Comments on: Balanced Meals–1941

By: BCTreasureTrove

BCTreasureTrove — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:53:34 +0000

Love this! I sell vintage and antique clothing and deal with size issues on a daily basis. A vintage size 14 is closer to today’s size 8. Many of us find it difficult to find a vintage frock we can wear and not a day goes by when someone says to me, “Can you believe how small they were?”

I remind them that people, prior to the 1960s, had never even seen a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, fries, and a shake much less a king size version! I can remember, back in the 60s, my mother stopping at White Castle very occasionally and having ONE burger and a small Coke. For supper. (Back then, I wouldn’t eat White Castle. LOL) Today, we would think we were being abused if that was all we were given to eat.

Kathy makes a good point – eating IS part of our culture as entertainment. My husband and I love to try new restaurants and I’ve jokingly said that eating is our hobby. To counteract that, I’ve found that portion control is the best way for me to at least control my weight and my health.

By: Modern Retro Woman » Blog Archive » Wartime Meal-Planning-1943, Part I

Modern Retro Woman » Blog Archive » Wartime Meal-Planning-1943, Part I — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:21:02 +0000

[...] Modern Retro Woman How to Live Like Your Grandmother in a Modern World « Balanced Meals–1941 [...]

By: Kathy Warnock

Kathy Warnock — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:25:29 +0000

We know that the daily recommendations for food intake change. For instance, I was raised to believe you couldn’t go wrong if you ate an egg a day. Look what happened to that! “The pendulum swings,” my mother used to say. “What’s good for us this twenty-year period will be bad for us the next.”

I think that this comparison really shows that we’ve come to expect to eat too much, but is that because of the dietary recommendations or because we have developed too much processed food, fast food, and treats in our culture? Look at all the websites — Kraft, Campbell’s, Betty Crocker, to name but a few — constantly developing recipes for us to try. Eating is a major focus for us, a part of our entertainment. As a culture we expect to enjoy eating and think little of nutrition. We’ve come to expect to eat way too much, in part because there’s so much out there.

In the mid-1970s a friend lamented to me that you just couldn’t find a decent-sized chicken any more, commenting that they were large and fat.

By: Dr. Julie-Ann

Dr. Julie-Ann — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:34:32 +0000

I will confess that I had been brainwashed into believing I had to have animal-based protein at every meal. I think my brainwashing arose out of the health issue I was grappling with for so many years. But this information about how little protein we really need has really blown me away.

I also think it is interesting that it is getting harder and harder to find animal protein in the amount called for in recipes. Chickens used to be a lot smaller 50+ years ago. When was the last time anyone saw a 1-2 pound chicken in the meat department? That’s one half of a chicken breast nowadays!

By: Bendychick

Bendychick — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:57:32 +0000

Bravo! Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that we need to have meat at every meal and it’s just not true. For most people, between 35 and 50 grams of protein are all you need in a day; the average American gest 2 to 3 times that amount! Is going meatless one meal a week really that frightening? Try it, it’s not as hard as you think and your liver will thank you! The NY Times article should be a must read for every meat eater; it articulated perfectly all the reasons I became vegan. Thanks for sharing Julie-Ann!

By: Richard @ The Bewildered Brit

Richard @ The Bewildered Brit — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:00:50 +0000

This is really fascinating. I can’t wait till your post tomorrow!

By: Dr. Julie-Ann

Dr. Julie-Ann — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:20:22 +0000

Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind a time or two…should we collaborate?

I agree about the snacking thing. Now we are told we have to eat every so many hours in order to stabilize our blood sugar and the whole 6-meals a day thing (I think people have started eating six FULL-sized meals….) is like gospel.

And, yet…you watch the old movies or read the old books and they talk about Three Squares a Day (with perhaps a snack after school).

Those of us in the Western Cultures are not going to die of starvation any time soon yet we seem to all be terrified of hunger. I wonder when that started.

By: Lidian

Lidian — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:14:07 +0000

I think that one could probably market a diet called “Our Grandmothers’ Diet” based on these cookbooks, because they make a lot of sense. I was just thinking about this the other day, looking at my own older cookbooks – another thing that struck me was that people did not eat snacks the way we do, and that helped too (as well as walking more).