Today, unless your head is in the sand, you hear that a lot of our dietary habits are bad for us. We eat too much salt, sugar, fat, red meat, processed meat—the list goes on, and it seems like it's added to every day.
When I was a kid you never heard of anyone worrying about what they ate. We ate lots of sugar and fat and salt. All the cake we wanted, and ice cream, and cookies. Ah, the good old days! My mother, who cooked with chicken fat (I hear you going, "Yuck!" but that was normal Jewish cooking, which would not use lard), was concerned that I did not eat enough fat, as a kid, and, to seduce me into taking in more butter, she added it to tomato soup!
You have to wonder what's changed, and, logically, you'd think the answer would be "nothing."
However, that might not be correct. That farm hand or cowboy of 100 years ago who ate steak and eggs and ham for breakfast didn't develop clogged arteries and coronary disease because his work was heavily physical. Today we are all couch potatoes who don't even get up off the couch to change the channel on our TV.
And, although you hear more about heart disease and cancer, and the incidence of diabetes is going through the roof, some rates of cancer have actually gone down. But I would not disregard or downplay all the advice to be concerned about what we are eating and drinking.
As I say above, one thing which has changed is lifestyle. We are too sedentary. Also, food vendors (think fast-food chains) and food manufacturers are providing us with unhealthy food. And we are eating in those fast-food places more, and eating more processed food. How much of our food is made from scratch? I for one, can cook and do, at least sometimes; but if you look at my garbage (or what I recycle, to be more correct), it seems as though an awful lot of my food comes in boxes. Not good. Too much sodium, too much artificial ingredients. Have you heard of the dietary advice to never eat anything that has more than five ingredients? There's probably nothing that comes in a box that's got only five ingredients.
All of what I say above is well-established science; but I'm going to plunge ahead into some ideas that are more speculative. Our dietary intake these days has lots of toxins (poisons), in the form of pesticides and chemical additives in our food. It's been at least tentatively suggested by scientific studies that some of these substances, like bis-phenyl A (BPA), found in food cans, for example, are harmful.
The verdict is still out, largely, on what harm some of the man-made chemicals in our food are doing to us. It may be that they make our bodies less able to handle the more natural—and now thought to be "bad"—food ingredients like fat, sugar, and salt. Not to mention causing diseases like cancer, autoimmune diseases, and so on by themselves.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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When I was a kid we ate three square meals a day and if I recall the thing to follow back then was the food pyramid of essential requirements in diet to things to avoid. Also it seems food was divided into four food groups: milk and cheeses; grains and pastas; fruits and veggies; and meats, fish and seafood if I remember right. Some of these items were more important to a high protein and fiber diet and needed to be consumed more than once a day. Everyone had a daily schedule to follow and the tv wasn't on all that much back then. I try and watch what I buy and consume now but it's difficult to plan for nutricious meals where you get what you need and avoid what you don't while you live alone (no longer enjoying the luxury of having someone plan family meals daily) and factoring in the cost of food today compared to that of years ago. I probably should call my davenport a fainting sofa since as opposed to being a couch potato I practically collapse on whatever you call it when I get home. What's more is that there are still plenty of us who do nothing but physical work every day. Additives, pesticides, and other chemicals are something to watch because of their harmful potential but I'm not sure how concerned we should be if we have moderate to low consumption. Things used to be fresh from the farm so now I try and purchase as much organic as possible in hopes I'm getting as near farm fresh as possible. With all the modern technology and variety of goods to buy I'm not sure we have it much if any better today than it was in yesteryear. I miss some of the good ole days really and am almost to the point of going back to just getting what I want and not giving two hoots about it as I was raised to do.
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