A Brief History Of Breakfasts

Another in my series of posts looking back at how things have changed over my lifetime, based on the realisation that as my generation falls off the twig (often prematurely) soon there won't be anyone left who remembers a time when Low Fat was NOT the default diet.

Breakfast cereal was the major "processed" food in my life going back to early childhood - typically a bowl of cornflakes, rice krispies, shreddies or shredded wheat with sugar and milk - at least the milk was full fat.

In winter we would have porridge - remember Scott's Porage Oats? - which I preferred with salt.

We still ate bacon and eggs etc. but not as routine. Probably mainly at weekends and on cold days. I can remember being fed eggs with dippy soldiers, but I never liked them - I'm not sure which is worse, the slimy texture or the sulphurous flavour, but that's just me - I prefer to wait until they have grown up into chickens - and in those days chicken was a special treat, not an everday meat like it is now.

I recall mother trying to get eggs back into my diet. I would eat them in cakes, and in pancakes without objecting, so she started making pancakes with more and more egg and less flour, then "accidentally" calling them "omelettes" or "eggs" - but when the egg actually reached a concentration where I could taste it I drew the line.

Many people would eat a "Full English". I would happily eat bacon and fried bread (fried of course in dripping or lard or as a special treat butter). Later in my trucking days I became quite a connoisseur of bacon butties.

It would be interesting to go back and look at exactly how the ingredient list of the cereal  changed over the years.

Later of course muesli took over from the simpler cereals, and was used as an excuse to cram in more sugar.

As a special holiday treat they woud buy me one of those packs of small boxes of different cereals which I would eat as an evening snack. Sugar coated Frosties, Coco Pops, little wonder I had BG problems!

Kelloggs

John Harvey Kellogg would have been disappointed though, they never made me stop masturbating . . .

Interesting that, I also wonder if the cereals of old were "cleaner" or we just ate less of them ? I remember having a bowl of Sugar Puffs in a bowl ( no milk ) for many an evening snack.

... my earliest memories of breakfast cereals in the 50's was watching my Grandma eat her shredded wheat, the pack would nearly always sit on her kitchen table. I think shredded wheat back then may be slightly different to what is available now?

Now in her larder there was always a bowl of dripping -
She lived to 99yr

My dear mum also used to keep a bowl of dripping in our larder too - yum!

Many youngsters first memories these days may be of spreadable margarine

All the best Jan

Yes according to current theories all these people couldn't possibly live to the ages they achieved.

Let alone avoiding obesity, diabetes and CVD as they routinely did.

Either the theories are wrong, or reality is wrong. What's your guess? <G>

... well talking of breakfasts!
Our day started with egg, bacon and mushrooms.

As you may have read before, there were years when we had the toast, fruit juice, croissants - with the spreadable margarine that 'tastes like butter'
We were told it was healthy!!!

The full English was a treat at weekends ... it wasn't until Eddie's Type 2 diabetes was diagnosed and the research / reading into diet / lifestyle that the truth dawned.

LCHF  and the return of the Full English every day

You can't beat eggs scrambled, fried, boiled, poached, frittata ... and if you don't like eggs (or maybe allergic) then there are some great meats, cheeses, mushrooms etc a kind of 'smorgasbord' (without the highly processed bread) to enjoy.

All the best Jan

mo1905 wrote:Interesting that, I also wonder if the cereals of old were "cleaner" or we just ate less of them ? I remember having a bowl of Sugar Puffs in a bowl ( no milk ) for many an evening snack.

I suspect they had less sugar and fewer non-food ingredients than the current versions.

I also suspect some of the changes are more subtle - most corn is now GM, even if it isn't grown in Europe it gets imported. To a degree though, GM is a red herring - most of the changes especially to wheat were done with "normal" plant-breeding techniques. When I was young wheat was a tall thing with relatively small heads, proportions more like current rye than current wheat which is short strawed with a huge head. Not only that but it has been developed to be pest-resistant, ie. more toxins - no-one told it humans are NOT pests.

This is something cardiologist William Davis has gone into in Wheat Belly.

Also milk is now predominantly from Holsteins, an American development from Friesians, the original black and white cows. Both produce milk with A1 protein as opposed to A2 milk from most other cow breeds including the Jerseys that were previously common. Some people who appear to have "lactose intolerance" turn out to be intolerant only to A1 milk, not to A2 milk or goat or sheep milk.

I also have my suspicions that the huge imbalance between healthy saturated and monounsaturated and Omega 3 fats and the massive increase in Omega 6s especially in "low fat" diets has an effect on carb tolerance - O6 is proinflammatory, O3 antiinflammatory, the former interferes with leptin, and that's not even taking into account the trans fats in all those "heart healthy" margarines.

This all comes from looking at what changed in the diets of those "ignorant savages" who yet failed to succumb to the Diseases if Civilisation until they started eating the Diet of Civilisation - then they often got it worse than us westerners who have been eating crap so long we have started to genetically adapt to it.

Jan1 wrote:
As you may have read before, there were years when we had the toast, fruit juice, croissants - with the spreadable margarine that 'tastes like butter'
We were told it was healthy!!!

Been there done that got the diagnosis . . .

"This all comes from looking at what changed in the diets of those "ignorant savages" who yet failed to succumb to the Diseases if Civilisation until they started eating the Diet of Civilisation - then they often got it worse than us westerners who have been eating crap so long we have started to genetically adapt to it."

Read 'Nutrition and Physical Degeneration' Weston A. Price which can be found here and read free of charge.

Here  http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html

When he travelled amongst tribes of people untouched by civilisation he found no cases of Cancer, Heart Disease, Type two Diabetes or Mental illness. Once the white man showed up with his diet and diseases the peoples health went downhill rapidly.

Yes he was one of a number of people so far ahead of their time that they were ignored. His work has since been effectively duplicated by the likes of Loren Cordain, the Eatons, Staffan Lindeberg et al. but of course time has now pretty much run out for studying diets untouched by Coke and McDonalds.

Millions of people around the world earn a living from spouting complete and utter rubbish. They do not want to see the truth, they are lackeys for large multinational conglomerations. These people kill people for money, they are assassins and hide behind bent and corrupt science, bought and paid for by big pharma and junk food outfits. Money and greed of course is the common denominator, how they sleep is beyond me.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

They use sleeping pills of course.