Fats 50boiledcabbages

As you may have surmised I've been doing some reminiscing, and looking back at what changed in our diets and when.

Processed foods started back in the 19th century but were originally made out of Real Food. I suspect this changed around the sixties, and from then on the change accelerated.

Both my gran and my mother used to bake cakes and buns etc. which were high carb, and in retrospect affected me badly, but not so many other people.

I suspect this was because they used healthy saturated and similar natural fats to cook with - butter, lard, suet and beef dripping.

Mother had a tiny bottle of olive oil which she would sprinkle on salads. Other than that we had no "vegetable oils" until probably the sixties or seventies.

I can recall "vegetable shortening" and Trex, which were probably trans fats, and if I dug through some boxes in the garage I'd probably find the promotional (free) cookbooks that came with them.

Margarine probably came in during the War, they used it occasionally, not out of preference.

I think it was about the seventies when "vegetable oil" and branded and widely advertised margarines entered the scene, along with the first phase of "low fat" dietary disaster.

There's some pretty good history from

Gary Taubes

and again

and Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

from an American perspective, we probably lagged the US by a bit but not by much.

Purely temporally this looks to have a major correlation to the "eepidemics" of obesity, diabetes and a whole bunch of other diseases which were previously uncommon or found mainly in the elderly and which progressed rapidly into the rest of the population.

We evolved on a diet with an Omega 6 - Omega 3 balance somewhere between 1:2 and 4:1, currently it's something like 10:1 to 20:1 in favour of Omega 6s, a pretty huge shift along with the gross reduction in saturated fats, and actually things like lard which contain significant percentages of monounsaturated fats too.

Originally these "heart healthy" fats were also loaded with trans fats, but even without them they don't appear to be doing us much good.

It may not originally have been the carbs that led to a damaged metabolism, but once the damage has occurred dropping the carbs is the best way to deal with it. Of course returning to a more anatomically correct balance of healthy saturated and monounsaturated fats and more Omega 3s can't exactly hurt either.

"I suspect this was because they used healthy saturated and similar natural fats to cook with - butter, lard, suet and beef dripping."

I can remember my Grandma having this in her kitchen ... she was 99yr when she died.

Also memories of my dear mums glass butter dish, although I think before glass it was a china one!

Foods over the decades have changed  ... but then so have other things and not always for the better.

All the best Jan

Jan1 wrote:"I suspect this was because they used healthy saturated and similar natural fats to cook with - butter, lard, suet and beef dripping."

I can remember my Grandma having this in her kitchen ... she was 99yr when she died.

Hehe yes, we had an earthenware pot in the fridge where the beef dripping was scraped, the good stuff floated to the top and congealed and eventually the crud underneath built up to the extent it was chucked out and the process was restarted.

I couldn't understand how my father, whose heart was damaged (hyperthyroid) and was "too ill" to join the army to be killed in WW2, lived to over 80 despite eating butter, lard and dripping.

Now I know it was *because* he ate butter, lard and dripping and avoided the "modern crap".

"Also memories of my dear mums glass butter dish, although I think before glass it was a china one!"

Bless! I still have mine too.

"Foods over the decades have changed  ... but then so have other things and not always for the better."

Oh yeah, I've been ploughing back through my own memories, and re-reading my parents' diaries and letters going way back, and putting things into perspective.

I had a bunch of letters from my grandpa writing to my grandma from the trenches in World War 1. He came home with "shell shock" which would now be PTSD, and had also been physically ill, yet he looked forward to "better times ahead".

My folks were born around the War To End Wars, then bugger me if 20 years later they didn't have another one!

They came out of that idealistic to the point of naivety. My father and one of his brothers worked for the NHS from its inception until they retired, but in their day the doctors and surgeons ran things and "admin" supported them. I suspect I won't live to see the NHS totally trashed but I have no doubt some of you will.

Since then I believe there has only been one year when no British servicemen died in conflict. So much for peace and love.

I would like to see a comparison between how many people died prematurely and were horribly injured in both wars together, compared to how many have died prematurely and suffered the horrific consequences of low fat diets since. I suspect dietary policy will beat the Holocaust hands down, and it's still happening . . .