remained the same in the subsequent printings.  However, the supplement shows the beginnings of what would eventually become the “Four Food Groups” that I learned about as a child (and before that blasted pyramid scheme came along…but that’s for another day).

I started to put all of the information into one posting but realized that it would be quite long so I’ve broken it into two parts.  Today I’ll quote the encouragement to homemakers from the front page and tomorrow I’ll highlight The Basic Seven.

Nutrition and Meal Planning

Wartime Meal Planning

American homemakers can “take it” without grumbling, tho wartime meals are going to mean more careful planning, some belt tightening, and often going without foods we’ve taken for granted.  We have a real war job keeping our families healthy and happy.  And remember–everyone can be well-fed during wartime.  Knowing the whys and the wherefores of food values makes us wiser meal planners.  Nutrition, Chapter A, in your Better Homes & Gardens cook Book summarizes what you should know about each essential food.  Now check your family’s meals against your government’s Basic 7 on the next page (coming tomorrow). Getting these must-for-health foods every day?

Milk. Try your level best to get one quart of whole milk or its equivalent into each of your growing youngsters each day.  Pregnant or nursing mothers need the same.  Healthy normal adults should have one pint daily.

Green and Yellow Vegetables. If you can, grow a good share of your minerals and vitamins in your own garden, with accent on tomatoes and the green, leafy, and yellow vegetables.  Use pleny of these when they’re young and tender, and serve one raw fruit or vegetable every day to boost your quota of Vitamin C.

Meat, Poultry, Fish, or Eggs. Protein foods aren’t of equal value or entirely interchangeable.  Those from animal sources such as milk, cheese, eggs, meats, fish and poultry are high in nutritive value and should supply from 1/3 to 1/2 or more of your protein for the day.  In the average diet, cereals may supply as much as 29% of the protein for the day; dried beans, peas, and nuts, 5%; potatoes and sweet potatoes, 3%; and all other vegetables and fruits, 5%.  Use lots of enriched or whole-wheat bread and whole-grain or enriched cereals to supply not only 1/4 or more of the protein but also iron and a helpful amount of thiamin, niacin, and riboflavin each day.

Butter and Fortified Margarine. Stretching your butter or fortified margarine needn’t short-ration you on Vitamin A if you add one to two tablespoons green pepper, pimiento, or parsley, chopped.   Blend butter or fortified margarine with softened cream cheese or peanut butter–goes father, tastes might good.

Planning Meals in Advance Saves Points

It’s more than ever up to us to plan meals ahead–with quantity of many foods scarce and fluctuating and with choice limited and changing.  Here’s why.  You can use foods you grow for filling in between rationed fruits and vegetables.  You can scatter non-rationed foods generously over the week or period.  Meats, variety meats, fish, poultry, and cheese can take turns appearing once every day in meals; a leftover meat can turn up in a new dress several days after it’s first bowed in.  Meals planned can replace unavailable foods without upsetting the plan for the day.  Meals planned ahead are more likely to be balanced between the energy foods and building, regulating and protecting foods.  They’re going to look and taste better, too, with plenty of flavor zest and color contrast.

Combine foods of different texture–something crisp or crunchy like raw vegetables and fruit, nuts, salad, toast, or crackers to accompany creamed or soft foods.  Combine foods of different colors–a generous bit of yellow or red or a combination of several, offsets foods like cauliflower or cabbage.  Combine foods of different flavors.  The mild-flavored foods–potatoes, rice, macaroni, eggs and milk–need the upstanding flavors of tomatoes, onions, cabbage, relish, fish or beef to bring out their goodness.

Ring in several oven meals in your week’s planning and you’ll save cooking fuel.  And make up your shopping list as you plan your menus.  You’ll save trips to the store, and that means time, gasoline, and tires.

*****

I think I finally figured out why pimiento shows up in so many mid-century dishes.  It was used to supplement the butter ration!

The supplement continues my “oh-my-goodness!” moment from yesterday in its discussion of protein.  I was struck by the expectation that only 1/3 to 1/2 of protein requirement would come from animal protein and appreciated that the authors elaborated by telling  us where we could expect to get the rest of the daily supply.

My Honey has commented to me frequently that, unless a person has friends or family members serving overseas, we don’t generally feel the effects the two wars that we are currently engaged in (although some would argue, rightfully so, that we are feeling the economical effects of it in a round-about way).  Whatever we want is still available to us to eat, use, consume, etc.

During The War, though,  each family received a ration book worth 48 points (I believe) that was to last them an entire month (Click here for a newspaper article describing how many points food items were worth). As I was looking at the article and reading the war supplement, it really hit me that planning really was important and why our parents and grandparents were fanatical about making sure we ate everything on the plate.  That food came at a high price!  Wasting food could amount to being unpatriotic.

As Kathy noted, yesterday’s posting really shows how much food we’ve gotten used to eating.  This supplement really shows me that not only have we’ve gotten used to eating a lot of food…but we’ve gotten used to wasting it, too.

Thoughts?

Front Page, Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, (c) 1941

While Mrs. Allen gave us food for thought (get it?  food for thought?  I crack myself up, sometimes…okay, just humor me, at least…) about how to “Balance the Ration,” as Kathy noted in the comments, it was a tad complex in the way she wrote it.

Six year later, Better Homes and Gardens tried to make it a little more simple.  They cut the food groups down to three and listed eight short guidelines.  Tomorrow, I will share with you their “wartime update” that looks very different than this list (even though it still contains the same copyright date).

Note: The Food Classifications Chart is laid out in columns in the cookbook but I didn’t know how to do the formatting to replicate it here.  Try to visualize the three groups as column headings with subheadings below them.  Also note that many foods are repeated in several columns so we can get “two-fers” from them.

Balanced Meals

A safe rule for providing well-balanced meals is to select a wide variety of foods and to include for each person in the family in each day’s meals the following:

1. At least one pint of whole milk for each adult and one quart for each child.  part of the milk may be used for cooking.
2. One serving of meat, fish, or poultry.
3. One egg or at least 4 or 5 a week.
4. One serving of cereal as breakfast food or in pudding.
5. Two vegetables, besides potatoes—one a leafy or raw vegetable.
6. Two fruits–one rich in Vitamin C.
7. Some butter or other fat rich in Vitamin A.
8. Other foods to satisfy the appetite.

Food Classification Chart

Include in every meal food from each of these three groups

Group 1: Body-Building and Repairing

Protein–Meat, Fowl, Fish, Oysters, Milk, Gelatine, Eggs, Cheese, Dried Vegetables

Minerals-Calcium–Milk, cheese, cauliflower, oranges, oysters, navy beans, celery, eggs, fresh vegetables, lean meat

Minerals-Phosphorous–Liver, lean meat, fish, milk, oysters, navy beans, canned peas, whole-wheat cereals, oatmeal, fresh vegetables, eggs

Minerals-Iron–Liver, heart, oysters, lean beef, greens, molasses, eggs, whole-wheat cereals, oatmeal, dried fruits, nuts

Iodine–Cod liver oil and seafoods.

Group 2: Heat and Energy

Fat--Butter, bacon, cream, lard, margarine, vegetable or salad oils, nuts

Sugar–Sugars, candy, sweet fruits, honey, sirups, jam and jelly

Starch–Cereals and grain products, flour and flour products, potatoes, dried beans and peas, corn

Group 3: Body-Regulating and Protective

Water–Milk, other beverages, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits

Vitamin–See chart on page four (not included in this blog posting)

Minerals–See chart under Body-building and Repairing

Roughage–Whole-grain cereal, raw vegetables and fruits, cooked vegetables and fruits

*****

One thing that jumped out at me was how little food we need to have for a balanced diet for the day.  For instance, the recommendation is only one serving of meat, fish or poultry per day.  Some of hamburgers served in restaurants and fast food joints would satisfy a couple week’s worth of servings using the recommendations outlined above!

But seriously, the American Heart Association says that the American diet generally contains too much protein (and they are vehemently against high protein diets that restrict carbohydrates).  To help us figure out how much protein we need in a day, Medicinenet.com says:

Ideally, you should consume 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, according to recommended daily allowances (RDA) set by the Food and Nutrition Board. So if you weigh 170 pounds, you need about 61 grams of protein each day.

Protein should also make up approximately 15% of your total daily caloric intake, also according to the RDA. In a diet of 1,800 calories a day, for example, about 270 of those calories should come from protein.

So what does 0.36 grams come out to when converted to ounces?  A measly .013.  That’s it!  A person weighing 150 pounds needs only 1.95 ounces of protein per day from ALL food sources!  That’s it!

If that isn’t enough to shock you into getting out that food scale (I know that I’m sitting here totally shocked by this turn of events), those beloved Drs. Roizen and Oz in their book You on a Diet point out that protein that isn’t needed by our muscles gets turned into glucose which then gets converted to fat if you can’t use it for energy (their explanation is a little more complex but that Big Beefy Burger really CAN land on the hips!).

Another thought that comes to mind is that since the early 1970’s environmentalists have been encouraging us to eat less meat (See “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” from the New York Times for a thought provoking article).  They encourage us to have a meat-free night* but many people balk at that idea.  Perhaps we can make a difference by simply reducing our portion sizes from even a quarter pound burger to the RDA recommended serving size.

If we truly want to live like our grandmothers, we would eat less meat…which would put us squarely in the modern world, too.

What do you think?

*I want to acknowledge that people of various faiths have had a variation of this practice for a very, very long time.

Photo Courtesy of MikeZ on Flickr

The Man of The Place loved good things to eat…Trying to make him think I was a wonder of a wife I gratified this appetite, until at last, when planning the dinner for a feast day, I discovered to my horror that there was nothing extra I could cook to mark the day as being distinct and better than any other day.  Pies, the best I could make, were common, every-day affairs.  Cakes, ditto.  Puddings, preserves and jellies were ordinary things.  Fried, roasted, broiled and boiled poultry of all kinds were no treat, we had so much of it as well as other kinds of meat raised on the farm.  By canning and pickling and preserving all kinds of vegetables and fruits we had each and every kind the year around.   In fact, we were surfeited with good things to eat all of the time…  Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Join the Don’t Worry Club”, The Ruralist

As part of the ritual we’ve established, on our last morning visiting The Folks, we take them out to breakfast at the family restaurant down the street from them.  It is the place my mother-in-law has coffee with her friends almost every morning and my father-in-law frequently has lunch there with his buddies.  It is a nice, friendly place where people all seem to know each other.

When the food arrived, My Honey became a grumpy-pants.  He was dissatisfied with his hash browns.  They arrived on his plate in a preformed perfect little square.  He asked me why they looked like that and I had to tell him that they were probably pre-packaged that way and that the restaurant only needed to take them out of the bag and grill them.

Well, you would have thought I had told him that I was a Soviet spy during the Cold War.  He started grumbling about his fake hash browns and asked us how hard it would be to just run real potatoes through the food processor, and wondered what kind of chemicals had been added to the pre-formed hash browns, etc., etc., etc.

It’s not the first time he has said it but he turned to me and said that I’ve ruined him for restaurant food…when he can get my good cooking anytime, he continued, why would he want restaurant food instead?

What’s that saying?  A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?

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I remember when restaurants claimed to be “as good as Mom’s cooking!”  When do you think the switch to “restaurant quality” advertising happened?

This is the time of year when people make a resolution to lose weight or at least eat right and exercise.  I thought it would be interesting to spend a few days sharing with you some of the guidelines our grandmothers were encouraged to follow to ensure proper nutrition for their families.

Ida Bailey Allen, in her cookbook Cooking, Menus, Service also published as Modern Cookbook (c. 1924, 1935) spends 43 pages explaining the proper foods to eat for a healthy diet (this was before “diet” meant “menu to lose weight).  Mrs. Allen is one of those influential women that we never know about.  She was a radio cooking show pioneer, wrote more than 50 cookbooks and, according to her obituary in the July 30, 1973, edition of Time Magazine, believed that “good home cooking was an antidote to the rising divorce rate.”  (I also want to note that this is the cookbook that got me started on collecting vintage cookbooks.)