My grandparents' generation in my family, born in the late 1800's - early 1900's in England, ate:
white bread at every meal, with butter or hydrogenated margerines - toast for breakfast, bread and butter with lunch and tea (evening meal), toast for supper;
usually well under 6 ounces of meat each a day;
strong brown tea (never mind the iron!) at most meals as well;
sweets, cakes and biscuits daily, though never as "snacks" - supper at my grandfather's house was strong tea, toast with meat paste, one or two slices of cake, and then maybe some biscuits (cookies);
minimal amounts of veg, often canned or frozen, certainly NOTHING along the lines of "five portions a day" let alone "nine a day" or whatever's next...
My family were comfortable working class - once WW2 was over they held jobs like bus conductor and department store supervisor (not physically taxing) - and most of them lived well into their eighties, slim, cognitively sound and without, to be brutally honest, a lot of the aches and pains I have now in my 40's.
They also had many friends and colleagues etc who lived comparable lives, on similar diets (afaik, anyway - I mean I doubt they secretly kept steaks and organic coconut oil + acai berries stashed in the allotment) and they were also in many ways healthier and slimmer than most of my age group.
Bingeing, dieting and counting macro nutrients were concepts I don't think ever even crossed their minds.
To top it off, most of them SMOKED!
Without wishing to initiate conspiracy-theory stuff, what the HECK has gone wrong with us, that so many of us, who are perfectly smart and capable in all other areas of our lives (I know I am, I assume most of you are as well) have to go to such lengths these days to achieve a healthy body-weight, and have a healthy relationship with food?
Why are so many of us - again, I fully include myself - living our lives, our relationships to food, as a kind of ongoing chemistry experiment, working to balance carbohydrates, proteins, whatever-the-heck, always on the look out for new "super-foods" and new combinations of existing food to finally make us feel full?
And if we don't take that time, we "slip" and end up making choices that mess us up well and truly?
What do you think happened?
Is it the availability of high-calorie foods (I refuse to solely blame carbs, on the basis of family history above), is it our lifestyles, is is a combination of additives, lifestyles, stress?
I'm sick of hearing "experts" in the media pontificate about "obesity" and weight, when they very possibly don't have (or would never own up to) their own issues with food and weight, so I thought I'd ask here (I HOPE this isn't too controversial) for positive responses on whatever factors you feel are causing us now to be this weird around food.
I know I threw myself off track maintaining a low body-weight for a long time, usually without any care for nutrition, and that has done various rebound-like things, and I suspect that is probably true of many women, at least - but surely it's not the whole picture, even just for me?
Anyone care to chip in on this?