from CNN's front page: "Vintage Health Advice ~ 1915"

[Alex]

A diet should not be calorie based as far as I am concerned, because if you eat mostly fruits, vegetables, and soaked nuts and seeds (preferably raw), you wouldn't need to worry about calories in terms of gaining/losing weight. Just make sure you eat enough to get nourished. Gary Taubes probably does raise good points in that Good Calories, Bad Calories book though.

 

[HepKitty]

I eat bacon every morning, have for years, and my doc says I'm textbook healthy. Maybe they were onto something.

For some that's perfectly acceptable. For others not. Just depends on the person

 

[HepKitty]

Think about it. What do pigs eat? Anything. They also have no sweat glands, so there's really no good way for one to release a lot of the toxins. You basically ingest toxins that they have in their body from the junk they eat. Also says in the Bible that they are unclean and detestable for man, just using it only as an example.

The texts of old discouraging pork was because they knew that it could cause serious health problems, and with the lack of technology they dealt with it the best way they knew how: telling people that God says no. We know now that they meant the problem is trichinosis from improper cooking methods. It's a parasite (trichina worm) that is killed at 160F and above, since it has a tough shell around it. Sounds delish huh? Sorry if I offend

 

[Yeps]

with three scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast, and coffee, please.

Yeah... I will take the coffee, and the toast. Well, can we replace that toast with some biscotti?

 

[Harp]

Biscotti :eeek: doesn't play around a home bacon n' egger plate.
But for Starbucks-and every other cafe outfit-that hawk it with java, ok.

 

[sheeplady]

I do think that we need to temper the older diets a bit. Back then people physically worked a lot more than a normal person does today. Most jobs were physical (many lived on farms or had animals and in the mills there was little automation). Housework required muscle and sweat (anyone who has run a hand-cranked ringer-washer or pushed a sad iron knows this). You do burn off calories and cholesterol if you work hard enough, but most of us are stuck behind desks most of the day. Running for an hour isn't like haying or moving items around a mill for 8 to 12 hours a day.

My father is a severe Type-I diabetic- he requires 5 shots of insulin a day to control his blood sugar if he only gets an hour or two of exercise in a day. If he works outside more than 2 hours- typically around 5 hours minimum but preferably at least 8 hours (loading hay, chopping wood, walking, lifting, etc.) he can get away with one shot of insulin in the morning, and miss the other 4 shots and his blood sugars will be at the same levels, if not better. (My parents eat the same stuff everyday pretty much- they raise most of their own food, eat low sugar and few carbs). You can't tell me that isn't proof that a physical life style doesn't do something for your health.

We have a lot more medical tests now and better knowledge of family history and what illnesses people had and died from than they did 100 years ago. That means we can do a lot more tailoring of our diets to our needs. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have the education system in place to allow people to do this.

 

[Alex]

All I can say is Raw Vegan Diet. Honestly works wonders for one's health, but out of the social and economic norm, so it's not easy to go by.

 

[martinsantos]

Agree with a lot of things with sheeplady about our diets. Physical works of course are good to us, specially when we stay a lot of time before a desk.

And there are some other things. The modern diet is much more rich in sugar than in past years. How many do you know that everyday consume soft drinks cabonated? And in large amounts? This is a very recent thing - in past, fruit's juice was the usual.

(personally I don't trust much in dietetic products... Used just in coffee, because I drink around 20 cups per day. but now stay with pure coffee).

 

[Mr_D.]

I find it funny how they're advertising bacon as a healthy food.

Nothing wrong with eating Bacon. In moderation. That's the problem with most people toady. They think they have to eat 3 plates of food to get full at each meal, or they have to have 4 hamburger patties and 3 slices of cheese with 6 strips of bacon and a gallon of mayo a super large order of fries and a jumbo gallon of soda. And that's just a "snack" before lunch. People have also got into the habit of giving their kids food to keep them quiet or as a reward. Now we have 5 year old that are 200 pounds.

Also notice people eat when they are bored. They are not really hungry, they just have nothing else to do. Sitting around with friends or family and someone says "lets go get a bite". They are not hungry, they just want to go out.

I think more people need to take their eating ques from vintage cook books. Only prepare enough food for you to eat during that sitting. You don't need to go back for 2nd's or 3rd's, you don't need to pile your plate with enough food to feed the city. All in moderation.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Agree with a lot of things with sheeplady about our diets. Physical works of course are good to us, specially when we stay a lot of time before a desk.

And there are some other things. The modern diet is much more rich in sugar than in past years. How many do you know that everyday consume soft drinks cabonated? And in large amounts? This is a very recent thing - in past, fruit's juice was the usual.

(personally I don't trust much in dietetic products... Used just in coffee, because I drink around 20 cups per day. but now stay with pure coffee).

Good point about physical labor. In the past week I've shoveled my driveway four times, carried half a ton of raw popcorn down a flight of stairs, done two loads of washing on a wringer machine (that I fill and drain with a pail) and walked a mile to and from work and back in a blizzard. I think for a week like that I should be able to eat a whole side of bacon if I want one.

I don't especially like sugar. I never put it in my tea and i rarely cook with it. I've had the same bag of sugar in my kitchen since 2007, and it's only half gone. The only extra sugar I get is from the occasional Coke -- never more than 12 ounces at a time, because who needs any more than that?

 

[Mr_D.]

All I can say is Raw Vegan Diet. Honestly works wonders for one's health, but out of the social and economic norm, so it's not easy to go by.

The human body requires meat. Not pill supplements or any other substitute. Animals were put on this earth to provide us (and other animals) with food.

 

[Alex]

The human body requires meat. Not pill supplements or any other substitute. Animals were put on this earth to provide us (and other animals) with food.

The human body does not require meat actually. The human body's intestinal tract is designed for quick release foods, ones that are high in fiber and such. We aren't like carnivors, who's intestines are short and designed to eat meat.

 

[sheeplady]

All I can say is Raw Vegan Diet. Honestly works wonders for one's health, but out of the social and economic norm, so it's not easy to go by.

I think (in the US in my area at least) there needs to be more education about nutrition. There are a number of "alternative diets" (for lack of a better word) can be done well and you can be healthy on, but you need to know what you are doing. I'm not sure if people on the normal US diet know what they are doing either, so I think it would be helpful to everyone.

I run a primarily white sugar-free and a cow's milk-free household, mainly because of my allergies. We use goat milk and fruit juice and other sweetners. The only things that have cane sugar in them in our house is my husband's ketchup (a brand that doesn't have high-fructose syrup in it) and some drink mixers. I do eat sugar outside of the house, but that is pretty rare and I try to stick to small restaurants. We don't use white or wheat flour. I won't live on a low-fat diet, and quite frankly, with my test results, I do not need to.

 

[Pompidou]

The way I see it, the best diet is the one you'd eat if you were a cave dweller. There are certain things we need to survive, and we evolved around them. For example, the foods many people like the least are the ones that were most abundant - fruits and vegetables. They were the mainstay of the early human's diet. Meat was a bit rarer because it was harder to get. All those sweets and fatty treats we crave would've been a rare treat indeed back then, and even they have their place in our diets. On a certain level, our bodies strive for a balanced diet. The problem is, it was balanced around what was attainable as hunter/gatherers. It didn't adjust with technology. Now, all categories of food are equally available. Thus, I believe Jack Lalaine said it best when he said, "If it tastes good, spit it out." While an overstatement, most people would do well to balance their diet inversely to their cravings - lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts; dig in to that roast like you had to hunt it but recognize that you wouldn't necessarily be eating meat daily, etc. We crave things that were rare when we evolved cravings.

 

[Yeps]

Biscotti :eeek: doesn't play around a home bacon n' egger plate.
But for Starbucks-and every other cafe outfit-that hawk it with java, ok.

yeah... unless it is late on a weekend morning, closer to lunchtime, I can't stand a heavy breakfast. Just coffee and cookies. Forget the bacon and eggs, I will eat them as a snack later.

 

[James71]

Think about it. What do pigs eat? Anything. They also have no sweat glands, so there's really no good way for one to release a lot of the toxins. You basically ingest toxins that they have in their body from the junk they eat. Also says in the Bible that they are unclean and detestable for man, just using it only as an example.

Lol.....


I get the distinct impression you and I would not get along my friend.....


You seriously believe that pigs fester their whole lives in toxins because they dont have sweat glands?

What do pigs eat? Pretty much the closest diet to what humans eat of any of the animals we call food.

I dont take diet advice from the bible....if I believed what is written in Deuteronomy 14 I would be stuck with:- "These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep".

Apparently bacon will kill you but phenylalanine is perfectly safe. (if you believe the studies sponsored by the cola companies)..

Everything in moderation. Nothing in excess.

 

[Yeps]

Everything in moderation. Nothing in excess.

That is what my grandmother says. She is a smart woman, not to mention fit and active in her mid 80s.

 

[James71]

The human body does not require meat actually. The human body's intestinal tract is designed for quick release foods, ones that are high in fiber and such. We aren't like carnivors, who's intestines are short and designed to eat meat.

I apologise, but with all due respect I must beg to differ again.

Designed?

We evolved as a species to eat an omnivorous diet. We did not start to develop the large brain that has given us such a competitive advantage until we not only started to eat meat, but in fact started to cook meat. Cooked meat allows the amino acids, (the building blocks that make up the complex proteins we need to build such wonderful brains) to be readily available for digestion. If we stuck with a purely grain and leaf based diet we would never have evolved this brain.

If we were "designed" to be purely vegetarian we would have a much much longer large intestine and a huge appendix to be able to digest cellulose. (which we cant). We might even share a well evolved system of fermentation based digestion like the ruminants. We would also spend most of the day grazing and laying about burping up our food for a bit more chewing to help break down that nasty cellulose. (We dont bother, we just excrete it)

What we did evolve, and that we have forgotten, is a digestive flora assemblage best suited to a particular food almost exclusively for a given period of time. To use your phrase, "think about it". As hunter gatherers, we subsisted on whatever was in season at a particular time. If the proto-wheat seed grains were out, then thats what you ate exclusively until they ran out. Then it might be fish for a few weeks. You might be lucky enough to kill a beast at which time it would be meat out the wazoo until it went off or was gone.

You dont think we wandered about in a pre-historic utopia where there was a wonderful modern array of foodstuffs just laying about like a primitive mini-mall do you? Do you think our esteemed forbears sat down to meat and three veg at every meal?

"Grog, you will not leave the eating rock until you have finished your potatoes and spinach".

Our stomach flora is "designed" to change to a single set of inputs for a particular period of time. It becomes very efficient at digesting that food before making a change of flora in response to a change in food input and once again efficiently breaking down a particular foodstuff.

If you want to eat the way that we evolved to eat, then stick to one thing for a week at a time before changing it. You will find that after a day or two you will very efficiently break down that food.

Personally, I will stick to bacon and let the evolution continue. Its arrogance to believe that we are the end of the evolutionary line. In the far future, (if we manage not to make the world uninhabitable for our own species in the interim) we may evolve a digestive system "designed" to efficiently live on a diet of varied inputs.


Oh, and sheeplady, good move trying to distance yourself from fructose based sweeteners. Fructose is as hard for the liver to break down as alcohol. (why does america have such a love affair with fructose sweeteners anyway? Just as an aside, Honey is a health food, and it is the fructose in it that makes it sweet....well, at least 80% of the sweetness comes from fructose - the rest from glucose which is readily adsorbed)

 

[James71]

That is what my grandmother says. She is a smart woman, not to mention fit and active in her mid 80s.

They were the generation of hard work and simple food my friend, and there is a lot to be said for that.

People will tell you a high fat diet will kill you, in spite of the french having a hugely high fat diet and living much longer than the average American.

My great grandmother lived her whole life on a dairy farm, subsisting on cream, butter and milk straight from the cow. They churned their own butter every morning. She would have had saturated fats at every meal. It might have lead to her early demise. She only lived until she was 104. Her husband also died young, in his 90's, but dementia ultimately claimed him. It was probably brought on by the butter.

 

[lolly_loisides]

Everything in moderation. Nothing in excess.

Everything in moderation, including moderation