On Eating Properly...

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Stew

Bushcrafter through and through
Nov 29, 2003
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When I was young, just after the war,(the second, not the first), I remember we were given, Malt, Orange Juice, and free milk at school, all free from the NHS, and basically if you were poor this helped to keep the youngsters fit, remembering in them days there was a lot of illnesses linked to bad nutrition, rickets, vitamin deficiencies, as well as polio, etc etc, the only thing there wasn't a lot of in them days amongst the poor was obesity, now we never ate fancy foods, even chicken was quite rare, but the Mothers were able to make a nutritious meal out of anything, and out of cuts of meat you would not think of eating now, tripe, Pigs feet, ( even though these are still eaten by some these days)
Nowadays its all fast food because the Mothers(and Fathers) have got no idea of how to cook,the kids don't eat fruit, don't get free milk anymore (thank you Maggie), it makes you wander what will happen when the kids of today progress to become parents, you only have to look at the growth in fast food outlets, coffee shops etc, to see where we are heading.

As an FYI, there is still free milk in schools - up to KS1. Fruit is also a big thing with many having it as a provided break time snack plus school lunch is available free up to the end of KS1.
 
Feb 17, 2012
1,061
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Surbiton, Surrey
Bit late to the party but a really interesting post from Tengu.

All of this has already been said but thought I would add my tuppence worth.

I think generally speaking you can eat healthily for the same price as eating unhealthily however as Toddy very rightly pointed out in the first reply it does require some effort/ability on your part.

That’s where the whole thing comes crashing down as, and I am wildly generalising here, the lower income adults tend to have a complacent attitude (which I very much see as a society issue) where it is far easier to go to the local cheap brand supermarket and fill up in frozen pizzas, chips etc... that can be plopped in the over or microwave and served rather than all the hassle of “proper” cooking.

As someone who like to cook I can put together a healthy meal (minus the butter I often use in lieu of oil) in the same time and almost the same effort it takes to cook a frozen ready meal.
Jamie Oliver and the like have tried national campaigns to help combat bad eating habits and I was particularly taken with his 15 minute meals series - this is something I have done for years and was mildly surprised that other didn’t seem to.

I think the biggest issue is the perceived convenience of ready/oven/microwave meals and that many shops are touting “fresh” produce as higher costs because they are supposedly organic, as that word to any pack of veg and double the price - no wonder some people are put off.

Add to that the vanishing local butchers and green grocers with those that are left having to increase their prices to stay afloat and I can see why some opt for the easier option.

One other thing to consider, and I am guilty of this myself, is wastage.
Buying a weekly shop of mostly frozen food will last pretty much indefinitely whereas fresh ingredients have a much shorter shelf life.
Throwing away spoiled food because I haven’t got round to using it always makes me feel slightly guilty, although I don’t agree with the idea I can see why some people would opt for the first option.

Meal planning, although second nature to most of us, is a learnt process and many at either end of the social spectrum don’t know how or want to learn, it’s not something taught in school and unless someone tells you how or you genuinely have an interest in finding out it’s very easy to take the path of least resistance which ultimately leads to unhealthier choices.

Anyway I’ve rambled in long enough but thought i would weigh in for what it’s worth.

Hamster


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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Yes, but real cheese and real butter is not bad for you! It is the additives you put in!

Us Scandinavians are butter, cheese, potato and flour based cultures.
Virtually no additives allowed.
Obesity? Increasing, but far from yours.
Fast food?
Yep, we love it!


check the ingredient list on your favourite bread.
Write it down here.
I will do the same. I will do a German made bread.

US food is filled with huge amounts of additives.
Fast food? Even worse!
Real cheese isn't bad for you? No, it isn't. But it IS still a carbohydrate and a fat. You can get fat free cheese which is just slightly healthier, but then it won't be real cheese anymore.

The ingredient list on my favorite bread? That'll be cornbread:
-1 cup cornmeal
-3/4 cup flour (gluten free flour if we're at my daughter's house (she's celiac)
-1 tablebspoon baking powder
-1 egg
-1 to 1 & 1/2 cup milk or buttermilk (if buttermilk is used then an additional teaspoon of baking soda)

Second favorite bread? That'll be biscuits:
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder---if using milk; substitute baking soda if using buttermilk
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
Yes I know your obesity levels are nowhere near ours, but with the switch to fast foods (and sugary drinks) you'll catch up. Mexico already passed us a couple of years ago.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Some sources are suggesting that it's sugars and not so much fats that are the main problem.
Our diets have always tended to have high fats, but ready supplies of processed sugars is a relatively recent thing.
Pity as I have rather a large sweet tooth.
Apparently it takes about a week without sugar to re-attune the tastebuds. I've never really managed it as its a miserable week and too easily undone
Depends on how recent you mean. Over here at least we've had huge amounts of processed sugar (apart from rationing during the World Wars) for about a century and a half. Yet the obesity problem didn't start until the 1970s (about the same time the convenience stores started offering quart sized soft drinks for cheap) Sugar is definitely a problem. Paying more attention to electronic devices (like this one?) instead of the physical work and recreation of times past isn't helping either.

But to bring this back to the OP's point; how is all this relevant to one's economic status? I have ideas but have to go for now. I'll post that relevance (or my opinions) later.
 

KenThis

Full Member
Jun 14, 2016
825
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Cardiff
Depends on how recent you mean. Over here at least we've had huge amounts of processed sugar (apart from rationing during the World Wars) for about a century and a half. Yet the obesity problem didn't start until the 1970s (about the same time the convenience stores started offering quart sized soft drinks for cheap) Sugar is definitely a problem. Paying more attention to electronic devices (like this one?) instead of the physical work and recreation of times past isn't helping either.

But to bring this back to the OP's point; how is all this relevant to one's economic status? I have ideas but have to go for now. I'll post that relevance (or my opinions) later.

I was thinking in evolutionary terms really.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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You can not not compare processed sugar (= white sucrose) that is a pure natural sucrose used for a couple of hundred years with the US industry preferred High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Since HFCS was packed into everything from sodas to youghurts, your obesity has skyrocketed. 1970’s.

Sugar ( sucrose) is a fantastic source of energy, and our bodieshave developed enzyme systems to digest it.
Processed (white) or unprocessed ( raw cane syrup) are treated the same by our digestive system.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Cheese is a means of stockpiling excess protein. It isn't made for the fat. It isn't made for the carbohydrates.
Those things, or parts thereof, add great richness and complexity to the world's cheeses.

As you know, much of that drains away in the whey and even that can be processed again for short term advantage.
I did that with 15 liters of whey in cheese-making class.
 

Janne

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Whey can be boiled down to a form of ‘cheese’ called ‘mes ost’ in Sweden or ‘brun ost’ in Norway ( varieties have other names)

The clOsest translation is ‘soft whey butter’

Very popular on bread. Full of goodness, Iron, protein, calcium and such.
Sweet.
It was in the past ( before sugar became cheap) one of the few sweet treats people had.
 
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Janne

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Britain needs to embrace its past food culture. The rich food culture it had before industrialisation, mass urbanisation and chemistry.

I am not sure if the food interested people in UK are aware of the surge of rediscoveries done by quite a few ‘avant garde’ chefs all around Europe?

Fermenting, drying, using ‘forgotten’ local fruit and greens and funghi.
Smoking.

I think many here on this forum have deep knowledge of this, what I have read.
 
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Jul 24, 2017
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Cooking simple food is easy and cheap.
Everything else is just lame excuses.
Agreed! And most of my knife skills come from cooking, any excuse to have a knife in hand and put it to task is good! plus cooking is a sustenance and taste related alchemy, I'm not a big foody so cooking was a must to make it interesting. Y'know I wonder about the rise of wanting sugar or having sugar more is it just there is more of it? or are we more tasked mentally and crave it more? am I right in thinking the brain run's pretty much on sugar?
 
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Janne

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The body runs in the components that make up sugar. ( plus fats and proteins) called ATP (adenosine tri phosphate)
Goggle Krebs Cycle. Or Citric Acid Cycle. (Same process.)

We are hardwired to like sweet. And fat.
Combine those two = deliciousness!
( chocolate? North American style sweet ham and bacon? )

Sugar is quick energy. More energy in fat, but more work for the system to get it.

Robson V is the expert here, he has forgotten more than I ever knew of biochemistry.

You want a quick energy boost?
Can of Coke
Or
Apple. ?

In my old Cold War unit, we consumed huge amounts if Dextrose tablets while ‘working’.
Around 400 grams a day. Energy.
 
Jul 24, 2017
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somerset
Wow getting weirded out by touching meat but utterly fine to cram it in your face! Ho man really?! seems oddly disrespectful, something died so you will live, if you can't deal with all aspects of its death maybe it would be best to not eat it!
when we hiked the moors you had ether kendel (sp?) mint cake, which just seemed like a bar of sugar and made my teeth zing! or Dextrose my much preferred choice.
 

Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
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Feb 17, 2012
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If this is true, Britain is lost.....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...packaging-millennials-squeamish-raw-meat.html


I sincerely hope it is one of those Daily Fail hysterics....

Personally I'm not concerned, the more these simpering idiots encase themselves in a bubble of sterility and antibacterial gel the sooner they will all be wiped out by the common cold and good old everyday day dirt by having absolutely no immune system to speak of.

On the plus side all that antibac gel is highly flammable, perhaps after their mass exodus we can use them as the next fossil fuel?


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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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There's a gulf of a difference between field dressing a kill and trimming a pork chop.
I am very strongly motivated by how good it will taste, whatever the beast was.
I take some pride in preparing really attractive food to your eyes, your nose and your taste buds.

Further, people in the UK don't look to have the great scope of hunting and fishing opportunities that we have.
Other than the kitchen, there looks like the chances are few and far between. Too bad.

We used to slide out after work and pop a few ducks or grouse for supper.
Follow the regs, stay off fenced and/or posted private land and fish/hunt as you are licensed to do so.
More than a few days when grandpa went hunting in the grocery store on the way home!

Eating really well means no more than 3 essential words:

"Don't burn it."
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,938
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I think it's probably true for the majority.
I've been vegetarian most of my life and I will deal with meat. I don't like doing it, but I'd rather it were done properly than messed up.
I'll prep it, cook it, serve it, but I won't eat it. It's not food, not for me.

Kids grow up believing meat comes in polystyrene trays from the supermarket. We grew up with sawdust floored butcher's shops with carcasses hanging ready to be broken up into joints.....and the sawdust caught the blood that still slowly dripped.
Hares and rabbits came paunched and fish came with heads and scales. Not now for most folks.
Hardly surprising they don't like touching raw meat. I think it 'dead', but they think it's dirty.

Y'know ? I think that's sadder than the whole inability to cook.

M
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
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So true.

You all know that this ’family cooking’ is a fairly recent innovation?
In the hunter gatherer societies it was a communal task.
Even during recent, medieval times, groups of families cooperated a lot in cooking.
As recent as pre ww2 all across Europe, animals were slaughtered in the village time staggered.
Meat distributed, offal and blood cooked and eaten.
Bread was baked by a kind a rota.
Pointless to heat up and heat an bread oven every other day, wood was precious. Better to do use one oven to bake the dough the neighbours brought too.

People were more busy than we are. Worked from sunrise to sun set. It was a way to be more efficient.

Maybe that would be ideal, if neighbours cooperated and helped.
But that is pure Utopia which will never happen!
 

daveO

Native
Jun 22, 2009
1,453
513
South Wales
Maybe that would be ideal, if neighbours cooperated and helped.
But that is pure Utopia which will never happen!

It would be great in theory. You could buy in bulk, share equipment and knowledge, more efficient use of fuel, more hands less work etc. but can you imagine the squabbles and petty problems with it all? :rolleyes:
 

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