how did people back in the old days stay so thin and lean?

[green papaya]

I could run 6 miles a day and still gain weight

how did the people back then stay so thin? didnt they like to eat?

I noticed a lot of them stayed thin their whole lives, I doubt they did much running or cardio workouts.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

They didn't sit on computer message boards all day.

 

[Doh!]

No McDonald's.

More manual labor.

And the big one: pull tabs hadn't been invented yet!

 

[Dagwood]

The food portions were much smaller.

 

[Feraud]

An exclusive diet of drinking and smoking.

 

[CharlieH.]

With cookbooks like these....

 

[green papaya]

The food portions were much smaller.

hungry people would eat bigger portions

especially home cooking

 

[LizzieMaine]

In all seriousness, the comments about not sitting on their keesters all day are dead on. Although they tended to eat high-fat, high-starch diets, most people tended to be much more active in their working lives than people are today, whether it was in factory jobs or heavy housework. (Do your washing on a scrub board or in a wringer washer, and you can give up that expensive gym membership.) Even a goodly percentage of white-collar office clerk types tended to walk to their offices instead of cosseting themselves in cars for freeway commutes while eating drive-thru breakfast croissanwiches.

My grandmother lived most of her life on bacon and eggs, pork chops, fried mackerel, pot roast, potatoes, butter and lard, and never weighed over 105 pounds. There's a reason.

 

[ohairas]

Hardly any processed JUNK. They cooked most everything from scratch. TV dinners came out in the 50's and it's gone down hill ever since. They certainly didn't have 20 different kinds of Pringles chips, 100+ brands of sugary cereal, 2+ sodas a day, ect....

Shop the outer perimeter of the grocery store.
Nikki

 

[Smithy]

No processed grub and (as Dagwood said) food portions weren't obscenely large, and (very importantly) they were physically far more active.

 

[Nashoba]

Less refined sugars too. And much much more hard work.

 

[Lady Day]

Yeah, its the processed foods and Id add high fructose corn syrup


LD

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Hardly any processed JUNK. They cooked most everything from scratch. TV dinners came out in the 50's and it's gone down hill ever since. They certainly didn't have 20 different kinds of Pringles chips, 10+ brands of sugary cereal, 2+ sodas a day, ect....

Shop the outer perimeter of the grocery store.
Nikki

Yep, they didn't consume all the "convenient" junk we have available today with it's high starch and sugar content. Simple starches and sugars turn to glucose which if not used by the body as fuel turns to fat. Also taxes the body's ability to produce insulin, so I think it also causes the higher incidence of type 2 diabetes which seems to be reaching epidemic proportions.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

With cookbooks like these....

Cooking with Dr. Pepper!? Thankfully, it didn't catch on.

 

[HadleyH]

No processed grub and (as Dagwood said) food portions weren't obscenely large, and (very importantly) they were physically far more active.

I agree with that.

 

[be_lovely]

Everything was natural, home grown veggies w/out insecticide & chickens from their own back yard with no hormones, peeling their own polebeans & plucking their own chickens, cooking from scratch, kneading bread, which was made with unprocessed flour..... and thats just the start of it. NOW girls are developing at 9, and boys growing full facial hair by 10. All because of hormones & chemicals in the food. To add to it, kids are sitting in front of the computer, tv, or video games. People in less fortunate countries are still keeping their shape, and eating healthier and more natural than us. Not to mention, its more expensive to live organic here in the states. I'd rather do all organic if my wallet allowed, and when I have kids of my own, i vow to raise them Au Naturalle.....

 

[Mr. Lucky]

Some have touched on it, but I would like to elaborate. My great-grandmother had one rule of cooking: If it could be fried, it would fry better in bacon grease. Yet she, though stout, wouldn't be considered fat.

I truly believe the food they used to eat was just that - FOOD. No hormones. No fillers. No processed or hydrogenated or this, that and the other thing. Cows ate just plain ol' grain and steaks tasted better. Chickens ate in a similar manner and they tasted like chicken. Ranchs and farms were not 'factoryized'; they hadn't been reduced to the lowest possible pinch o' the penny to squeeze every last possible ounce of beef, vegetable, etc. out of an acre or square foot of pen space.

It's become crazy! Did you know that if, as a farmer, you wished to purchase genetically altered seed for your crops, you have to agree to return to the unused portion to the seller at the end of the season? What we are eating is NOT what THEY ate! And, truly, in addition to massive portions, that's why we are who we are today.

That's why, here in L.A., I go out of my way to purchase soda manufactured and bottled in Mexico. Why? Because they still use SUGAR. Real sugar. And the difference in taste is, well, amazing!

But that's just me...

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Makes me want to homestead in the hills somewhere,...

 

[be_lovely]

Hear!! Hear!! Mr. Lucky!!!!

Some have touched on it, but I would like to elaborate. My great-grandmother had one rule of cooking: If it could be fried, it would fry better in bacon grease. Yet she, though stout, wouldn't be considered fat.

I truly believe the food they used to eat was just that - FOOD. No hormones. No fillers. No processed or hydrogenated or this, that and the other thing. Cows ate just plain ol' grain and steaks tasted better. Chickens ate in a similar manner and they tasted like chicken. Ranchs and farms were not 'factoryized'; they hadn't been reduced to the lowest possible pinch o' the penny to squeeze every last possible ounce of beef, vegetable, etc. out of an acre or square foot of pen space.

It's become crazy! Did you know that if, as a farmer, you wished to purchase genetically altered seed for your crops, you have to agree to return to the unused portion to the seller at the end of the season? What we are eating is NOT what THEY ate! And, truly, in addition to massive portions, that's why we are who we are today.

That's why, here in L.A., I go out of my way to purchase soda manufactured and bottled in Mexico. Why? Because they still use SUGAR. Real sugar. And the difference in taste is, well, amazing!

But that's just me...

 

[PA Dancer]

Can you imagine?

This is one week of food rations in 1940.