why were people so skinny in the 70s?
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Tacklewasher wrote: »misskitty2018 wrote: »they rode bikes,skateboards, danced and walked to the park to play. they ate basic meals without them adding 100 ingredients AND we were broke/poor so couldn't spend much money on groceries. Now days...it seems as though we have to have a recipe a mile long and with bread on the side. dessert every night. the list is endless.
Yup!! I often talk about this change too, whenever I can get someone to listen.
Why does food always have to be a "recipe" now??
What an odd odd string of conversation this is. I have three of my grandmothers cookbooks. She had all sorts of recipes handwritten as well as the actual cookbooks... She wrote them on the pages at the front and back of the book plus stuck them on tablet paper in between the other pages. Recipes for things like soups, goulash, bread, pies, cakes, meatloaf, meatballs... Not sure where this idea that recipes are some kind of new fangled thing came from. These cookbooks were from the 20s and 30s.
My Grandma used a lot of cards. Funny going through them to see the changes she made and her notes. Christmas pudding needed "multiply * 4 for *(^((&&(*& boys" for the caramel sauce. (Was our name, not swearing).
My wife does the same thing. Except her gluten/lactose free recipes have notes whether or not I will eat them.
I have all the recipe books from my grandmothers going back 2-3 generations beyond them. The oldest one I have is dated 1849. It belonged to a great-great-great-grandmother of mine. As per the note on the front page, she received it on her wedding day together with a very nice wardrobe (which is standing in my parents' entry hall). The handwritten notes in those are priceless.
Some of the recipes in there can hold up with the 'ingredient list a mile long'...
@Tacklewasher I think I rather like how your wife thinks
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ladyreva78 wrote: »@Tacklewasher I think I rather like how your wife thinks
As you know, she has a lot of things she can't eat. It's not so much that I'm picky (okay, I am) but it's nice for her to know which meals she can cook for both of us and when she tells me I'm on my own more than anything.
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WinoGelato wrote: »spinnerdell wrote: »I lived in a small lumber-mill town in Oregon in the late 70's and remember the restaurant portions being huge. Not that I minded- I could plow through gigantic meals and stay thin, thanks to my job at the mill.
Well, there you go. I mentioned my 4-H leader and her farm in an earlier reply. As it happens, she and her sons were all HUGE. They were literally the fattest people I knew. I remember going into the bathroom off her kitchen and wondering how her sons even used the thing -- the toilet seat looked so small next to their butts.
I have come to strongly suspect that the problem was she had learned to cook, and how to feed farm workers, from her own mother, who would have been feeding pre-mechanization (or, at least, early mechanization) farm workers who burned a hell of a lot more calories per day than you do on a modern dairy farm. Not that farming of any kind isn't hard work -- it is -- but simply milking a herd of cows by hand is much more laborious than the automated milking machines they used. Not to mention all the other farming tasks eased by mechanization.
On HFCS, I'm convinced that it's a heavy contributor to the obesity epidemic, not because it's a particularly poisonous sugar, but because it's in EVERYTHING, even foods you don't expect to be sweetened. Perhaps a legacy of the "low fat" trend of the 1980s, when food manufacturers turned to sweeteners to make lower-fat foods more palatable.
And yes, the absolutely massive sizes of soft drinks, while not responsible for it all by themselves, certainly don't help. Although they were rare, I remember a 6.5 oz deposit bottle of Coke being a perfectly satisfying amount to drink. A single 30+ oz cup is absolutely ridiculous.
Can you show some examples of foods you feel have HFCS where it wouldn’t be expected, including the nutrition label showing the ingredients and the grams of sugar present? Most foods have images online of their nutrition labels so maybe you could show a couple you feel are problematic. I ask because everyone always claims that sugars are hidden in surprising savory foods but no one ever shows an example. On another thread today someone posted a pic of low fat Hidden Valley Ranch which has an extra 1g of sugar - hardly the hidden demon that such a statement implies suggesting it’s everywhere...
On looking, it seems some of the examples I'd reach for seem to have substituted sugar for HFCS. Or perhaps they never used them, and used sucrose That doesn't change my basic point, that there's too much sugar in many different foods, and I'm not demonizing HFCS in particular.
Oroweat Whole Wheat bread: https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=53A0A7E4-626A-BF59-4B68-9CC1DBE01CBD
Ragu Old World style sauce: https://www.ragu.com/our-sauces/old-world-style-sauces/old-world-style-traditional-spaghetti-sauce/
KFC ingredients list: https://www.kfc.ca/en/assets/pdf/IngredientListingApril2017.pdf Note that in this case they're concealing their use of HFCS in products of their own manufacture by calling it "glucose-fructose" instead, but there's also just plain sugar (or glucose) in many foods, even some you might not think of as sweet.
See and none of those things really surprise me that much. Bread often uses sugar in combination with the yeast - it's not required but it's fairly common. Tomato sauce - lots of people (including my mom) add a pinch of sugar to balance the acidity in the tomatoes. KFC - looks like some items have it, some items don't - I certainly wouldn't assume it is some conspiracy to sneak food in or keep us fat. I'm just amused looking at the KFC list because the evil sodium bicarbonate is listed on there...
But again, whether these things are surprising or not, you believe this is the cause of the obesity epidemic? The 3 g of sugar in the bread, and the 8 g of sugar in the spaghetti sauce (some of which would be natural sugars from the tomatoes themselves) and the glucose-fructose (whatever that is) in a few of the KFC menu items? What about the total calorie consumption of eating a KFC meal, that's not the problem, it's the sugar itself? I made a sample meal on the website - with 1 chicken breast, 1 drumstick, mashed potatoes and a biscuit. 2 g of sugar in that meal. 860 calories total. 46 g of fat. But yeah, it's probably the sugar that is the problem...
And again - I'm not against KFC, or fat, or sugar for that matter. I'm just not a fan of the suggestion that there is hidden culprit that food manufacturers snuck in that is causing the obesity epidemic.13 -
Packerjohn wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »That's almost a liter bottle. I can't even finish that much soda in a whole day, nevermind a single meal. A 1.5l bottle lasts 2-3 days for me.
Yeah, was never a problem for me. A liter of pop with lunch was normal up to a couple years ago. Now it's that much water.
Normal portion size is an 8oz glass at table (maybe a 12oz if you like), so why do people drink more than that when buying meals out??
Other than my wife's grandmother who had 60 year old glasses, I don't see an 8oz drinking glass at the table of anyone I know (unit of 1 observation).
Is that so? 200 ml glasses (less than 8 oz) are pretty much the norm here.5 -
I know this is a couple of decades off (1950's) but this is one thing
other than that people use to get a lot more physical activity... today physical activity = checking facebook and seeing what new and wondrous things you can be offended with and whine about
Let's not forget, back then people went to restaurants on special occasions and most cooking were home meal cooking. Nowadays, it's common to see people at restaurants/fast food chains almost every day.6 -
People I knew in the 70's went to restaurants quite often. During my brief stint as a waitress, I had a number of daily customers chowing down on our mountains of delicious food. My husband and I went out to eat at least once a week, as did most of our friends. I really don't remember the 70's being a golden age of home-cooked healthy eating.4
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I know this is a couple of decades off (1950's) but this is one thing
other than that people use to get a lot more physical activity... today physical activity = checking facebook and seeing what new and wondrous things you can be offended with and whine about
Let's not forget, back then people went to restaurants on special occasions and most cooking were home meal cooking. Nowadays, it's common to see people at restaurants/fast food chains almost every day.
Again, another statement that makes me wonder a) if you were alive in the '70s, and/or b) if the experience was really that different in different places.
We went out to eat quite often - at least as often as we do nowadays. Definitely at least once a week, sometimes more, and 100% definitely not just for special occasions. Sometimes it was a chain restaurant, sometimes a mom-and-pop place, sometimes fast food.
Mom wasn't June Cleaver of the '50s, chained to the stove in her gingham dress cooking a stereotypical "home cooked dinner" every single night. Sometimes her "home cooked dinners" were TV dinners, packaged pot pies, big pans of cheese enchiladas, huge pots of chili served with cheese, sour cream and saltine crackers, etc.
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we were young and active. Now we're old and sedentary. Just think back when you had to get up to change TV channels!
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DISCO .. KEPT everyone thin lol3
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spinnerdell wrote: »People I knew in the 70's went to restaurants quite often. During my brief stint as a waitress, I had a number of daily customers chowing down on our mountains of delicious food. My husband and I went out to eat at least once a week, as did most of our friends. I really don't remember the 70's being a golden age of home-cooked healthy eating.
My parents were teens during the 70s and my dad's mom was a fabulous cook. She was a stay at home mom too. He was very skinny during the 70s. There's a picture of him and my mom on our refrigerator. My mom was very thin too. I don't think they could afford to eat out much. She really likes to eat in restaurants now. My mom always says that she just didn't really care about food when she was younger.1 -
I know this is a couple of decades off (1950's) but this is one thing
other than that people use to get a lot more physical activity... today physical activity = checking facebook and seeing what new and wondrous things you can be offended with and whine about
Let's not forget, back then people went to restaurants on special occasions and most cooking were home meal cooking. Nowadays, it's common to see people at restaurants/fast food chains almost every day.
Again, another statement that makes me wonder a) if you were alive in the '70s, and/or b) if the experience was really that different in different places.
We went out to eat quite often - at least as often as we do nowadays. Definitely at least once a week, sometimes more, and 100% definitely not just for special occasions. Sometimes it was a chain restaurant, sometimes a mom-and-pop place, sometimes fast food.
Mom wasn't June Cleaver of the '50s, chained to the stove in her gingham dress cooking a stereotypical "home cooked dinner" every single night. Sometimes her "home cooked dinners" were TV dinners, packaged pot pies, big pans of cheese enchiladas, huge pots of chili served with cheese, sour cream and saltine crackers, etc.
I was alive in the 70's and in my perception there was less eating away from home then there is now. On a total U.S. basis, this chart tends to confirm my perception:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/
You can tell from the chart, the % of food $ spent outside the home was less in 70's that it is today. You could even make the argument the number of meals/calories consumed outside the home increased a greater % than the expenditures due to the growth of fast food since the 1970's vs "regular" restaurants where the cost per calorie would typically be lower.4 -
I for one ate out at least as much in the 1970s as I do now. I certainly ate a lot more fast food than I do now, but there were also diners (this was NJ), pizza, etc.0
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Well, I was alive in the 40s, and my farm family (5 kids) almost never ate anywhere but home and school lunch. My wife and I started hanging together in '57, and we had our first real restaurant dinner in1959 at a Holiday Inn in Boise, Idaho, and it was a cultural experience! By the 70s we were in Cambridge, Mass, and we loved to eat at the best restaurants in Boston, about 3 or 4 times a year. I'm talking Loch Ober, or better. We also had a great family owned pizzeria on our block, and usually had pizza once a week. The rest of the time we ate at home, or at a university lunchroom.
It is not hugely different now, pizza night on Friday, eat lunch at a diner or local restaurant 2-4 times a week, the rest of the time at home. We do not butcher our own meat anymore, but most of our habits and preferences were well formed by our mid 20s, and I suspect that applies to many people.
I have eaten at a McDonald's only a few dozen times in my life, usually on long road trips!2 -
I was born in 1960 so was 10 in 1970. Kids were outside from the time they got home from school until they were forced to come inside by their parents. We didn't have computers, cell phones and video games didn't come out until the end of the 1970's (pong and packman). TV's had 3 or 4 channels until around1970 when we got two new channels 19 and 43, we thought we were it when we got those channels. And there was only one television so it wasn't like you were able to sit around watching what you wanted, your parents had control when they wanted to watch it. If I wanted to go somewhere I walked or rode my bike and I always wanted to go somewhere, Everyone who needed money had to work and we all needed or wanted money. We all worked most of us starting around 12 years old including baby sitting, shoveling snow, cutting grass. Portions were smaller, and if you were lucky enough to go to mcdonald's your meal was a small hamburger, small fry and small pop, ( that was the regular size meal in the 60's and early 70's). I don't know when the quarter pounder or Big Mac came out but supersize wasn't in our vocabulary until after 1990. My son was born in 1980 and i have to say their generation grew up much like my generaton, still no computer until he was 14 and we couldn't afford the minutes so for the most part those kids were still playing outside all day.2
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The amount of TV you had available depended a lot on where you lived. We lived smack between two major metropolitan markets, and so had only one unoccupied VHF channel plus a small selection of UHF stations. It wasn't actually more choice in the evenings when network programming was showing because there were two sets of the same network feeds -- and one set we didn't receive as clearly -- but local programming was more diverse.CharlieAnn31 wrote: »We didn't have computers, cell phones and video games didn't come out until the end of the 1970's (pong and packman).
Most people didn't have them, but the first home game console for a Pong-like game was the Magnavox Odyssey, which came out in 1972. My family had an Odyssey 500, which came out in 1976. My parents got it for free by sitting through a pitch for a timeshare, and then gave it to us for Christmas.
Quarter Pounders and Big Macs were available throughout the 70s. Remember the McDonaldland commercials? "Big Mac" was the police officer. But your recollection is correct that "supersize" was a later idea.3 -
all the high-waisted pants and loose shirts kept people from having muffin tops. They ate bigger breakfasts, more red meat, and actually, people ate more calories overall but moved more. People went out and had fun more, they kept their houses cleaner, sports were more valued and active manual jobs were more popular, plus overall people had more money to spend on healthy food. Kids didn't text all day, they went out and saw each other. More cigarettes, more uppers. Parents were stricter about kids not eating junk. Processed food just wasn't eaten as much. Low fat everything wasn't a thing, so food kept you full longer and wasn't loaded with sugar. People didn't drink sugary Starbucks. It wasn't okay to be fat as much as it is today.0
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squatsnotsquat wrote: »all the high-waisted pants and loose shirts kept people from having muffin tops. They ate bigger breakfasts, more red meat, and actually, people ate more calories overall but moved more. People went out and had fun more, they kept their houses cleaner, sports were more valued and active manual jobs were more popular, plus overall people had more money to spend on healthy food. Kids didn't text all day, they went out and saw each other. More cigarettes, more uppers. Parents were stricter about kids not eating junk. Processed food just wasn't eaten as much. Low fat everything wasn't a thing, so food kept you full longer and wasn't loaded with sugar. People didn't drink sugary Starbucks. It wasn't okay to be fat as much as it is today.
No, average calorie consumption has increased since the 1970;s:
http://geeksta.net/visualizations/calories-us/
I would agree people moved more.3 -
Looking back at my own childhood, we ate three meals a day and maybe popcorn for a snack in the evening. We didn't snack between meals at all. I agree with the others - processed foods, sugar, snacking, overeating, fast food all contribute to overweight. I remember when I got my first job and had money and it was so easy to buy junk food that I did. I stayed skinny until college, then started to pack it on - and I think that's when I became sedentary and look to food for comfort.1
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Everybody chain smoked. Just because they were skinny doesn't mean they were healthy.6
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georgiamaas wrote: »Everybody chain smoked. Just because they were skinny doesn't mean they were healthy.
Um, everybody who? It was certainly more socially acceptable to smoke in public, but claiming that "everyone" smoked is gross misinformation. The percentage of adult smokers in the US declined from about 37% to about 34% between 1970 and 1978, I don't buy that smoking in general had much impact one way or the other on weight.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/
As a side note - sadly, I know a number of overweight smokers, many of whom were overweight smokers in the 70's ( I was in my twenties during that time).
edited for clarity4
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