1939 America averaged 3500 calories a day!

[David90]

@jay123

Interesting. If you think about what most People are now Consuming. Pufa-Rich Foods and Oils, Junk Food (like Frozen Pizzas), Sugary Yoghurts, Bakery Articles (like Filled-Crossaints for Example) and so forth. I work in a Grocery Store, so i see this Everyday.

I must also agree on the NEAT Part. NEAT can really help with eating more Calories. I see this all the Time on my normal Working Days. My ''Health'' App tracks ''Steps per Day''. And one Time, i had 20000 Steps per Day (which is A LOT). So one can imagine how much more Food someone can eat, if he/she is regulary getting his 10000-20000 Steps per Day in. Low Intensity Cardio or Walking (if someone has a Desk Job) can also help with that.

Calorie rich, whole foods cooked at home is the way to go. That alone would improve health and vitality for many.

Absolutly True. But no one takes the Time to make Meals or Prepare Meals for Work which is very sad, i think. It doesn't have to be complicated tho. There are Multiple Good Cooking Channels on Youtube, that are proving that Cooking dosen't have to be a hassle and Time Consuming.

I find this hard to believe. Do you know how hard it is to eat 3500+ calories of real food?

Yes and No. If you are consuming Liquid ''Calories'', it can surely add up. There was one Time i was heavyly Bulking and was trying to find out how much ''Mass'' i can gain. So i had consumed 5200 Calories for Days. Was getting from 69 to 76KG quite Quickly (along with some Fat Gain).

 

[tankasnowgod]

I find this hard to believe. Do you know how hard it is to eat 3500+ calories of real food?

Not hard at all. An average meal for an adult is about 1000 calories. You're talking 3 meals a day, and a couple snacks/drinks. Easy to do.

Plus, they had things like sugar, flour, butter, even Crisco in 1939. So it's not like people back then were just hunter/gatherers, surviving on berries and Wolly Mamoth kills.

 

[jay123]

Not hard at all. An average meal for an adult is about 1000 calories. You're talking 3 meals a day, and a couple snacks/drinks. Easy to do.

Plus, they had things like sugar, flour, butter, even Crisco in 1939. So it's not like people back then were just hunter/gatherers, surviving on berries and Wolly Mamoth kills.

Yeah. That was the year the Wolly Mammoth went extinct from the ravaging appetites the people of the depression had. Hehe!

 

[jay123]

@jay123

Interesting. If you think about what most People are now Consuming. Pufa-Rich Foods and Oils, Junk Food (like Frozen Pizzas), Sugary Yoghurts, Bakery Articles (like Filled-Crossaints for Example) and so forth. I work in a Grocery Store, so i see this Everyday.

I must also agree on the NEAT Part. NEAT can really help with eating more Calories. I see this all the Time on my normal Working Days. My ''Health'' App tracks ''Steps per Day''. And one Time, i had 20000 Steps per Day (which is A LOT). So one can imagine how much more Food someone can eat, if he/she is regulary getting his 10000-20000 Steps per Day in. Low Intensity Cardio or Walking (if someone has a Desk Job) can also help with that.



Absolutly True. But no one takes the Time to make Meals or Prepare Meals for Work which is very sad, i think. It doesn't have to be complicated tho. There are Multiple Good Cooking Channels on Youtube, that are proving that Cooking dosen't have to be a hassle and Time Consuming.



Yes and No. If you are consuming Liquid ''Calories'', it can surely add up. There was one Time i was heavyly Bulking and was trying to find out how much ''Mass'' i can gain. So i had consumed 5200 Calories for Days. Was getting from 69 to 76KG quite Quickly (along with some Fat Gain).

The NEAT and PEAT diet! Hehe!

 

[sweetpeat]

This well-researched website has loads of information about what people ate in the past, based on cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers of the times: The Food Timeline: popular American decade foods, menus, products & party planning tips

Some interesting excerpts from the 1930s section:

[1937]
"A Week of Family Menus," America's Cook Book, compiled by the Home Institute of the New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons: New York] 1937 (p. 855)
Sunday: Breakfast--Sliced oranges, prepared cereal, fluffy omelet, toast, marmalade, coffee, milk; Lunch--Tomato loaf salad, cream cheese and chives sandwiches, peach cream dessert, tea, cocoa; Dinner--Stuffed shoulder of lamb, browned potatoes, buttered beets, asparagus salad, frozen prune pudding, milk, coffee.
Tuesday: Breakfast--Applesauce, hominy with shredded dates, poached egg on English muffin, coffee, milk; Lunch--Chopped lamb, green pepper, and lemon sandwiches; creamed carrots and peas, sliced peaches, cookies, tea, milk; Dinner--Creole beef with noodles, summer squash, perfection salad, lemon meringue bread pudding, coffee, milk.
Friday: Breakfast--Orange juice, flaked cereal, scrambled eggs, muffins, jam, coffee, milk; Lunch--scalloped mixed vegetables (with cheese), fruit gelatin, fruit drop cookies, tea, milk; Dinner--Baked salmon, parsley sauce, stuffed baked potatoes, spinach, orange and watercress salad, pineapple topped pudding, coffee, milk.

Dietary concerns:

"Americans have become so food conscious that they must beware of food fads. That is the opinion of Mrs. Quindara Oliver Dodge, of Boston, National president of the American Dietetic Association...'Our association frowns on all reducing diets...We feel that American women have done positive harm to their constitutions by adopting such radical food measures. Only for physical welfare and not for beauty of figure should any woman consider adopting any special diet.'

Snacking in the 1930s:

"...among the causes that have brought changes in our between-meal eating and drinking habits much importance must be conceded to the astounding developments in preserving and packaging goods which have occurred in this century and especially since the World War. The new technique of wrapping and packaging has brought about the spectacular development--largely within a decade--of the 5-cent candy packages now ubiquitous at news stands, drug stores, tobacco shops and the cashier's counters of restaurants. Undoubtedly the constant proximity of such mouthfuls has increased the amount of between-meals munching, at least among city people. What more natural, when waiting for a subway train, than to leave a nickel and pick up a package of Aurora Borealis gum drops? What woman, even when trying to take off a pound a week, can resist the appeal on every hand to buy a 5-cent bar of Angels' Delight milk chocolate? The increased offering of snacks of carious sorts in public places has, in the space of a generation, revolutionized the American attitude toward eating in public places. Formerly, a grown man or woman considers it undignified to munch while walking along the street, but today almost anybody from college professor to errand boy will make away with a bit of candy as he strolls Broadway; and some people think nothing of whole-heartedly cramming down a large-sized banana.

American food brands introduced in the 1930s:
[1930]
Birds Eye Frosted Foods
Wonder Bread (sliced)
Hostess Twinkies
Mott's Apple Sauce
Snickers candy bars (Mars, Inc.)
French's Worcestershire Sauce
Chock Full o'Nuts chain restaurants (New York City)
Philadelphia Cheese Steak (Pat's)

[1931]
Beech-Nut Baby Foods
Bisquick (General Mills)
Ballard Biscuits (cardboard tube packed refrigerator dough)
Wyler's Bouillon Cubes
Hotel Bar Butter
Tootsie Pops

[1932]
Frito Corn Chips
Skippy Peanut Butter
3 Musketeers (candy bar)
Heath bar (candy bar)

[1933]
Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
Campbell's Chicken Noodle and Cream of Mushroom soups
Kraft Miracle Whip
Tree-Sweet canned orange juice
E. & J. Gallo winery founded

[1934]
Pet Evaporated Milk
Wild Cherry flavor Life Savers
Royal Crown Cola
Carvel (ice cream restaurants)
Ritz Crackers [Nabisco]

[1935]
Adolph's Meat Tenderizer
Kit Kat bar
Five Flavors Life Savers
ReaLemon Lemon Juice

[1936]
Goya brand foods
Waring blender
Betty Crocker (General Mills)
Elsie the Cow (Borden)
Spry (Unilever)
Hungry Jack pancake mix (Pillsbury)
Chunky Chocolate bar
Mars Almond Bar
Fifth Avenue (candy bar)
Orangina (soft drink)
Howard Johnson's restaurant chain

[1937]
Pepperidge Farm Bread
Kix cereal (General Mills)
Spam (Hormel)
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
Ragu Spaghetti Sauce
Sky Bar (New England Confectionery Co.)
Rolo (candy)
Smarties (Rowntree candy)

[1938]
Lawry's Seasoned Salt
Mott's Apple Juice
Nescafe (instant coffee)
Hollywood bread

[1939]
Lay's Potato Chips
Cream of Wheat (5 minute)
Dairy Queen (ice cream stores)
---SOURCES: The Food Chronology, James Trager [Owl Books: New York] 1995 & The Century in Food, Beverly Bundy [Collector's Press: Portland OR] 2002

 

[jay123]

This well-researched website has loads of information about what people ate in the past, based on cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers of the times: The Food Timeline: popular American decade foods, menus, products & party planning tips

Some interesting excerpts from the 1930s section:


Dietary concerns:


Snacking in the 1930s:

Nice!

 

[Metabawlic]

Americans didn't like processed foods so much back then. It took massive propaganda campaigns (see some of Edward Bernays's efforts) to get people to eat food which didn't seem home cooked.

 

[area51puy]

Yeah but they were all fat and unhealthy, no wait that is Americans today

 

[DrJ]

I think a huge difference between then and now is transportation. Even the sedentary jobs back then likely had a lot of activity in getting from place to place as cars were still quite the luxury. One hour of activity getting to/from work makes a huge difference.

I moved to Europe from America and car is not so practical here. Even taking public transit, there is still 5min walking here, 10 min walking there, walk to get groceries etc. My calorie consumption had to go up noticeably and I otherwise work a sedentary desk job.

 

[Rafe]

Great thread @jay123 @sweetpeat

Here is a history of US military field rations from the Revolutionary war forward & the different kinds of rations for different mission types.

Notice they regularly contained 16 - 20oz of beef per day. Later coffee & sugar were substituted for rum. Also note a cameo by Ancel Keys in WWII mre nutrition research.

THE HISTORY OF RATIONS | Army Quartermaster Foundation, Inc

RATIONS Conference Notes Prepared by The Quartermaster School For the Quartermaster General January 1949 THE HISTORY OF RATIONS History has known feeding problems Long before Napoleon uttered his now famous words, "an Army travels on its stomach," much thought had been given by warring nations...

www.quartermasterfoundation.org

1930s low PUFA, fewer xenoestrogens, less pharmaceutical waste, nuclear waste, lead in the water. Working hours were lower. There was a physical health movement but most people weren’t exercising to try not to die or measuring their blood values of anything. I don’t have figures but I think then most people didn’t see a doctor unless they were being born or dying. It was probably the 1980s before people went to doctors when they weren’t having symptoms or pain.

 

[Sefton10]

The mid-Victorian working class in Britain were putting away 4,000 calories a day

How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died

Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Kayaker]

Something has happened to the food supply or to our bodies, or both. I have tried the “all in” approach where you just eat to hunger, and I ended up enormous. Even when I eat whole food sources like a potato, I bloat and feel sluggish and gain weight. I rarely ever eat anything and feel energized. Something is very different now compared to then.

I remember watching a documentary on some “blue zone” place, I think Costs Rica, and they were interviewing ppl who were alive before there had been a lot of development, etc. Old people. And they were saying that something had changed about the food. It wasn’t energizing like before, or something like that.

To be able to convert food into energy well, digestion and metabolism need to be good. When there's not enough thyroid or of certain nutrients, calories aren't processed well and get stored as fat or turned into lactate.

I wonder about depletion of copper in the soil. I sometimes eat liver or shrimp, and chocolate on a daily basis, yet my copper is sitting at low end of normal. People with a non-Peaty diet probably eat very little copper.

Also, who else has low copper despite eating food rich in it and don't know they lack it because they haven't been tested. Mainstream medical systems don't test for deficiencies except for ones that play a part in their dogma like iron, folate, and B12, which they probably test for only because they play a part in anemia, which appears on regular blood tests.

 

[jay123]

Great thread @jay123 @sweetpeat

Here is a history of US military field rations from the Revolutionary war forward & the different kinds of rations for different mission types.

Notice they regularly contained 16 - 20oz of beef per day. Later coffee & sugar were substituted for rum. Also note a cameo by Ancel Keys in WWII mre nutrition research.

THE HISTORY OF RATIONS | Army Quartermaster Foundation, Inc

RATIONS Conference Notes Prepared by The Quartermaster School For the Quartermaster General January 1949 THE HISTORY OF RATIONS History has known feeding problems Long before Napoleon uttered his now famous words, "an Army travels on its stomach," much thought had been given by warring nations...

www.quartermasterfoundation.org

1930s low PUFA, fewer xenoestrogens, less pharmaceutical waste, nuclear waste, lead in the water. Working hours were lower. There was a physical health movement but most people weren’t exercising to try not to die or measuring their blood values of anything. I don’t have figures but I think then most people didn’t see a doctor unless they were being born or dying. It was probably the 1980s before people went to doctors when they weren’t having symptoms or pain.

Nice. All during the depression years too.

 

[jay123]

To be able to convert food into energy well, digestion and metabolism need to be good. When there's not enough thyroid or of certain nutrients, calories aren't processed well and get stored as fat or turned into lactate.

I wonder about depletion of copper in the soil. I sometimes eat liver or shrimp, and chocolate on a daily basis, yet my copper is sitting at low end of normal. People with a non-Peaty diet probably eat very little copper.

Also, who else has low copper despite eating food rich in it and don't know they lack it because they haven't been tested. Mainstream medical systems don't test for deficiencies except for ones that play a part in their dogma like iron, folate, and B12, which they probably test for only because they play a part in anemia, which appears on regular blood tests.

Yes. The soil. With all the chemicals on it on farms now. I think that is very plausible.

Eating enough calories is so important. That is, good food calories. And get our thyroids in good shape and get us all heated up and using energy efficiency.

 

[jay123]

Americans didn't like processed foods so much back then. It took massive propaganda campaigns (see some of Edward Bernays's efforts) to get people to eat food which didn't seem home cooked.

Yeah what an evil dude. He called it propaganda at the time. After WW2 they changed it to "public relations"

 

[Herbie]

What are people having today? 1000-1500 calories?

 

[jay123]

What are people having today? 1000-1500 calories? The RDA in the US is 2000 for a woman and 2500 for a man. Given that it's lower calories than 1939 we need to consider that the typical American eats some processed poor quality food each day. Plus added PUFA and you have a setup for malnutrition and slowing down of the metabolic activity of that person.

 

[Gustav3Y]

Today almost everyone says restricting calories means living longer.
All it takes to look at YT and see some of the most serious channels and high profile people say that.
Not saying that they are right, but society does not think well about over 1000-1500 calories except bodybuilders.
RDA I do not think it matters to people, especially since the influencers are against many calories.

 

[Allen]

What the Irish Ate Before Potatoes

Answer: Milk. The article is like Bubba from Forrest Gump talking about different ways to consume milk.

 

[Lollipop2]

This well-researched website has loads of information about what people ate in the past, based on cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers of the times: The Food Timeline: popular American decade foods, menus, products & party planning tips

Some interesting excerpts from the 1930s section:


Dietary concerns:


Snacking in the 1930s:

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing!!