1950's Diet- How they stayed slim

America has an obesity issue. The news has reported that from Covid lock-down the average American has gained 15 pounds. That is quite a gain for 5-6 months of staying home. My Grandmother and Great Aunts were all slim so I decided to research what has changed. What I found was smaller portions, smaller plates and basic menus. The average dinner plate in the 1950's was 8 inches. Now a dinner plate is 12" and it can hold a lot of food.

This is a sample of a female 1950's eating plan:



Here is a sample of a male eating plan:



Note how they consumed milk daily which is filling and healthy. Other menus of the 1950's showed they ate porridge or a hot cereal often for breakfast. Research shows that one tends to weigh 5 pounds more if you do not eat breakfast.

Think of how things have changed. They walked to the market if they lived in town, owned lawn mowers that you had to push, vacuums were heavier. Laundry was hung on the clothes-line.

1. While fast food meals were a rare treat in the 1950s, today approximately 20% of American meals are eaten in the car.
2. Portion sizes have increased.
3. The average calorie intake has increased by 300-400 calories per day.
4. Sugar intake has increased nearly 40%.
5. More meat; fewer eggs.
6. Less milk; more cheese.
7. More time spent watching television.
8. Less time spent doing housework.

How Women in the 1950s Stayed Fit and Trim - Life with Dee

If one was trying to lose weight in the 50's, often they would consume Knox gelatin. Knox is protein and still sold today. @Ganado has a thread on gelatin here: Gelatin - most versatile protein

Here is an ad advertising Knox gelatin for weight loss:

After two weeks of eating the 1950's way, we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner last night. I ate about a 1/3 of my dinner and spent time looking around at all the food people were consuming. One plate could have fed two people easily. Lots of waste and over-eating but people seem expect to receive big portions when they dine-out.



I have never been over-weight but age slows metabolism so eating, nutrition and consumption is something I monitor. The more I studied the 1950's ways of eating I realized it is simple, basic and more budget friendly.

 

The sedentary lifestyle has a huge impact. Used to be that after coming home from work, you tended the animals, cleaned the barn, weeded the garden, performed maintenance (on whatever needed it) and still had the time and energy to spend with the children. Now, it's more like order food, take a shower, order a movie, buy the kids a game online, schedule someone to repair (xxxxx).

Folks just need to get back to the basics in all aspects of their lives...and reap the benefits of doing so.

 

I had 2 brothers, it was fight for what you liked.
Dad had his business on the home site Auto//Shop/Welding/Paint(automotive)/Cattle/Horses/Paper Routes/Built our own cars.
We all worked each day.
No AC in the summer.
No TV in the Summer (school vacation) Day
All have stayed slim.
All still get up early.
Basically a different lifestyle than ANY have today.

 

I just assumed it was the pharmaceutical grade amphetamines that were easily available.

 

Our diet also has shifted to include too many carbs, and even worse, processed carb fat combinations. Most of the people that gained weight will gain even more by following the dietary guidelines that have become a religion with the medical and dietary communities.

 

All of our food inputs have been selected and bred to give as much milk as possible, gain as much weight as quickly and with as little feed as possible, to have the selected fat to lean ratio, etc, and we are now living in a world where everyone under about the age of 40 has been exposed their whole lives to massive amounts of growth and other hormones, supplied by our foods in their natural forms, even before they were born in most cases.

I am 82 and was raised on a farm, we didn't drink soda, ate meat and milk raised on the farm, and may have eaten a meal not prepared at home a couple times a year. Boys and girls reached puberty at about 16 and a 200 pound foot ball player or a 6 foot tall basket ball player was the exception, and a couple hours of exercise a day was normal. Walking a mile or more on a paper route, a couple hours a day doing chores, mowing the lawn with a push mower, and the older children doing adult work around the farm was the normal. The major way to get around until about the age of 18 was walking or riding a single speed bike and most of the boating was paddle or oar powered. When my youngest brother was born in 1960, all of that had changed, he lived in town, drank sugared drinks, watched tv, the sports leagues and exercise that they supplied were gone and the food he ate was bought in the market. As Mr. Wolfe put it in his book, "You Can't Go Home Again".

Something as simple as a cup of coffee, use to drink it black with no sugar, now get a coffee regular at one of the chains and it has several spoons of sugar and may contain either several spoons of heavy cream or an artificial creamer which has as its main ingredient palm oil or some other saturated fat. Chart on soda, now get 30 oz of soda vs 7 oz, and drink every day, not once a week.

 

In the 1950s so-called convenience foods' were a rarity.

Add in that many today simply do not know how to cook.
Insert old joke here -- (Mother made everything from scratch, I looked over the entire store and couldn't find any scratch)

Canned or frozen (with lots of fat and soduim) Chow make for a real doughy boy.

I do see where a few marketers are offering good food (frozen) - if you want to pay the price, you really don't have to know how to cook, and sadly, this si a fast growing market segment. While better than the "TV dinner' (shudder) of days gone by, I have to wonder what our grandkids will look like at 30....

It's not all bad out there
Fresh Start Foods | Home | Fresh and Healthy Prepared Meals for Students

and the alternative to the TV dinner - The Best Meal Delivery Service of 2020

 

Pre 1950s, we didn't really have heart issues, we didn't have food allergies, or gluten issues, and we didn't have very many fat people!
We didn't have GMO's, Fluoride, or Chemical Preservatives, and we didn't have all these inoculations for weird shit!
We didn't have autism, Downs syndrome was VERY rare, and most other mental issues were pretty rare! We also didn't have Bi-polar-isism like now!
Our food was ALL Fresh and Organic and local, we didn't store it unless it was canned or cured or potted, and we often grew our own, so we knew where it came form. We didn't have all these chemicals around us, plastic was a new thing, and we had lead in everything, yet we somehow survived it all.

WHAT CHANGED?

 

The ladies had time to plan and cook, just like June Cleaver. You see Ward worked, Wally and Beaver went to school. After Bridge there were hours and hours to prepare.

 

The stuff at the bottom of the pyramid and the top of the pyramid are both doing the same thing by the time it gets into your small intestines.

 

Great post. A lot of really important information.

Much of the over-portioning seen today is the result of restaurant owners wanting to be able to raise their prices in order to increase their profit-per-customer.

It has been a gradual but but cumulative process. The supersized meal could command a supersized price, and also take business away from competitors that sold "skimpy" servings.

Research the prices and menus at McDonald's over the last fifty years and the tactic becomes starkly obvious.

Food bundling became a real moneymaker, and people ate every bite because it was taboo to waste food. Everyone was indoctrinated to clean their plates because children were starving in China.

As people got acclimated to gut-busting all-you-can-eat meals downtown, they starting cooking them at home, as well.

Likewise, Big Sugar had a product to push (just like Big Tobacco) and they pushed it, literally, down our collective throats. That was especially easy because refined sugar is an addictive drug.

Remember the earliest versions of TV dinners? We'd call them sadly lacking today, but the portion sizes were normal for the time.

Now almost everyone eats factory food, and it's loaded with non-food additives. Anything you eat that isn't food is useless filler at best, and a stone poison at worst.

Like Aspartame and MSG, for example.

To make matters worse, "modern" agriculture has ravaged farmland to the point that agricultural products are far lees nutritious than they were before the advent of chemical fertilizers.

If you want a real mind-shock, read about Weston Price. Here's a link to start:
Weston Price - Wikipedia

I mentioned the name to the absolutely best chiropractor I ever met, and he laughed and told me that in school they had studied Weston Price for two years.

Now, if you simply want normal nutrition, you have to eat about eight times as much chemically-boosted "farm-fresh" produce.

It's much smarter, and a lot healthier, to grow your own in fertile soil.

 

The thing with all the highly processed, sugar laden foods nowadays is that its nutritionally crap... so often people are eating tons of food... but their body's are screaming for nutrition, which makes them feel hungry, so they eat more,,, and their body puts on fat while at the same time the reality is they are nutritionally starving... vicious cycle...
and the big food company's continue to rake in the $$$

Oh and ive lost weight since March

 

Been on a front end loader all day, so no pics but our place will now drain properly.
Pics next rainy day.

 

We now live in a porn filler word, everything panders to the lowest common denominator. Most of the women on TV are skinny and wear skin tight cloths, cars on TV are going fast thru the wilderness or racing in streets, action or reality shows nothing but modified violence, and restaurant owners have found out that sugar, salt, and fat will allow the sale of frozen foods, thawed and micro waved and maximize their profits. It fills you up, you are addicted to it, it can be shipped and stored, quickly prepared by untrained help, and it can be mass produced. After years of chemical fertilizers in the food production, it may have few of the micro components needed for a full diet and it may well be full of chemicals or un balanced in what it does have.

As a heart patient I was told that 1 meal at the Olive Garden would most likely contain several days worth of sodium, a couple days worth of fat, a couple days worth of carbohydrates, and at least a days worth of calories. A can of Healthy Choice soup has about 1 or 1 1/2 days worth of sodium. When I go to the store, close to 80 % of all the prepared foods are not acceptable for my diet and the long term storage products are even worse.

 

Prepared foods? Fresh Meat!

 

Lots of great points. Our store bought food is poisoning us and causing illness plus the whole super-sizing, clean your plate. I keep hearing that organic is not really organic. I am working on portions and learning to eat bland. No dressing on salads etc.

A friend gave me a few Hello Fresh dinners. The label read semi-healthy, the portions were smaller than a restaurant but the food made me sick.

 

LTS = Mountain house? Yes, very high in sodium

LTS = wheat berries, dry milk, honey, dry beans (red, white and black) etc, only have the sodium you add.

We started watching sodium some time ago, didn't want to have to take any long term meds....best to never have to start, eh?

 

I posted those as an example of the changing "food industry"
I wouldn't buy any - simply because I cannot. Most of that...stuff isn't available in Alaska.
example - I had to hit 5 different stores to find some 'Mr Crater' crackers. and the price was simply stupid high.

After sodium, I watch my carb intake. Which is a killer. I grew up German, so potatoes are my go to Chow....