My great-grandma was a tough ol’ chick.
She ate real, traditional food and could cook up fried chicken from scratch. When I say “from scratch,” I literally mean “from scratch.” As in, she would kill a chicken, dress it, coat it with flour and fry that baby up in a big ol’ frying pan of lard.
She was an amazing woman, my great-grandma. That woman wasn’t afraid of anything. She’d sleep out in the dark woods with hungry bears if you dared her to. She was that tough.
Naturally, when I started to research traditional, nourishing foods, I thought of my great-grandmother. I knew SHE would have supported my lifestyle, and probably could have taught me some amazing traditional cooking skills. But…
Did Grandma really know best?
One of the most common questions when talking about the wisdom of traditional diets is…..“Didn’t people way back then drop dead at 40? They ate a lot of meat and fat. They must have had a shorter life expectancy, right?”
WRONG!
The truth is, life expectancy is NOT a recorded number of the age people died, but rather an average of all deaths, with a very high number of infant deaths. High infant mortality rates before 1900 skewed the numbers. The high infant mortality rate before the 1900s was due to unclean conditions and poor medical care. Subsequently, life expectancy numbers before the year 1900 gets easily knocked down to a low life number.
Because infant mortality rates decreased as medical technology increased, the average life expectancy for men in 1907 was 45.6 years. In 1957, it was 66.4. In 2007 it reached 75.5. The increase in life expectancy numbers is due mostly to a decreasing infant mortality rate, which decreased from 9.99% in 1907 to 2.63% in 1957, and then all the way down to 0.68% in 2007.
The truth is the human lifespan has been consistent for more than 2,000 years!
“The inclusion of infant mortality rates in calculating life expectancy creates the mistaken impression that earlier generations died at a young age; Americans were not dying en masse at the age of 46 in 1907. The fact is that the maximum human lifespan — a concept often confused with “life expectancy” — has remained more or less the same for thousands of years. The idea that our ancestors routinely died young (say, at age 40), has no basis in scientific fact. When Socrates died at the age of 70 around 399 B.C., he did not die of old age but instead by execution. It is ironic that ancient Greeks lived into their 70s and older, while more than 2,000 years later modern Americans aren’t living much longer.”
– Benjamin Radford, Bad Science Column
Just for curiosity, I decided to research my own ancestral line as well as my husband’s ancestral line to find out how long our very own ancestors lived.
- My husband’s great-great-great-great grandfather Augustas Oliver Artemas Stowell, was born June 4th, 1783 and died August 23, 1860 at age 77.
- My husband’s great-great-great-great grandmother Mary Stephens Holmes, was born Sept. 15th, 1797 and died Nov. 20th, 1885 at age 88.
- My great-great-great-great grandfather James Monroe Lindsey, was born December 30th, 1829 and died January 9, 1912 at age 83.
- My great-great-great-great grandmother Mary Sarah Ann Little, was born July 2nd, 1832 and died March 5th, 1910 at age 78.
Crazy, right? Turns out Grandma and Grandpa knew how to live a long, healthy life with traditional food!
An excerpt from my great-great-great grandmother Martha Lindsey’s journal shows the amazing VITALITY the traditional diet brings.
“The day and night before school started in 1901, I worked one hundred buttonholes and sewed on one hundred buttons, trying to finish up the children’s school clothes. I was still sewing at dawn. I milked the cows and fixed breakfast. I worked all morning about the house and cooked dinner. Then that afternoon I gave birth to my tenth child.”
That’s a REAL LIVE journal entry from 1901, you guys.
Our ancestors didn’t worry about heart disease, cancer or diabetes. They didn’t fear Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. These diseases were incredibly rare before the 1900s, to the point where they didn’t need scientists to solve mysteries about their prevalence. There was no mystery! Our ancestors simply ate food (real food) and were nourished. Sure, there was illness and life was not perfect. But chronic degenerative diseases rates were incredibly low.
The leading cause of death before 1900 was usually one of four things: Infancy death, death from childbirth, death from infections, and death from accidents.Today, the leading causes of death are heart disease and cancer. Clearly, there’s something that needs to change.
Following a traditional diet will give us optimal health. Seasonal fruits and vegetables, grains, milk, butter, cream, meat, seafood, eggs, all in the best form possible and if you can digest them, is the key to weight loss and disease reversal.
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Avoiding fake foods like store bought crackers, cookies, cereals, granola bars, protein mixes as much as possible (without stressing about it too much) is the key to keeping our bodies clean and toxic-free.
So, next time someone says to you that bacon is bad, that lard will clog your arteries or that fat will make you fat, have them read this article. Or this one, or this one. Or better yet, have them read my new book here. If your friends and family don’t believe a little ‘ol blogger like me, give them this book and this book.
It’s time for us all to wise up and discover the healthy, delicious food of our ancestors. It’s time to get back the skills of our great-grandmothers and become nourished.
This is such a misleading article unfortunately. We can’t compare the environment 100 years ago with the environment we’re living in right now. There are countries where you get only caged eggs, hormone boosted meat and vegetables full of pesticides. And I am not talking about developing countries. Not to mention other pollution and the number of people on this planet.
What a worthless comment that added nothing to the conversation.
Be careful about believing Big Ag propaganda. No, they don’t produce more food than small farmers, who are far more productive and less wasteful. The feed for factory animals takes 75% of the farm subsidy. Most of our ranchlands were overgrazed and the soil is depleted, but we know now how to manage them regeneratively. These lands can absorb all the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, and the carbon (humus) in the soil allows it to retain water rather than losing it to runoff.
End the subsidy to animal feeds and restore the health of ourselves and our planet.
No it is not SUCH a misleading article. There is much to be learned here. This is in fact a really good article, plus neat to get a glimpse into the activities of daily life back then. Not misleading at all, and for your comment that it is SUCH a misleading article really reflects more about a negative perspective in general.
As a teen I was always very active but consumed a bad diet. Worked hard as a young adult but my health really suffered when I was in my twenties. So many people have been hard workers but have poor health.
It really is the food that they consumed along with an active lifestyle. I live in a residential area and have chickens in the back yard. Make my own compost and am learning a lot of new things. Really enjoy it.
I can surely say that eating whole grain Einkorn bread with a lot of butter. pasture raised eggs. raw milk. fermented foods, and bone stocks have helped me a lot.
My neighbor just gave me some of her fresh celery right out of the garden and it is in November in Seattle. It is so good
After reading this article it makes me want to get more into the fats when cooking
Be happy eat right and stay active.
Well, this is all interesting and true, but there is one more thing that has not been taken into account regarding the sickliness of the current population. Yes, before antibiotics and very many other medical technological advances, people died in infancy and childhood, and the importance of that is that they did not live to reproduce. It is quite likely that if they had a defective congenital heart defect, they did not live to pass it on. If they had type 1 diabetes, a good chance that they would not live to pass that genetic weakness on. Those who contracted scarlet fever because no antibiotics for strep throat often died. If they contracted measles/mumps/rubella some might die, or in the case of men, be infertile (mumps). Many died of simple diseases such as pneumonia and the flu. Many died of smallpox, plague, polio. In any case, whether we like to think of it or not, mother nature pulled those with weak, genetic makeup from the gene pool, just as she does her other charges, the deer, elk, bears, and other wild animals. Nature challenges her living creatures and those who are strong enough, smart enough, and disease resistant enough survive and have children. Those that aren’t do not. Back in those days, it was expected that there would be mortality, and people had many more children. My great grandparents on both sides each had 7 that survived. There were several along the way that did not, on both sides, more on my maternal great grandmothers side, because she was RH negative, and lost virtually every other one to that. Now, with survival being much more of a certainty, few have 7 children, 2 or 3 being the norm, and of course as parents we immunize them and do everything we can to ensure their survival. What parent wouldn’t? But long term, this is weakening the human race and our current population. So, those who think they can go back and live as our ancestors who survived and lived to a great age, must remember that many of their brothers and sisters did not and are forgotten because they did not live to reproduce. In general, the population is very much more numerous now than then, and also very much weaker due to medical advances that save those who otherwise would have died before reaching reproductive age, even if it takes 3 heart surgeries before age 20 to do it. I agree that we need to go back to a certain extent to how our ancestors lived but we can’t completely. We can’t breath the clean air they breathed and eat the fresh fish and game they caught and the herbs and vegetables and berries they either gathered or raised. We are (mercifully or unmercifully) subject to the times we live in, our altered food supply and our medical miracles, which have helped many of us survive. Therefore, it is somewhat unrealistic to expect to attain the ages of our ancestors just because we eat like them, or share their bad habits such as tobacco. They were tested for survival in childhood and passed that test whereas we of the current population are living on to be older at least in many cases, because of modern medicine. And yes, I believe that because those weaknesses were not weeded out, many of our much more numerous population are weaker and more subject to age related illnesses and cancer than the previous generations. I am not making judgements as to the right or wrong of it. It is what it is. Only the Amish are still living in a manner that tests them in that way. But the conclusion is, you cannot know if you have the genetic makeup and hardiness to live to the age your of your ancestors if you were born after the advent of antibiotic and immunization interventions.
I read this article and the one about pork lard from your site and I just want to say, you have incredible information right here! Unbiased and very helpful. We humans have ruined our lifespan and health because of all this junk food and alternative fats.
I grew up on a 1,800 acre dairy farm, in Ohio. We did not have electricity or plumbing when i was a kid. There was a two hole outhouse, a dry sink in the kitchen, a huge triple oven, wood burning stove with three shelves on top, six cast iron burner plates and a fire box and ash pit. This stove was also the homes heater in winter.
We saved the ashes in a hogshead barrel outside, when we needed soap we poured water in the barrel, let it sit a couple days and drained it, boiled it and added lye. Skim off the crust and put in molds. We put a big jar of fresh milk on one shelf, let it separate, and skim off the cream. I loved to get the top cream which was thick and eat it. My maternal grandma died at 64, grandpa at 74 but because the dog jumped around him at feeding, and the chain wrapped around his legs, when he tried to leave he fell and busted his head open. My fraternal grand parents on the isle of Icaria, Greece, grandma Zoe lived to 103 she died 1962. The day she died she had hiked up the mountain to the artesian well with two buckets on a yoke, about a three mile hike, got the water (all the women and girls did this everyday and socialized) and came back to the house. She butchered a lamb, roasted it over an outside fire, sat in her rocker with her tobacco pipe and that is how the family found her later.She smoked most of her life, ate lard, drank whole goats milk, ate lots of fish and seafood, and pastry.Honey was the sweetener. She also worked like hell, there were no cars, everyone walked everywhere, no phones, no electricity, the days water had to be fetched everyday, and the people were happy.
Grandpa died young by Greek standards, 87; he was a sailor, he owned a two masted ship. Great grandpa, 97, owned a three masted ship. My father 1891 to 1977 grew up on Icaria till 19. When he came to America. I was born 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio.I’m an ice cream nut, eat butter, steak, lamb, fish etc.
Oh, we had five generations living on our farm, a party line phone which had to be cranked, an ice house, a smokehouse, huge barn and silo. We bathed on Saturdays, in galvanized wash tubs, winter-in the kitchen, Summer-by the windmill water trough, using grandma’s lye soap which burned like all get out, keep your eye’s shut. I could say much more but…
love your story Stephen….please consider writing a book….you are a great story teller and your family would love to have all this to look back on after you are gone.
Stephen, I grew up on a ranch, about 2 sections big, close to Kyle, Tx. in the ’40&’50s. We had no running water in the house, so I know about those #4 washtub ounce a week baths and I also remember the old party line crank phones. My sister still has our old crank phone and I remember our ring was 2 longs & 1 short. Back in the day we lived in a 2 story house with 12′ ceilings, and it had gutters on the ruff, and a 20′ dia.X 20′ high cistern next to the house, that’s where our water came from. We had 4 milk cows which I milked morning and night and put the milk in those big wide mouth gallon jars to let the cream rise to the top, then we dipped the cream out and made butter with an old hand crank butter paddle churn. We raised cattle, hogs, turkeys, chickens, rabbits, ducks, and ate from everything we raised. In my opinion, life was better then, slower, people treated one another with respect, were more honest, less greedy, less of me, me, me aditude!
I loved your story Stephen you need to write a book on your family and how you all did things on your farm
Oh my goodness! How I LOVE your story Stephen!! It is so Incredibly Amazing, Interesting and BEAUTIFUL!!
You REALLY Should write a book!! And a Fantastic movie!! I can even see it winning an Academy Award!! Especially if you get Ron Howard to direct and James Newton Howard to compose the film score!!
This Country desperately needs a truly Beautiful Human Interest movie right now to remind people of the Beauty of LIFE, LOVE and FAMILY VALUES!! I believe these three things also contribute to Health and Longevity, in a REALLY BIG way!! You have a gift for writing! Writing your story… Could be your Calling!!
Think about it!
-A fellow Buckeye! 🙂
I’m sitting in Starbucks reading Stephen’s comment all teary eyed. It reminds me of the stories my 1st generation American parents use to tell me about when I was growing up. Yes you are a wonderful story teller. I would love to know more.
I lost weight when I started eating balanced meals made of whole foods–which includes full-fat dairy, red meat and all the other full-fat food examples you mention in your post. Thanks for sharing your family history Danelle!
I too agree with what you say and remember my great grandparents and grandparents. Some died in their 90s some in their 100s so I agree and live like your are talking about …Well, I don’t kill my yard birds but need to grow some for that purpose. I have a habit of naming them my downfall. Great story.
I agree that we need to get back to eating real food. There use to be a time when food was life- giving, Now most food seems to be life draining resulting in the so-called modern diseases (which amazingly can be controlled by diet) that are killing us. When we can no longer obtain “nourishment” from our food whats the point of eating?
Just a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw great style and
design.
Wanted to mention a few other things. People years ago relied far more on herbal remedies than they do now which have been proven to be better than the synthetic drugs if not equally effective. A lot of herbs were regularly consumed as food and gathered from the wild. They are rich in vitamins and minerals–something processed foods lack (or they are enhanced with synthetic vitamins). The body recognizes real food!
Also studies have shown when animals are raised naturally–cows pasture/grass fed and chickens free range–not only is the meat and milk LEANER but higher in nutritional value. Eggs from free-range chickens are better for you….not to mention larger and taste very different than the cage raised. I have purchased eggs from a friend who has a free range flock….store bought eggs are nothing in comparison! I got some for my mother and she said those eggs tasted like they did when she was a child they bought from “the egg man”.
Also wanted to mention that not only are farmers growing GMO crops….they are also growing HYBRIDS. Hybrids are not all bad….however. Many have been developed to produce more crop, like corn. When a plant grows more “fruit” it needs to be taller…..which has the side effect of a shorter root system. Heritage crops….those used for many years and have not been altered, are shorter, but have deep roots…..which break below the nurient depleted topsoil and into the layer where the nutrients are Results? Better taste and better nutrition.
Someone mentioned coffee as a no-no….just wanted to put out there that coffee in its pure organic form and not abused in an HERBAL. I use it for milder asthma flares and it WORKS. Far better than inhaling sythetics or steroids.
One thing our ancestors did a lot of was “make their own”–which is far better! Homemade vinegar contains the “mother” and is a raw food and not generally pasteurized. Commercial vinegar (save some like Braggs) has the mother removed and is pasteurized, killing the natural bacteria that makes it healthy. Commercial beers remove the brewer’s yeast in processing–home brews give one the choice to leave it in, adding the benefit if B vitamins which our bodies need. These are only a few examples. All told, commercial processing, factory farms and modified crops have stripped away what our ancestors took for granted. Can it be changed? Yes, if we stand up and demand it….and in the meantime have as much control as possible over what we consume.
I have been doing family history myself and have walked more than one local graveyard and found ancestors’ tombstones. While I did find those who died tragically young, I found far more that lived into at least their 70’s. In more recent generations–my great grandmother lived to 96 and her mind was still sharp and active. One of her sisters lived to 100, her other sister 103, and her neice 100. I also had an aunt that passed in the last few years at 102. At 100, when someone marveled at her age, she replied how she had had such a wonderful and happy life. She remained active in the church and community and was still in her own home when she passed. My best friend’s mom is 92 and just recently gave up baking for the weekly farmers market….but is still taking orders! She is Dunkard Brethren and has always lived simply. Her diet is simple and she is very health concious. In more recent generations–Mom is 78 and is only on one prescription medicine which is amazing for the age. She has always been diet concious and we were raised on home cooking. Dad has more health issues and unfortunately has insisted on high sugar/processed foods for himself which she does not partake in. My father’s stepmother is 92 but went through breast cancer among other health issues. His sister is only alive due to medication…..she had several silent heart attacks in her late forties and was disagnosed with congestive heart failure in her early 50’s. They grew up on garden produce–lots of veggies and brown bread…..my father decided he wasn’t eating that way. My aunt also is diabetic and has glaucoma. My only remaining grandmother is actually in better shape at 92 than she is at 73. I know the scourges of my family well–stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure and only one known case of cancer which took Mom’s maternal grandmother at 56. Also many on Mom’s side have had or have arthritis (more than one case crippling)…..which in my thinking is worse than death. I am working on researching PREVENTION as I do not want any of the above–especially arthritis! Turned back to simple cooking, and regularly see a chiropractor for the issues already present in my spine. Wish all of you well in your journey! It is possible to turn our lives around for the better!
Thanks again for the article post.Much thanks again. Keep writing.
Unfortunately nearly no one can have the same diet today as they did back then, why because the women did the “killing” and cooking, it was fresh and healthy, not full of nasty additives and hormones from meat factories, now women have real jobs, they don’t have time today to rear their chicken kill it and prepare it! Same thing with fruit and vegs, they were all organic, now we eat so much toxins and additives and GMOs it’s what’s making us ill. We can never go back to this sort of real food ancestors diets.
Not entirely, more because of the chemicals in the food chain. However, women worked a lot harder then than they do now and DID have time. We have so many conveniences they did not! If clean food is a priority, there is a way…..even if it’s cutting out just half of the junk. One needs to learn to read labels, find organic sellers (better yet, grow your own….people are even doing it in containers on balconies and rooftops) and patronize local butchers with their own herds. I grow my own veggies, and have turned to buying simple foods and making things from scratch in large bathes and freezing, drying veggies in a small dehydrator, and have found sources for whole foods. I am also a single parent and work. It CAN be done, even if just small steps at a time.
I have to remind myself not to take offence 🙂 I have a full time job, raise my son with my husband, grow our own veggies and meat and run a CSA farm for 20 other family’s. It’s possible we just need to get our horses in order as my great aunt would say 🙂
Hi, I love your quote from your great great great grandma about her ‘day’- have you put nay more of her diary online? I’d love to read more about her everyday life!
People used to expend a lot more calories in daily living than we do now. Their clothes and shoes were heavier, so they burnt more calories just moving. Everything was heavier – dishes, pots and pans, laundry – and they did everything manually whereas most of our everyday living needs are automated or semi-automated. They hauled water or pumped water, and heated it for laundry and bathing and then had to haul out of the tubs after it was used. They walked everywhere, or bicycled later. They burned up their food calories, didn’t store them like we do, plus their food was real, didn’t have a lot of chemicals in it.
As interesting as this is, we should understand that it is largely anecdotal. I enjoyed reading about everyone’s ideas, and ancestors. It is satisfying to hear about the long and productive lives, and wish that for everyone here. However, statistics and history are not science, and the speculations of what resulted in these “long” lives, are still just speculations. At the end of each of those lives, no matter how long that was, has been a final step into eternity. 80, 90, or even 100 years is nothing compared to our ultimate life with God, our maker … or, sadly, without him. Regardless of our diets and lifestyles, he ultimately determines our lifespans – and our eternal lives. During all of our attention to eating and living habits, we must pay even more attention to our walk and relationship with God. Many of our ancestors knew that quite well, and it may have even contributed to their earthly lifespans. Let’s take care of that while we can, and someday we will even see them again, and ask them about these things first hand.
Thanks Stephen. That is a message we all need to hear over and over. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and we should treat them as such rather than abusing them but, as you point out—our life is in His hands.
No disrespect to your beliefs, but be clear that they are just that- beliefs. Religion, too, is anecdotal, not science. The concepts and beliefs about eternal life are also speculation. While belief in a god may help some live a happier or more peaceful life, and prayer (meditation) may be soothing, neither are proof of a god or afterlife. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. You find out after you die!
Jesus resurrection is Proof as well as his fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies concerning his birth, life, and death. There is more proof for the existence of God than most scientific theories taken as fact. You have a complete misconception about faith. It is not void of proof but rather a response to it. Stephens comment is right on the money.
Well Julie, I died once and spent more than half an hour with Jesus. I guess that’s the proof you asked for. I have studied His book in depth and found it really is a history (HIStory) book. The Red sea crossing of the Israelites leaving Egypt has been found as well as Mount Horeb where God spoke the ten commandments from. I can speak for an hour about the crucifixion and tie Soloman and Jeremia into it as well. To me, He is NOT anectdotal…..He is VERY REAL! I hope you can find Him, too.
Thank you Julie. Very well said.
I have done my family history since age 16, am 52. I agree with all who have mentioned the ylongevity. It appears to me that if the survived the “measles, small pox, childbirth”, then the lifespan is 70-95.
I’m catching hints in the discussions about sedentary lifestyles. I agree! This is a LEARNED lifestyle. My parents never called in help but always did it themselves. They taught us to do that as well. And we are people who have patience and the minds to stick in there and do it. Some do not believe in themselves. Recently mother had a bleeding ulcer and had worked outside all day cleaning up her flowerbeds from ffall leaves. The ER Dr. Asked her what he had been doing that day and when she said raking her flower beds…I could tell I needed to step in and inject a clarification. This 80 yearold does not mean a 4′ patch of petunias. She has a home sitting on 6 acres, filled with trees. Its all relative.
Also, for the majority of americans, poor or rich, we no longer have to fight on a daily basis for mear survival, do we. I believe that once that struggle, or the thought of it was not “just around the corner” our concentration on necessities changed. We got lazy. When in the face of plenty…of time, money, fuel, food, we are gluttonous.
To add a bit more, I never seem to have time for routine trips to the gym for machine exercise. I know I shoiuld. I’m a single mom. So I’ve recently downsized, do tons of lifting, climbing, as much of my oewn work in gardens and on the house. I’m over weight by 75 lbs. My chol., sugars, pulse, bld pressure are better than best! DNA. Attempting to go back to more vegies…like I grew up and lived until 10 years ago.
Yes, we can change our mindset. REWRTE YOUR STORY, USE TH POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING or whatever you call it.. our bodies are remarkably adaptive.
By the way, da plays a major roll in how this all affects us.
Thank you so much for breaking this down for us! I just had a lively debate with my uncle (after telling him I’m getting ready to drop sugar and processed food from my diet), and he insisted that the reason that we have so much cancer, diabetes, etc now is because people are living much longer and therefore have more time to develop these diseases. He says that cancer was very prevalent in the old days, but was called by a lot of other names, because people didn’t always know it was cancer. He actually told me I would be WORSE OFF by going of sugar/ boxed food……what??
Also- my great, great, great, ……….(several greats) grandfather who died in 1881 was 93 years old. 😉
I’m in the Medical Profession. I even hear of old Italian guys who ate raw pork and chain smoked until 96 (but then died of a stroke).
There may INDEED be something to the Atkins (or at least Paleo) Diet.
But it is not ONLY Infant Mortality, but also Maternal (Childbirth) Mortality, and Infectious Diseases such as Smallpox and Measles which are, and Should be prevented with Vaccines. Also, Clean water and lack of malaria and yellow fever mosquitoes (at least in the First World) along with antibiotics and antituberculosis regimes, have ALL increased lifespan. Cars were Dangerous, but now are quite a bit safer. Even some CANCERS are being cured (Childhood leukemia and Hodgekins) and others prevented (Cervical with the pap smears, colon with colonoscopies) and I DO NOT Condone Smoking, most do NOT get away with it. There are quite a few type one diabetics and they now survive. There are, unfortunately, MANY more Type 2s due to the Obesity epidemic.
I loved your article.
There is a growing mountain of reports from studies linking most of the illness and obesity we face to all the manmade junk we eat and ingest through lungs and skin. You body is made to process lard not margarine
I wanted to add that one reason… probably the main reason… infant mortality rate was higher prior to the 1920s was simply do to more pregnancies. It’s just good mathematics. If the average woman in 1901 became pregnant 7-15 times in her life it would stand to reason the chances of her having one or two children that died were greater than a woman who may become pregnant 1-3 times. Not to mention, I’m sure if you counted abortion the infant mortality rate would be much higher now than in times past. I was very encouraged by this post and your site. We have just under an acre but I am looking to do what we can on it. We already have six Khaki Cambells brooding that we will keep for eggs as well as a few black walnut trees.
My mother will be 93 next month. I think the problem now days is all the junk that’s put in our food, nothing is fresh.
Exactly, I believe its the preservatives in the food itself.
Not only did they eat better and work harder but some were even obese while doing it! My great grandmother and her mom and her mom were all hefty robust women and lived to their 80’s and 90’s. One of my 7th Great grandmothers died at 96 and is recorded to have weighed 300 lbs.
Interesting point, very often in old photos the women are quite round! They could probably still run circles around us.
Noted the same here.
Good post! I found it really interesting. I didn’t realize that our ancestors lived about as long as we do now, so that was good to learn.
I love this real look at food. I can not tell you how tired I am of cleanses, smoothies,paleo,low carb, gluten free, vegan, macro etc. My ancestors came from England across the plains in The Mormon handcart companies to settle in Lehi, Utah.Through our generations of LDS people we have the word of wisdom. Most non LDS know about the parts that say no alcohol, tobacco, coffee etc but what most don’t know and even many in our faith forget is the other side that says..each much fruit and vegetables in season, eat grains of all kinds and eat meat in smaller amounts but all of this shall be for thy good ( not exact wording) the promise is we will run and not be weary and that includes exercise. I shake my head when I see women at church jump on the latest bandwagon of diet fad. My own Relief society president did a bizarre cleanse that ended in a mechanical foot bath cleanse. It is such a joy for me to see real food and those foods our past family was raised on. My gpa came from Alabama an always ate soups and stews and veggies filled meals and fried chicken. He lived to 91. Everything God has given us is there for a purpose and part of me feels when it come to our foods we think we are some how smarter…engineering, altering and adding strange empty things to it to feed more. If we had gardens and learned our pioneering traditions..maybe watched a bit less walking dead and a bit more working for our well being we wouldnt have to find ways to feed more people with less land and less nutrition. Thank You for being real.
Great article. Yes, I always knew the “low life expectancy of our ancestors” rhetoric was BS. I recall an author who was doing research @ 15 years ago for a book set in the past. He came across this very information much to his surprise. In addition, he also discovered that it was not uncommon to see a 50 (not a 40) year old woman with a new born in her arms. Granted the infant mortality rate was high but what does this say about the our progression as a species? Today we have women in their 30’s going into menopause! Cancer everywhere. Try to find even a young person today with a beautiful, full, head of hair. We are definitely evolving into something else.
I agree. We are becoming the Homo stressfulis with no real meaning is our lifes!
This is a great article…my family history is one of longevity. Many members lived well into their 80s and my mother in 2014 is 95. As a rule medical attention was minimal until it was mandatory to see a doctor annually and follow some protocol for an anticipatory disease that later was found to be false.
The idea of either health or sickness being primarily dependent on the presence or absence of matter is clearly overly simplistic. Infect 100 people with the influenza virus and only 10-15 of them will actually become ill. The materialistic assumption that our health mainly depends on exercise or on what we eat or avoid has been proven to be wrong. Ellen Langer has conducted all kinds of experiments with elderly people who were instructed to imagine that they were living in the 1950’s again, being surrounded by all kinds of artifacts from that era. After a few weeks they all started to feel more alive and energetic, they stood taller and it was also possible to actually measure the symptoms of becoming younger again (joints started working better again; eyesight improved, etc.) . Simply because of the power of convictions and imagination.
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My grandmother lived to be 100. She ate bacon grease sandwiches and she had biscuits, gravy and sausage every morning. She always got up at 5 and went all day I never saw her take a nap.
While doing genealogy I found many people in the old days died from war, flu epidemics and starvation
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So true! Real food is good! What’s changed besides the food in the last 100+ years? Our sedentary lifestyle. They didn’t sit and watch TV, play video games or go to the drive thru. They worked, and moved all day! Or they didn’t eat! Our poor lifestyle choices and lack of physical movement are just as harmful as processed foods!
So so true! My grandmother lived on a farm and ate lard, whole raw milk, and eggs straight out of the chickens butt! She ate real butter and plenty of it! She died in 2006 at the ripe age of 100!
Howdy! I’m really interested in learning more about the journal entry from 1901. There are only four pages of results in Google, with the majority being Facebook and Pinterest posts and a few blog posts. Interestingly, this blog post on this website (weedemandreap.com) is the linkback given when references are cited, and it is also the earliest reference to this journal entry that I can find.
Might this be from a book or personal relative or some other source not indexed by Google?
(I wanted to be clear that I’m not doing this with the intention of disproving or proving anything. I love facts, and metadata about those facts. If I can’t find them, I look for them, and snopes.com and straightdope.com are my constant companions.)
Thanks for any insight or direction you can provide! Also, thank you for the information on lard. I’ve been trying to get the lowdown on saturated fats and the respective virtues and uses of lard vs butter, coconut oil, EVOO, etc. This post has been helpful in providing historical context.
Have a grand day.
Hi Chris,
It’s a journal entry from my great-great-great grandmother Martha Lindsey. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time it’s been on the internet.
AWESOME. Page!
Very interesting post.. With all the junk we are fed these days its any wonder we are living as long as we are. For a long time now I have been changing what I eat and exercising at the same time. Today we spend way to much time in front of the tele and on the pc.. Its funny in Australia they are now trying to raise the pension age because apparently we are living longer, you just disproved that concept, we actually are not living longer but too many of us are now surviving childhood…
I think this really needs to get out more!! They grew the food baked the food killed the chickens they raised. Which all means no pesticides other than natural ways, put their fresh ingredients into what they cooked not processed with stuff God doesn’t even know what it is. And their chickens weren’t full of hormones. I have been taking back control of my family and now take the time to bake my own breads and homemade pastas. I throw a little bacon grease into the mix too! And we started gardening. Time to take it back is so right!
And to boot–the QUALITY of their lives was likely much better until their deaths. The numbers we tout as long life are prolonged illness-based in many cases. 🙁
This is fantastic. Thank you. I’ve always said: keep it real, but keep it sensible. And most importantly, listen to your body: it’ll tell you the difference between a craving and a requirement, and when bandwagon-healthy is or isn’t personally-healthy. Great article. 🙂
Hi – my great grandmother lived until she was 93. Her daughter died at 78, my mother was 74 and I am at present 66. I see a decline in the length of lives – can that be due to the advent of a) motor vehicles, b) preservatives in food etc and c) the lack of physical work! I am trying very hard to aspire to the self-sufficiency life and try very hard not to use processed food at all. It is not easy!
Love this post as this is something I’ve been reading and researching on for years now, that eating a real food-based, balanced diet and not demonizing various real foods only to replace them with overly processed, “fake” foods, is a much healthier and more enjoyable way to live and eat. Both sets of my grandparents all lived into their 90’s, ate very little processed food, cooked from scratch and ate in the majority of the time. They ate meat, eggs, used butter, ate full-fat foods and drank alcohol in moderation. I’ve also researched my family tree and found the same results you did DaNelle, with many of my ancestors living into their 70’s, 80’s and even to 100 years of age, dating back as far as the late 1500’s. The ones who died younger were due to unnatural causes, or child-birth or diseases such as the flu pandemic.
As a personal chef and culinary instructor my whole passion and focus is to inspire and teach people that cooking from scratch, using real foods is not only so much better for you but is enjoyable, rewarding, doesn’t have to take tons of your time and tastes delicious!
Love your website and your story! The more of us out there spreading this message, the more the public becomes aware and starts to make changes in their own cooking and eating habits, then the more the food producers are forced to change their ways and products to suit consumer demands.
An old woman died a few years back at my apartment complex .Apparently she died without anyone who valued her because ALL of her possessions were thrown in the dumpster after her passing. I took out the trash and right on top was a large sheaf of letters all in chronological order. These letters start in 1942, ended in 1945 or 1946 and were written to the woman that died by her younger sister. Also there were letters to the mother of the young women and letters from the Mom to the woman that died written when she would stay and help out ate younger sister. The paper was folded in quarters so you could write small on all 4 sides to save on paper. Paper cost money. I have since tried to find the womans relatives. I was unable to do that so I contacted the historical society and they did not want them. It is such a shame because this is a vivid and accurate account of how middle America farmers and people in small towns lived back then, Believe me they endured stress. The younger sister was very young, little more than a teenager. She had an appendectomy that the new town doctor was giving to everyone in town. It seems she never really healed up from that operation and then she got pregnant. She did not wish to tell anyone until she was fairly far along in her pregnancy because women had so many miscarriages. She was forced into total bed rest about a month before her baby was born so her Mom having no real home of her own left where she was and came to help out. During the 10 days that she was in the hospital after the birth of their first child her husband bought a refrigerator that his mother was selling because she had just lost her restaurant. The refrigerator ran on coal. When the mom and husband came to get her from the hospital they ended up stuck in town because their car broke down. By the time they got back to the farm the refrigerator had stopped working after blowing coal dust all over the walls, rugs and white curtains that had to be washed by hand and all of the food in it was stinking rotten. There is way to much information about how this young woman and the members of her community lived to relate here. Suffice it to say these peoples lives were incredibly hard. The husband tried farming , he tried raising cattle, when he was finally able to afford a pickup truck he kept making trips to Colorado to chop fire wood and bring it back to sell. Despite this couples best efforts they lost the farm. At the end this young woman had a cat that she loved and she was constantly trying to justify feeding it even the table scraps. After the loss of the farm the husband found work in Texas and it sounds like he had started drinking heavily and perhaps fooling around with other women. The young woman and her small son had to beg a church member that they did not like very well for a place to stay in their basement. The letters end with her being heartbroken, sick in spirit, very ill and once again pregnant. I think she died at the very young age of 23 years old. These people did not relieve their stress by milking the cow and scrubbing out the laundry on a washboard. That idea is just plain silly. It might act as a way for us to relieve stress today but back then these things were just one more hard thing that had to be done if your family was going to have clean clothes to wear or food to eat. It did not matter how sick you were or how tired. These people lived with as much or more stress than we do.
That is an amazing story and a great basis for a novel:) I have always enjoyed hearing stories from older individuals, especially those who grew up with next to nothing. The stories of their hardships and lives are incredibly interesting to me. Most likely due to my lack in grandparents….but a year ago I started researching my family history and realized that all of my ancestors came from poor farming families who had more than 5 children each. In particular my great great grandmother Cora, she was born into a family of 9 during the early 1900’s. They were farmers and endured the harsh dusty weather of Oklahoma without running water or electricity, when Cora was still young with many siblings her father was hit and killed by a train not far from their home. A year later she became pregnant with a local mans child and that man named Bill, married her soon after. They divorced, I believe, before 1920 and she was a single mother with a daughter and no means of support from family. In 1920 she married a man named Richard and had another daughter(my great grandmother) Irene. Richard died of Pneumonia in 1923, leaving her a widow and again with no means of support with an added mouth to feed. So she started work in fields for neighbors, knocking on doors for odd jobs, and raising animals and a small farm of her own to feed her young girls. She had a smokehouse to slaughter her animals, she canned her fruits and veggies and lived in a small home with 0 modern luxuries. Her and her oldest daughter Suzie worked outside while Irene preformed housework from a young age. This is just one example of the hardships my own ancestors faced, and I am grateful to have such hard working people in my lineage. I myself own a farm and am working on it constantly. I think everyone should research their family history, it makes you grateful they existed, without them you wouldn’t be here.
I’m just reading for the first time. Hope you have preserved these letters. If you have, and stillbwish to donate them, consider a local Uniiversity. Their history department will have an interest in them as well as the women studies department
I don’t think stress killed this woman. I think she was already incredibly sick, thanks to what was considered an advanced medical procedure, in the ’40s.
Very enlightening article. I had never considered that the infant mortality rate skewed life expectancy statistics so much. Thanks.
My great grandmother who I remember well was half American Indian and lived up in the hills without running water or electricity. She had a small farm and slaughtered her own animals for food and grew her own fruits and vegetables. She had 9 children and one of them she went into labor with while harvesting her fruit trees. After she had the baby the next day she was out finishing her harvest and canning them. Amazing! The day she died in her late 70s she was out tilling her garden. She went in to take a nap and never woke up. She worked hard her whole life and even smoked her hand rolled cigarettes like a chimney. Such a tough lady.
Wow, I love stories like this!
My grannie was born and raised in the hills of kentuckey, she ate lard,and fat back , smoked pork hocks. She passed away four days after her 99th birthday.
When you mentioned what foods to eat, you just wrote “…grains…” and not WHOLE grains. Our ancestors ate WHOLE grains. And they were able to consume all of those calories from whole milk and bacon and lard because they worked their butts off all day long! They burned way more calories then we do today. Americans are so incredibly sedentary today. That’s why we have so many people with type 2 diabetes and hypertension and coronary artery disease. If we burned 4000 calories today we too would be able to consume all of those calories and not get fat and therefore not get those diseases. Because you failed to mention this this article means nothing and shows how ignorant you really are. Also I have learned recently that quite a few Native American people and descendants of them cannot tolerate cow’s (including allergies AND lactose intolerance) and if/when they consume any cow’s milk product it is very detrimental to them(especially if they are allergic to it). Anyways, nice try though!
Alisa,
Good morning, I will keep it short. Hopefully since you wrote your response back in 2013, you educated yourself in knowing it was the “full fats” that the body can assimilate and not the processed milks and foods. It is the meat, cheese, raw milk, etc that is what is good for the body. Has been proven time and time again that “fat doesn’t cause people getting fat” nor does it ever cause clogged arteries etc, so maybe it was you who was a bit uneducated at the time you wrote your response. Geez…some people but I will pray for your better understanding of things.
Not to mention that the author actually did mention how our ancestors worked, and lived, in like the first paragraph.
I’d go back. Remove the genentically modified and unreadable ingredients and cook what I grow naturally. Yes, that is the way it should be.
Yep, PA turned 104 this month: https://www.facebook.com/amy.harris.33234571/posts/10151939690933192
A great article. One quibble I have is that you mention the decrease of infant and childbirth deaths and those from accidents and infections and the rise of cancer and heart disease and say this points to problems in our diet. The decrease of one death cause and the rise of another are not related. Just because the percentage of people dying during childbirth is down, SOME other cause has to rise to the top. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there are MORE of the new top killer. There will always be a top killer, thankfully the number of people dying early has gone done over the past 100 years (which was your first point) diet has nothing to do with a decrease in early deaths.
Whole *real* foods are of course better than processed ones, but my ancestors never ate bacon or lard or any pork products. They ate Kosher foods, full-fat, unprocessed and real foods. My grandma lived to 105 and never touched a pork product in her life. So, it’s not the pork, it’s the real, whole foods and, including good fat and excluding processed,GMO and chemical-laden fake “food.”
One can appreciate a more traditional, real food diet and not consume pork.
I don’t think the point was the pork, I’m pretty sure it was just the whole, real foods. It’s just that things like bacon and lard are some of the most common ‘taboo’ foods today that people get all freaked out about but that many of our ancestors ate a lot of. Pigs are pretty easy to raise, so for people without restrictions against eating pork they became a staple food source.
The daily chores they did back then burned off much more calories than doing the same things today – washing, drying and ironing clothes, washing and drying dishes, having no indoor plumbing involved walking outside to the outhouse several times a day and carrying water, preparing meals was more labor intense, stoking fires for heating and cooking, cleaning the house (no nifty vacuums and swiffer sweepers back in the day), all these and more involved much more physical labor burning off many more calories, There were no cars, so people walked a lot more into town if they live close by, or had a horse and buggy, which also involved more physical labor than anyone has to do today.
The foods that are killing us are the ones with all the fillers. They make a cheap product, with all kinds of chemicals to make more it to sell at a cheap price. Our body’s were not created to handle all those chemicals. I am sure lard back then has less ingredients than today!
This is an interesting thesis, but is certainly not a scientific argument. I know one man, now in his 70s, whose male ancestors as far back as he could trace all died before they were 55. One could argue that SOMETHING in modern life is treating him better than his ancestors. It’s purely anecdotal in that case as well, though. If you go back before the industrial revolution, record keeping was quite spotty. None of this can be construed as a dismissal of the benefits of a simple organic diet, it just doesn’t prove anything either.
To be fair, though, the first 22 U.S. presidents lived longer, on average than the last 22, even though there were more assassinations, and in-office deaths with the first, than the last (Btw, I’m only not including Trump, because his first fiscal year starts Sunday). There is outstanding evidence favoring the article.
I can think of several big differences between the days of our grandparents and great grandparents (I’m 52, by the way). Yes, they worked a lot harder for what they had. But they also had a whole lot LESS to maintain. Think about it. One (unless one was wealthy and could hire someone or purchase ready-made) had to make everything they had. Clothing. Food. Even tools and their house. To be sure they didn’t have tons of stuff cluttering up their lives to maintain and care for. They were limited to what they needed and could handle. This also applies to food…I don’t think they ate as much as we do now, by comparison. Meat was a precious commodity (thinking of the saying Chicken every Sunday….that was a big deal). They also used ALL of the animal…the bones for broth, the hides for clothing and other goods, ate the internals. I think of an article I read on how bone broth sustained people during times when food was scarce. We also did pickling (REAL pickling, which was a form of fermentation, not just sticking something in vinegar). Our vinegars had life in them…they were not pasteurized to kill all the germs and then strained to get the culture out of them. We were eating LIVE food. We were getting the dirt and sand from the soils into our systems (I know that sounds almost ridiculous, but there’s evidence that our diets are deficient in silica and other minerals found in soil). By proportion, people ate more vegetables, grain and fruits. Animal protein was stretched by making soups and stews. I’ve started doing that and it’s amazing how much broth comes out of it and how far it stretches. In general, people preserved their own food, using much more natural methods than used now (chemical preservation and additives). The old timers were much more self-reliant and in turn, had much more pride and feelings of self-esteem. Granted, life was hard and stressful. One depended on the land and the weather and lived much closer to and were impacted more by nature. Then again, they also knew to expect this and learned to “put food by”….preserving for the lean times. And since the food was REAL and alive….they could survive quite nicely on less of it.
If our ancestors would come to our time and see the amount of food that is there, the amount of food that is thrown away, the amount of food wasted….they would probably not believe it. With the introduction of the factory farm, food could be processed much faster (everything is geared to fast profit). Forget grazing cattle on grass which takes up to a year and a half to be ready for market. Feed them grain (which is NOT natural food for cattle and messes them up royally). The farmer couldn’t keep up with the expected level we consumers are used to. We are surrounded by food. By food commercials. By restaurants. If our ancestors wanted a pie, cake or bread, chances are they had to make their own…which takes time. I don’t think they would relish baking to meet the amount we consume now in our “instant” society. There was no mindless snacking then in front of the TV. Chances are there was no mindless snacking at all. Food and its sources were valued, cherished and protected. People were a whole lot less wasteful.
Another thing that’s a big difference is they did not have the MEDIA. Think about how much stress that alone generates…not only in the advertising, but hearing in an instant, all the bad that is happening all over the globe. Before globalization, people didn’t hear about everyone else’s goings-on. They were limited to their own little corner of the world, which is more than enough for a human to handle.
As has been pointed out in earlier posts, they also had real communities, and family more often than not stayed close to each other. They looked out for each other.
I’ve looked at my own family tree and the graves of ancestors. Some died in infancy. Some in their teens and twenties and I wonder why. Many made it into their 70’s and 80’s. I believe a lot of longevity has to do with genetics (postulated in the books by Dr Peter D’Adamo https://dadamo.com). I think everything we have all discussed…genetics, pollution, processed foods vs. real foods,…they all are part of the equation…none are a cure all to end all. Certainly, eating live foods from organic sources (or making/growing our own) and avoiding all the commercially processed foods will go a long way in keeping us healthy and free of a lot of the diseases that plague our modern society.
Bacon, lard, and whole milk… and huge amounts of salt, another modern no-no that didn’t hurt in traditional diets for hundreds of years. People typically preserved their foods in brine and huge amounts of salt before refrigerating mechanical systems became available. Fermentation was another critically important food preservation method that has virtually disappeared from our modern diets, yet provided critically important enzymes that contributed to disease-proofing and overall health. Omega 3 fatty acids were prevalent in traditional diets as well through free-ranging poultry eggs and meats. And back to whole milk: it was raw, living, unadulterated pure whole milk that was not destroyed by homogenization and pasteurization. Our modern diets have been stripped of vital enzymes, minerals, and vitamins *on purpose* in the name of “food safety” that’s in fact killing us all! Great article, although I don’t think it went far enough to spell out all the dramatic differences on what has sustained humankind for thousands of years and what people can buy in grocery stores today.
And when people were overweight they didn’t care because it was just the way it was! Not much body image issues in those times. Not a lot were obese though because of all the activity, exercise, and fresh air they got because they HAD to do it to live and survive…
Didn’t people sleep under the stars, during the summer?
My grandmother cooked chicken the same way. She made biscuits using lard and buttermilk. The lard was bought (also hams and bacon sides) for the smokehouse, and the buttermilk was a by-product of the butter Grandma churned. We had ham or bacon and fresh-laid eggs for breakfast most mornings and for dinner (noon) we had vegetables from the garden or home-canned and fried chicken or other meat. The late afternoon meal was usually leftovers from dinner or soup. But everyone worked. Grandma washed, ironed, cooked, cleaned, preserved, and patched. I never saw her sitting down during the day unless she was working with her hands, at night it would be reading the bible. I was a very little girl then, but I remember the food, and the way of life.
I LOVE IT THAT I HAVE FOUND A SITE SUCH AS THIS THAT BELIEVES THE WAY MY FATHER AND HIS FATHERS FATHER BELIEVED. I KNOW THAT I WOULD LIVE MUCH LONGER AND IN BETTER HEALTH EATING INSECTS, AND GRASSHOPPERS THAN EATING THE GARBAGE YOU BUY AT THE STORE APPROVED BY THE FDA.I DON’T MEAN TO SOUND NEGATIVE BUT AM FED UP WITH THE SYSTEM.
Yes, my grandparents and great-grandparents, etc. all ate this way. But they did not eat the portion sizes that we do these days. They also exercised a whole lot more than we do. They had no modern conveniences or desk jobs. They worked from sun up to sun down and their bodies were able to process all the fat. I dont recommend that we eat the way they did. We should eat as naturally as possible but I cant be convinced that the lard and cream are healthy for us except in small amounts.
I loved the old years my grandmother canned everything from fruit to meat.I remember her canning bear meat one year.I learned so much and now as live has become I can use her ways to survive healthier .If only the children of today could have experienced that way of life.Amen to our ancestor .I learned from an dear aunt Jess to sew & bake no patterns or recipe just do it she would say and you did somehow .You found a way to fix and work through what ever ~I miss those days .
I love this article!! In college my roomies were ALWAYS
(sorry, baby hit enter) to finish… were Always on some fad diet. I about died when they came home with pancake mix, reduced sugar syrup, and low fat margarine (among other similar products). I finally opened my big mouth and kindly let them know that moderation of real foods are much healthier than their low fat/low sugar/chemically enhanced processed versions. I actually had to pull up articles before they believed me.
Now if we could just get cities to be more lenient on raising our own foods. Certainly my quarter acre lot is large enough for a dairy goat!! They are smaller than many dogs. Wouldn’t that be lovely. To have not only eggs in the backyard but milk as well?
My wife’s paternal grandma lived just shy of 105 years old. She lived independently at home till the quiet end. She grew up and lived on a dairy farm. Heavy cream on cereal and for baking. Lots of beef and pork along with wild game.
Her maternal grandpa lived much the same way and lived to 104.
My dad, still living is 84, his dad died at 81, dads grandfather died at 81, dads great grandfather died at 81. Dads brother and sister died at 81.
Statistically, my wife will be a widow for 23.5 years or so – except she is fighting cancer at the moment.
We have several members of our small community fighting cancer. It’s a brutal battle. Prayers that your dear wife may come out victor.
Love this site. This article is so true. A lot of Dr. say eat this and that and we had the best milk cheese and vegetables with no addtives. All fresh and homemade. Still after all this so many have terrible painfull bones. We walked miles and exercised. Had no one transporting us everywhere. Had no cars. Had not Dr. except family who used heir cures that had been around for years. Years I believe the article on comparing ages then and now. Did physical hard work and thought nothing of it. . That was the way it was. So the medical field may have some good cures for infections .But the rest of their medicine is all guess work. Most don’t work. Yes we all did very very hard work. Today they don’t know what that is.
One thing to take into account is the amount of physical labor they did, while eating that type of natural diet. Today, we eat horrible imposter foods and spend 2/3 or more of our day sedentary. An 88 year old woman from 1900 would work any of us into the ground and kick up her heels at the barn dance later! lol
My grandmother lived in W.Va. on a 200 acre farm (dairy) had 12 children and lived to 105 & also took care of me for the first 5 yrs. so I guess she had 12!/2 kids.
Well. Why did she procrastinate and leave all those buttonholes and buttons for the last minute?
Haha!
HAHAHA, I thought the same thing!
She was too busy canning all of the summer veggies and fruits to sew!
I do really like this philosophy, however I have an ethical dilemma with it. I was buying raw milk for a while but I have an issue with the fact that calves are taken from their mothers at birth in order to provide milk for us. I could have my own cow and milk it myself, sure, but when it comes to taking calves from their mothers.. I’m not okay with that. I wish that I could get past this but I cannot!
They are not taken right away. The calf will die if it is take from it’s mother to soon & not allowed to be weaned properly. An ethical organic dairy farmer will not do that. So, if you are going to purchase raw dairy products, it would behoove you to thourhly research the dairy & the practices.
You keep the calf in over night to have the milk yourself the next morning, because a good cow gives more than the calf needs, and being with the cow all day should be plenty.
Yep!
Yes and no. It is true that infant death skewed the statistics of life expectancy numbers of the pre-20th Century world, but nowadays researchers take that into consideration. If you were an American living in the Victorian era, you didn’t have to worry about dying at 45, assuming you survived infancy you could expect to be around to 65 or 68. Back then a lot of adults would start dying in their late 50’s and 60’s because common things as diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure were not treatable. I’ve studied this by researching grave monuments in Victorian cemeteries in my city. Both my father’s parents (born in 1885 and 1891) died at age 58 and 54 respectively. One thing is clear: if you were wealthy and had access to the best doctors chances are you would live longer.
I beg to differ. My ancestors on both sides of my family lived to be in their 80’s and some into their 90’s. They were farmers & one great grandpa worked for the railroad in New Orleans. A lot has to do with genetics.
Actually, I’ve read Harvard studies that have said if you lived past infancy 2,000 years ago, you could expect to live into your 60s.
Last week I wrote a page long letter to the FDA about this very thing. My ancestors (my mom died at almost 90) lived to be ripe, old ages. Not because of what they ate, but because of how much they ate of it. I was taught to fry eggs and potatoes in bacon grease. We ate meat and fried food….chicken, pork-chops, sausage. We ate real butter, milk and cream and lots of rich desserts. We didn’t have health problems because we ate nothing that had been treated with chemicals, dyes, pesticides or preservatives. The majority of our fruits, veggies and herbs came right from our gardens and trees. We got dairy products and meat from local farms. We made our own jellies & jams, applesauce and horseradish, and canned (jarred) or froze enough food to fill two giant chest freezers and the root cellar every season. We baked our own breads and desserts. We made root-beer. We even made our own soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, dish & laundry detergent. We weren’t farmers. It’s just how we lived. The only store bought food I remember was cold cereal – corn flakes and Cheerios, a few seasonings and baking ingredients, and coffee & tea. We bought rice, grains, flour & sugar in bulk from the Amish. We rarely ate out. When we did it was either a formal dinner or at an Amish or Mennonite restaurant. (Only a few fast-food & restaurant chains were around.) I am so fortunate to have been raised around church ladies and good ole country cooks.
Sounds like a great life full of great food!
Wonderful story! My own granny was in her 80’s and her mom was 101. They may have eaten lots of fatty foods but that food was worked off. Working in the fields (or for my granny a huge garden). Fried food was the norm here in Indiana, freshly made bread and pies. Canning everything grown. I love graveyards call myself Stonner) and see the ages and have never understood why people thought everyone died so young. Yes there was death of the young but there was also old old age.
I am curious about one thing, where they cigarette smokers? most people in the 1990’s(i stopped checking after) that died at the age of approx. 100 years old WERE smoker(cigarette,cigar,pipe), if i said “were” it’s because most had stopped at there early 90’s years old. If i am saying so, it is because around 2001, i made search for lungs cancer, which were 1 in 10,000 in 1950 with almost 3 time more smokers, plus it they were smoking everywhere, tramways, buses even elevators. And in 2000, they was 9 people out of 10,000 that had lungs cancer but with a much less smokers and no smoking almost anywhere. This schematic was available in most well known health organizations…….and even in some non-smoker website, but when i started to go to some forum regarding those schematic, they slowly disapear for all website, they didn’t realized that they were actually saying that smoking was not responsible for lungs cancer. And for those with a low IQ, that are saying “well those dying today were smokers in the 1950’s and now dying today”…..Duh!! they were also smoking way before that. And as for the 9 out of 10,000, but with the 1950’s technologies, it would be probably 20 out of 10,000. I am no longer a smoker for the past 20 years, but i never believed the government, which knows that if people knew that it was the pollution causing lungs cancer, people would insist on respecting the Kyoto accord, which would be an enormous cost…..for now, but much more in 20 years !!
Yes that’s what they ate, but they also did not spend their days sitting – they worked physically all day long. I had an aunt who lived to 97. She had 20 children, and she was responsible for milking the cows morning and night, and making butter, and making bread, and walking around the village to deliver the cream and milk, and cooking for all that brood because her husband had to go away to work and only came home on weekends. So yes, eat like your ancestors but only if you work physically hard 10+ hours a day
I dont think pigs were grown in boxes and fed antibiotics back in the day…
There are other huge factors, our fields are severely depleted, our water is poisoned (by the state) almost all of the food we eat is exposed to some type of chemicals etc. Trying to eat right these days is nearly impossible. There is little to no chance of us eating like our grandparents did.
Back then they/we had real food and didn’t have to worry about GE/GMO-laden seeds and food, unfortunately we do now. People are getting sick because of it and companies like Monsanto are getting away with it with the law on their. It’s just despicable, especially since these foods/seeds are not allowed in Europe, etc without being labeled as such. Yet we as Americans are not given that right. I want REAL foods that are ensured to be free of GEs and GMOs. Chemical free foods/seeds for everyone and long lives for everybody!!!
I agree. My great aunt is a healthy 106 and still walking with a perfect posture I never have had. She she is alert and eats 3 hearty meals a day. Dresses to the nines everyday. Hair done, Nails done. Matching accessories. I don’t think she would still be around if she were eating GMO’s all of these years.
I am living proof that it works, going back to what my grandparents ate.
I am 55 and for the first time in 28 years can call myself skinny. I was sick in Feb of 13 which made me lose a few pound but then at that point I cut out all processes foods. When I started reading about what is allowed in the food we eat, it made me sick. And I do not want to talk about fast food places.. I want to be sick as to what they feed us.
I eat bacon and eggs, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, home made when I can, real mayo on everything, REAL BUTTER, the doctors say they have never seen any one eat the way I do and not have a cholesterol GOOD NOR BAD! If we go back and look at what people ate 100 years go and mimicked them, we would not have the health issues of today. I do not take much in the way of meds, once in awhile I take something for pain because of injurers that I have had. But if you look at my history I heal faster then most people because of my choose of how to eat… Stop letting these people kill us by what they feed us.
them days there were nothing in their food but all natural stuff these days we have a lot of stuff that doesn’t need to be in our food. that is what makes us sick
Ginger, I agree with you! Leave poor Anita alone! The government has brain washed all of these people into thinking that their tax money is paying for all the entitlments for low income or poor people, and said government says that we need to stop this wasteful spending on these poor people. Everyone contributes to taxes so if anyone needs some assistance it is available. Have we become so brainwashed that people will let other people starve to death and not recieve health care becasue “I as a tax payer,” are paying for that person. What about the huge salaries of the Government? What about their free healthcare, and they receive these benefits for life and they do not contribute to this Entitlement, and no one says a word about paying for the greedy employees of the government! Wake up people before it is to late to fix! We are all obligated to care and be compasionate to other humans as well as animals.
My grandparents lived on a pig farm. They ate pork everyday that they cured themselves. Yet, they both maintained healthy lives.
They ate well, they had a lot of stress, but what they did was constant action. Constantly moving, EXERCISE was the difference. As a diabetic I know that activity makes my blood sugar go down. Exercise keeps a heart in shape, it keeps the muscles firm, and keeps the whole body in better shape. They didn’t have to go to the gym. Household chores gave the women plenty of exercise and they didn’t just do household chores, the did outside chores as well. As for the men, well, life was hard work and more hard work. They often did not live as long as the women and that may well be why.
Some on here say we are sicker now because of stress. PLEASE! We’ve always had stress. The reason it BOTHERS us more now is we have become a generation of cry-babies! Nothing is ever supposed to bother us, is it? We are sick because of the greed of mega-corporations (and their back-pocket politicians) which are poisoning our food.
Yes, but nowadays it’s a different kind of stress. Then the stress was about making sure you had clothes on your back and food on the table, about getting the crops in and making sure the animals were taken care of, all those necessities for life–stress that led to being productive. Now the stress is about EVERYTHING… what kind of clothes you’re wearing, what kind of food you’re eating, how you look, what you weigh, is this celebrity going to get back together with that celebrity, and we are being constantly BOMBARDED with media pressures to be this or that or another thing, and I am starting to rant so I’ll stop this sentence now. Another factor is that nowadays people get almost no exercise or time outside, in the fresh air, in nature, which alone can do wonders to relieve stress and anxiety (I can personally attest to this; I’m genetically predisposed to anxiety and suffer heavily from it especially as a college student, but I have no trouble with it when I’m out in nature. I could have an exam the next day and no idea how I’m going to pay for next semester, but if I’m out mucking through a swamp or hiking in the woods, I don’t care at all). And of course no one thing is the be-all-end-all of any problem, especially this one!
Also, I completely agree with the issue of big corporations and government. Darn it all, Monsanto….!
Great article hut remember that the fat from a naturally raised animal is radically different than one raised on an industrial farm with radically different impact on your health.
My grandpa smoked Marlboros for 77 years and died at 99 lol.
My grandmother lived to be 94 and was widowed for her last 20 years or so. From what I remember I am sure she got up and didn’t worry about the condition of her hair or how she was aging…her hair was down to her waist and it went into a low bun. She wore house dresses and aprons…didn’t ponder in front of her closet…they had a nice sized vegetable garden, fruit trees, chickens and a huge freezer full of their food…they had indoor plumbing but also an outdoor pitcher pump and they hauled water outside if they needed it. Her kitchen smelled like soap and cookies. They ate whole foods but worked it off…they took a restorative afternoon nap…my grandfather was a miner which was very unhealthy…but he died of complications from falling off a ladder after fixing his roof….he was 76. They were busy and moved all day and didn’t react constantly to the sound of the cell phone beep reminders, texts and notifications etc. (although my grandma liked to watch wrestling on tv…she was something else!) Bottom line is they ate fresh food and moved all day and drank well water, had a maturing sense of acceptance, said their prayers and did their best, snored like bears at night. We remember them with love and that would have been everything to them and made their life a success. Sounds like nostalgia? Maybe….but it feels nice to remember this and her meals were awesome!! That’s fact.
My dad’s uncle Ambrose ate in one meal, a whole chicken, mashed potatoes and grease gravy, a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and a whole pie. He lived to be 109 years old. now that is one person at one meal. he never had any heart problems he died of old age.
The pharmaceuticals…medications…chemicals are killing us quicker than anything. Just about every living soul over the age of 50 takes ‘meds’ for blood pressure, cholesterol… is using some contraption for sleep apnea… today our stomachs are all ‘bloated’ (I think from artificial foods), My meager Senior income simply does not allow for decent, non-chemical food.
I’m 78 and do not think I’ll be around that much longer for various reasons… but my heritage is excellent. I attended my great-grandmother’s 103rd birthday party when I was a young child, I remember her high energy level. She danced with me… smoked cigarettes… drank wine. She died at 106 (from smoking? LOL)
My grandparents were younger. 98 and 99 respectively. My parents even younger. 85 and 75… so I figure I don’t have that much longer…frankly, with the way things are going politically… with this Moose Limb invasion…I’m really glad I’m on my way out!!!
I have heard that the infant death pre-1900 rate also included miscarriages, something that modern data doesn’t reflect. When we see old cemeteries with tons of “baby” headstones, many are from miscarriages as well.
This is because the food quality was much different back then. Today, we spray our vegetables, fruits, and lawns with poisons, which is not only toxic to the food itself, but also goes into our ground water. In most cases, the meats have come from factory farms where animals are pumped with all kinds of stuff and also where they live a horrible life of torture before they are sent off to their deaths for us to then ingest. Many people eat “foods” such as fast food and junk foods and the water is contaminated. Sorry to be so morbid, but that is the truth, and also one of the reasons why cancer is so prevalent today. The quality of our air, food, and water is vastly different than it was back then. Eat organic and know where your meat is coming from if you choose to eat it.
for one thing they worked hard so few were fat… the cattle didnt have all the hormones and drugs in them our meat has today…they were fed good clean food… people didnt know stress like today becasue they were to busy to be stressed… any stressed would have come with times of indian attacks or someone coming to try steal the cattle…but they didnt eat alot of sugar.. cakes were for special times… seldom did you hear of heart attacks…i think the garbage our food is fed today… is why so many have cancer and are so sick with other things..additives to the feed water and such….
Most of the food they ate was grown in gardens not processed with god knows what these days the put all kind of things in our animals to make the grow and go to market faster. screw around with other food to try to make something different. And yes working from daylight to dark was grueling work but in the end they knew what they had and how to conserve.
Back then people needed to eat well and a lot since they worked hard and needed it. As for stress. They worried about whether or not they would have enough food to last the winter, enough hay and grain to feed the livestock, enough wood to last the winter,enough money to buy things such as shoes and cloth, sugar, coffee and other things they couldn’t or didn’t grow themselves. Working 12- 14 or more hours a day was no picnic.
I want to reply to the article with a question for DaNelle: I have been known to use protein powders, mostly of whey, to supplement my diet, especially when working out and lifting weights a lot. This article says to avoid that? I would really like more information about that because the companies who manufacture it do a good job of selling it’s benefits. I am sure, also, that when I’m working out hard (which includes a lot of resistance training) that I need extra protein in my diet, and I like the idea of getting it without too much fat. Can you point me in the right direction, please?
I’m no expert, but maybe look for a local dairy or co-op for whey protein? I know we have it at the little farm market I get most of my food from, and it’s not processed or anything. But still a good protein and in powder form. Additionally grass-fed meats from heritage breeds (cattle, pigs, etc.) tend to be much leaner with higher protein value.
I believe way back when, that they worked hard and kept the things moving through their bodies. They ate what the good Lord made, unlike us today …….we eat crappy foods and a lot of us, me included, just don’t move like we should. They went from before daylight to after dark and eat the good food. I really believe our society today is lazy to a point, we eat convenience foods and as soon as we get home from our work, we sit down. Now, before anyone blasts me about being lazy, try to understand what I am saying…..it’s all to do with the lifestyles. My grandparents all were on up in years when they passed, my grandmother had a farm and she raised and killed her food and she lived into her late 70’s. We need to get back to real food, eat what The Lord makes, not what man makes.
BUT…they also worked harder back then, on farms, raising cattle and kids, a more difficult life. Working hard never hurt anyone.
Sounds like my mom. She had 11 children and lived to be 102. She too killed the chickens, fried them or made chicken and dumplings. Used Lard and buttermilk for her biscuits and lard in the cornbread. She lived alone until she was in her 90s, outliving 7 of her 11 children.
I sure do miss her!
This is great to read! Our life experience also indicates the same. My husband’s grandfather lived to the age of 106. His grandmother on the other side of the family lived to the young age of 108, and they ate all the real whole foods you mention!
I Have a question. Non traditional related. (Not trying to nitpick or be mean) You mentioned under the pictures your gr-gr-gr- great grandmother is Mary Sarah Ann Little. Then from the journal entry from 1901 you stated her name as Martha? Which is it? And so your 4x gr gma was 69 when she gave birth? Mary/Martha isn’t a nickname for either name.
The journal entry comes from a grandma from my mom’s side. Different person than in the pictures.
I think of this quite frequently. Most of my family (ancestors) grew up on farms. They raised the cattle, pigs, and poultry they consumed. They used the lard to cook with. They lived into their 80’s and 90’s. I feel they also worked and did not sit around allowing fat to just sit in their bodies. They burned it off from morning until night. We need to do more physically with our bodies in order to burn fat, not just try to consume lower fat items.
This is an interesting discussion, and I do NOT wish to “muddy the waters.” (I am afraid I will, anyway, though.)
An important fact to remember is that, prior to the 20th century, very, very few of the infants born with medical issues/problems survived. Those who were fortunate enough to make it past birth & infancy frequently did NOT live to adulthood. And those with early onset medical problems generally did not thrive . . . this is why Dickens’ story of Tiny Tim in “A Christmas Carol” is seen as both exemplary (“see what can happen, a ‘crippled’ child CAN live into adulthood if supported in childhood!”) AND somewhat miraculous.
Had my brother, who was a premature baby born in the second half of the 20th century, been born 100 years earlier, he likely would not be around today. Now, my brother is (reasonably) healthy. But many people who survive into adulthood nowadays are NOT so healthy. Those folks wouldn’t have been around skewing the adult illness statistics several generations back. Even 50 years ago, those with cancer (even if “caught” early) frequently just died (cancer was “the Big C,” and was thought of as a — more-or-less — immediate death sentence) because there were NO available interventions. No proven chemo therapies or radiation treatments, and surgeries that were seldom (if ever) successful. Another 50 years before that, diabetes was (similarly) almost impossible to control. It was NOT a manageable chronic condition (I spoke with a woman yesterday who just marked 50 YEARS of living with diabetes!). I don’t think I should have to remind anyone that just 25 years or so ago, HIV infections led (more-or-less immediately) to full-blown AIDS and a very early death.
My point (if I have one): many of the “chronic” conditions and maladies of contemporary life, issues that we (to some extent, correctly) blame on contemporary life-styles, are chronic simply because we have discovered the means to manage them. I (for one) would NOT want to go back to an earlier era when antibiotics were unknown and folks routinely died from infectious diseases, or heart disease felled millions much, MUCH sooner than it does today. I am not (particularly) a fan of historical religious practices, to be sure, but – given a choice between the religion and the MEDICAL PRACTICE of earlier eras, I have to say, “give me that old-time religion!” I could – I think – survive that. Blood-letting, leeches, no hand-washing (or rubber gloves) and unsterilized instruments used during surgeries . . . I’m not so sure . . .
they use leeches once in awhile today. I was born in 1944 and was diagnosed with epilepsy when I had a seizure in 1952. My folks were advised to put me in an institution. They said no! I found a neurologist when I was bout 28. Meds have controlled my seizures somewhat until about 10 years ago when new dr prescribed new meds that control seizures so much haven’t had one for years. I don’t like to think what would have happened had I been born late 19th century. I have been a contributing member of society; holding jobs and marrying. I have not been or wanted to be a burden as I learned hard work and respect from my parents who worked the family farm. Learned to love and appreciate animals. they were our assets. I raised chickens, killed them and plucked them. Had large gardens that we – bro, sis and myself – helped with. Mom canned a lot!
It’s the chemicals in the processed foods and the drugs the doctors think we should take, the sedentary lifestyle, the stress and the pollution tat’s killing most of us today.
Eating in moderation is the key to healthy living. The trans fat that is in meat, dairy and eggs is minimal. However, the trans fat that is in processed foods is considered by some doctors to be the worst kind of fat, as I mention in an article on my website (https://behindcurrentevents.com/archives/415). Clearly, we need to eliminate processed foods from our diet, and swap them for real food.
Night and day difference between food back then and food now a days.
They didn’t have to worry about all the stuff we have to now because their foods weren’t poisoned and crossbred with different plants. They weren’t using chemically treated and processed crap we have now a days, they didn’t feed their animals all these unnatural foods and forcing them to eat this chemically treated corn. Their animals were allowed to graze and roam on the farm freely not stuffed into a box with no where to go. They didn’t have “fast food” restaurants like we do.
There are a lot of things that that are completely different compared back then to now. Now we are forced fed poison in our foods. You can thank Monsanto and all these fast food chains that don’t care about anything but a buck and will skim on making foods safe and healthy so they can stretch every last penny they have while taking your money.
This is only HALF of the facts!!
The fats our ancestors were eating back then actually had Omega 3 in it due to the animals eating a NATURAL diet! All the animals today, including farm raised fish, are no longer healthy sources due to THEIR diets being mostly CORN. Now they have Omega 6’s in their body fat which means in the milk and eggs as well.
Lets not forget the hard physical labor it took to survive back then. They were in great shape.
The other factor not mentioned is that they WORKED! Hard physical labor, On a farm, early up & early to bed(most days). And they had fun dancing at their holiday socials. Today, we have machines that do most our labor for us and then pay for membership to a gym. Basically, eat anything you want, just burn it off.
Much agree with the premise. Our ancestors drank RAW milk and food without additives or preservatives. Their food wasn’t processed and if they processed it, they likely processed it themselves. Eating meat and animal products is not unhealthy because meat and animal products are high in cholesterol or saturated fat, but because the animals who gave us these products are fed unnatural diets and live in stress, then need to have antibiotics because their immune systems are compromised, then their food stuffs are further processed to make them safe in our industrialized system because we can’t get the products to people in a short amount of time and/or they are traveling long distances to reach the consumers.
Long story short- buy from local, organic farmers who don’t pasteurize or process their products. Many dairies in my area are legally allowed to sell their raw milk products in our mom and pops natural foods store if they label it For Pet Consumption Only. Just something to look out for if you are looking for it!
Happy eating! Check out Nourishing Traditions Cookook!
Thing is, our ancestors did not work in offices sitting on their hind ends all day under artificial light. The men worked in the fields and the barns. The women didn’t have the modern luxuries of automatic washers, dishwashers, electric ovens, water heaters and the like. They scrubbed clothing on the washboard, hung it outside to dry in all kinds of weather, took care of the children, weeded the vegetable garden and usually milked the cow. Life was hard in those days but people got by. The children who lived, thrived and grew in the honest environment of their families — and they too worked hard and learned the skills of living at an early age.
I love this article..and the main concept i took from it was Yes they ate real food, but like EVERY doctor will nag you about exercise, people back then worked, daily, physical work, ie; exercise. That is the lesson here
Sure ‘natural’ foods are the best. Meat, bacon, butter, milk, etc etc
But where can you find (unless you grow it or know a ‘good’ farmer) the natural foods our ancestors ate? Say that bacon is a ‘good’ food. Might once have been, but what/how is used to process/create it now-a-days?
I just love this site! Though I just started reading this evening… What I have checked out is very interesting,,,,Thanks for sharing.Peace Out,,,,
Not only did they eat all that, but let’s remember how hard they worked! Milking cows, sowing crops, reaping crops, and all that. There would be no time for me to comment on a blog post if we worked as hard as those people did!
We’d also be happier if we partied as hard as they partied. Man!
I take issue with the statement that the diseases we have prevalent in todays society did not exist back then. yes they did, but the difference is we did not have todays technology to diagnose said diseases. most of the time they were chalked up to old age, possession, being crazy, etc. every disease we have now that we know of still existed hundreds and thousands of years ago. they may not have been as prevalent as now, thanks to all the crap put in our food and environment, but they have been and will always be there.
Hi Cathy,
I didn’t say they didn’t exist. I said they were rare.
I’m wondering how all those people who lived to be to their 80s and 90s back in the day did eventually die? I mean, of the four leading causes of death listed, only 2 are possible for older adults (infection and accident. Obviously an 80 year old is not dying of childbirth or as an infant). Are we to believe that most of those lucky enough to make it to old age back then died from infection and accident alone?
My grandmother lived to be 104 years old. she survived the spanish american war, the great war (WW 1) and WW2. my father, 1 of 9 all lived beyond their 90’s. the only thing they didn’t eat was anything packaged or prepared. good old fashioned home cooking. Lard, eggs, meat, fish, and fowl. my grandmother smoked every saturday night with grandfather (lived to be 98).
I cooked all my children’s baby food. no prepared foods for them. I breast feed them until they started school (5 yrs old) they are healthy as horses (34 yrs, & 36 yr old) Never any fast food or the likes. if they wanted hamburgers, they were made at home also the fries. At this age, they still haven’t had the displeasure of dental cavaties.
My great-great-great grandparents Nelsen emigrated from Denmark in 1856 and lived the rest of their lives in the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho. They died aged 93, never learning English. They probably maintained a traditional Danish farm diet. Soren Nelsen born 19 March 1803 Flade Parish, Hjørring, Denmark died 15 April 1896 Bloomington, Idaho; Christiana Larsen born 29 Mar 1804 Flade Parish, Hjørring, Denmark died 21 Aug 1897 Bloomington, Idaho; married 6 October 1827 Elling Parish, Hjørring, Denmark.
Back then our ancestor ate REAL FOOD. Nowadays everything is so overly processed and chemical ridden that often their isn’t a ‘real food’ ingredient present. This goes beyond mere ‘convenience’ foods. It’s convenient to put a little thought into what you eat enough to plan and prep ahead, not partake in prepackaged meals that have a list of ingredients you cannot pronounce. Back then food was to sustain life, now food is used as a marketing device for the people behind the curtain to make money. We stopped caring about quality and started focusing on quantity. We need to care a little more about ourselves enough to put more thought into what we’re consuming and put a little less focus on the rush of the world.
The difference in eating meat now and eating meat before commercial industrial slaughter started controlling their own industry regulation enforcement and perverting the processes for profit reasons is extreme. Right now, the levels of adrenaline and cortisol distributed to the consumer population in hamburger and processed meat products is astounding.
Back in the day, these people raised their own beef or it was raised locally, and they had their own local butcher who took pride in slaughtering correctly for humane standards, a high quality product and the health of himself, his family and his community. Today, commercial industrial slaughter of cattle and other meat animals has been successful at consolidating itself to very few, large slaughterhouses across our Nation. There are less than 20 beef slaughterhouses operating at speeds of OVER TWICE what is possible for correctly slaughtered, humane beef standards. Plants that should be slaughtering no more than 150-200 cows an hour are incorrectly stunning nearly 40% of 400+ cows per hour. Failure to correctly stun a cow results in multiple stuns and vivisection during consciousness — both illegal under Federal Law. There are no USDA officials stationed near the kill box, only in pre-slaughter inspection and processing. The result is nearly half of the beef cows slaughtered die piece by piece and distribute huge amounts of adrenaline to the consuming population in their flesh.
The system is broken. Is it no wonder that Colorectal and other digestive Cancers are reaching epidemic proportions in our population?
how can I find some one to teach this sort of life style in my area ?
I didn’t take the time to read all the responses above so maybe someone already mentioned this but I believe another key factor to our ancestor’s longevity was their very active lifestyle. If we ate like they did AND were as active as they were then we might get similar results… but today not only do we not eat like they did but we are also very sedentary in comparison.
Definitely, we are, in general, too sedentary!
My ancestors ate tortillas and frijoles. Unfortunately, today tortillas are made with GMO corn.
Fabulous article DaNelle 🙂
“Turns out grandma & grandpa knew how to live a long, healthy life with traditional food!”
What is “traditional” food? How far are we going to go back? Traditional for whom?
The beef, pork, chicken, and dairy industries of today are putting food-like substances on store shelves, but are you proud to serve it to your family? The violence, the horrid and unregulated conditions in which animals live and die, and the concentrated pollution is abhorrent. Ours is not a sustainable food system. Local, plant-based diets are healthier for EVERYONE.
Hi Roberta,
Thanks for commenting! We actually do not buy factory meat. We raise our own animals for meat, because I don’t like to support CAFO’s. On our acre lot, we raise goat’s for milk, chickens for eggs, lambs & chickens for meat, and we also have a huge vegetable garden and fruit trees. I believe sustainability IS possible with a balanced diet, not just a plant-based diet. And unfortunately, unless you live closer to the equator, you would not be able to sustain yourself through the seasons with plants only.
It comes down to calories in…calories out. Our ancestors ate lard, bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, cornbread, and fried chicken…let’s for a moment look at the later…my grandmother too killed, dress, and fried her own chicken. The amount of calories you burn, prepping your catching, killing, dressing, butchering, frying a chicken, far out weighs the amount of calories it takes to go to the grocery store pick up a pack of chicken, flour, and fry.
Most of our ancestors worked HARD to put food on the table! While most of the food we put on our table to day is processed garbage, we still need to be aware that at the end of the day if what you take in is more than what you burn, heart disease, obesity, diabetes will still be an issue not matter how Whole the food.
This is all quite true, and all things I’ve discussed with my grandfather whom was lucky enough to have lived on a farm as a boy during the depression. I think on the flip-side, however, there were far less preservatives, chemicals, and processing that was happening to our food. Beyond that, you really had to WORK for your food and were burning far more calories than the average person today would burn.
Loved this article. I do all I can to avoid ‘manufactured’ food in order to eat a true food diet. How difficult this is to do; consider where the fruit and veg travelled from, the meat, eggs~this kind of info is simply NOT AVAILABLE. Keep up your good work.
How the animals are commercially slaughtered also has great bearing on the healthfulness and quality of the meat. It doesn’t matter as much how they are raised if their stunning is botched and they are vivisected while conscious.
Wonderful article. I’ve reposted it on my blog’s Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Charming-Farming/358903887557666?ref=hl
My husband is from a remote village in Fiji – no lie. And while he was raised with a LOT of fish (as in breakfast, lunch and dinner most of the time) they also eat all the fat of anything they make. Beef and pork are for special occasions (weddings, funerals, new chief installations, etc.), so lard and bacon are not eaten frequently, and likewise, although they have their own cows, dairy is not frequently consumed in the village (most folks have no way to reliably refridgerate the milk.) However, they eat coconut cream and/or coconut oil e-v-e-r-y day. On some days it is part of every meal. And they make their coconut cream and oil themselves – in the village. And if it’s not in the rice, it’s in the main dish. If it’s not in either of those it’s in the baked goods. They eat what they’ve grown or caught. They are exercising and eating fresh, whole food, away from pollution, nearly every day (there is a rare occasion when they take a very long, bumpy ride to town when they need something they can’t acquire in the village.) They are also able to rest when they are tired (like villagers in Mexico having their sietas in mid-day, the Fijian villagers also rest during the hottest part of the day.) When you have a need – from building a house to raising your children – you have a village to help you. They help eachother. They have their stresses though too, such as cyclones killing their crops or destroying their modest homes; dengue fever (but that’s worse in the city where there is higher population); the hospital is a 2 hour drive when the roads are good (they sometimes wash out in heavy rain – although the village has a small health center); there is various poisonous sea life that afflicts folks from time to time, etc. But those people are strong as oxen and my mother-in-law, who was born in 1933, only had to start wearing glasses a couple of years ago. She is still very strong and healthy. I firmly believe that fats don’t kill us. Leading a sedentary life while eating poor food and exposing ourselves to pollution (including smoking of all kinds, over medicating, noise pollution, etc.) is what is killing us and causing our illnesses. My husband came to America to see for himself what it was like here. Even though Fiji sounds like paradise, many of those who live there can’t help but wonder about America, wondering if the grass really is greener (Fiji is still very third world in many aspects). But he’s seen it for himself over the last few years and he’s ready for home. We have a four year old and are in the process of planning to move back to the village so our little one can be raised with her cousins in Fiji. Looking forward to it! :o]
So much I have read above I whole heartedly agree with. Even more than that is listen to your own body and follow those leads. My body told me two things very early on. First that sugar was not a stimulant but just the opposite. I use very little sugar and try to only have small portions of desserts. Nor can I tolerate any type of artificial sweetners. I am gradually eliminating preservatives but MSG was eliminated many years ago. Why does natural food cost so much more than regular food. I grew up eating a lot of home grown food. My ancestors all had a history of growing their own food with most living into their 80’s and 90’s. I am in my 70’s and still grow some of my own veggies. If you have not had a tomato fresh from the garden you can not know how good a tomato can taste.
Also, as I have been telling my friends and family who keep talking diets they need to stop eating like our fathers did or work like they did.
I met my great-grandfather when I was about age 9 – he did a few years later at age 95. He had the standard fatty breakfast, and lived in the cold of Nova Scotia.
One of the greatest advances in health was the refrigerated rail car-truck. It brought a wide variety of fresh food to millions. Then came chemically grown, processed foods which put an end to that advantage. And yet, the only green food that many people eat is iceberg lettuce. Gather what knowledge is available and make good choices. You are, as always, primarily responsible for your own health.
I believe the comment above is correct. They physically worked a lot harder than us back then not sitting at desks all day or infront of the tele. I would say eat a wide variety of foods and everything in moderation combined with regular exercise is the best way to stay healthy..
Tempting to believe the argument for ancestors living so long, but their lives cannot be compared to ours.
Any infection could kill you. Many deseases that are easily treated nowadays were fatal in old times.
To survive these people were working much harder than we can imagine. The energy they consumed was actually used. If you eat like these people and are sitting behind your desk at work, you will not burn that energy, it will be converted in fat. Clogging up your veins.
True, infant mortality brought the average age down, but so did dying giving birth, a cough, a little infection.
In the family tree I have managed to construct I have noticed that – indeed – many grandparents lived to impressive ages… But many more that needed to remarry because a spouse died.
In all, you cannot compare this age with an age before penicillin.. Co pare it with an age where people died because a tooth got infected and the infection spread through the body..
By all means. Eat the bacon, lard etc, but make sure that the energy you put into your body is also used up.
Any leftovers in that equation will be transformed to fat….. For the meager times….
I currently live in Poland, but in in the US for my first 22 years. Here we have the pre-World War II generation, many died during the war, executions, concentration camps, illness, etx. But the people who survived – wow are they resilient. I know a 97 ear old lady who was a war press connector and activist who still travels to the US, Ukraina, to help with charity and Polish organizations for improverised children. She’s a little deaf, but that’s from being too close to the artillery during a ceremonial opening. My grandpa who lived through WWI and WWII lived to 86, ate his lard and eggs as often as possible and talking a walk even on his last day. No disease, no ailments. My mom, his daughter, had her first heart attack at 56, bypass surgery at 57 due to artery clogging. SAD diet of course, no eggs ( due to chronic high cholesterol results), vegetable oil and refined flours and sugar in excess. She’s now back in Poland, 12 years post surgery, drinking goat’s milk, eating and cooking with goose szmalc and butter by the kilo and living life with so much energy and vitality. Diet and lifestyle trumps all.
While your second statement is true, the first is patently false. Here’s a good place to start bringing your knowledge up to date: [url=”https://chriskresser.com/specialreports/heartdisease”]Heart Disease/Cholesterol[\url]
Oops, my fancy linky-powers didn’t work. Here’s the address again, cut and paste into your browser’s address field:
https://chriskresser.com/specialreports/heartdisease
They used to eat what they wanted but they used to walk and move around all day long .Nowadays people drive their cars anywhere they go , even for very short trips .
Ahhh, love this!!! Very well said!
I think one reason folks could eat the way they did 70-80 years ago was also the amount of physical labor almost everyone did!!! A large percentage of families had only one person that worked at public work…and some had NONE! In order to support a family almost everyone had to be farmers….and that was a lot of hard, time consuming physical labor!!
And you’re contributing to the discussion how??
And Farnz, how are you contributing to this discussion other than apparently being critical of someones ideas.
I think today’s stress is different. Times before were harder yet simpler. Today it’s easier yet more complicated. Must add GMO foods can meat raised with steroids and antibiotics I’m sure add to unhealthy bodies and very hard to avoid, sadly.
I agree with you, Marie. Our whole lifestyle has drastically changed from back in the turn of he 20th century. I do remember both grandmothers killing chickens for dinner that ran around in their front yards. We don’t do physical work as they did that burned calories, built muscles, put you outdoors to get sun and fresh air. We eat fast food and prepared foods that have so many unhealthy additives to them. Also, our food chain is altered with hormones, sprays, etc. that we ingest. It’s got to have a negative effect on us.
My grandmother was much the same way. I’ve been doing family history for over 40 years. I am finding that their attitudes made all the difference. We’re soft today. Having it too easy turns out to be a bad thing, overall…
Anybody wanna see me start a flamewar by suggesting that the reason for the decreased infant/child mortality rates between now and the 1890s was VACCINES?
Love this article! The traditional diet is definitely better for our bodies than the Standard American Diet of processed foods, fast foods, and such. Even better is the our ancestral diet which is like the traditional diet, but without the grains and dairy (ghee or grass-fed butter is allowed). Modern science has shown us that grains, sugars, and dairy are toxic to our systems on a cellular level causing inflammation, chronic illness, and disease. I would have loved to sit down and talk with your great grandma and learn from her 🙂 She sounds amazing!
If dairy is toxic to all humans, then how have the more ancient cultures that subsisted on dairy products survived? I think a lot has to do with genetics…and also what is DONE to the dairy and/or added to it.
I don’t get why infant mortality was higher in the past? All we’ve done since is add a lot of pharmaceutical pills? and the births were more natural previously, less vaccines for example, less pain killer pharmaceutical pills given to the mother
I think you just answered your own question.
If I had my children back then, probably my child or I or both would have died in childbirth (both breech c-sections). People complain about the increase in c-sections now, and how horrible that is, etc. But for many of us it allows a safe birth to happen without maiming or death. And vaccines? Yea, they are all terrible, which is why we have rampant cases of polio now…oh wait….
I had a c-section..breech.. I had gallbladder surgery. So there is a time and a place. When vaccines first came on the market it was out of necessity for population growth. Now it is out of greed of a few. And, forcing people to be vaccinated is just plain wrong! If vaccines work..then should it matter that you are around unvaccinated people?
Hard work and much exercise that came from the physical work can cover a multitude of sins when it comes from less than perfect diet. Lack of a physical active life and over eating poor quality food is the cause of many of our health problems today.
I think most of you have a very valid response…and very interested to add something too…as I am a tree builder for my family ancestry as a lil hobby I did to see that the male side of my tree had suffered for many many generations from heart disease…….so I was only waiting for my turn …..some how I knew…it happened and I survived scad-lad….anyway this eating bacon and lard etc isn’t good…… as it all boils down to but I wonder all these low fat spread alternatives were are told are one molecule from plastic??? and we fed turkeys before it wasn’t suitable as it killed them rather than to quick fatten etc..blah blah blah…horrific!!.. just stay on a low fat diet eat less and exercise when you can.you are in control of what you put in your mouth….are we not??…no processed food etc etc….our food quality I will say has become less and less nutritionally benefit to us and what was good as in say cabbage we need to eat 3 to have the same nutrional balance apparently…….all due to the fast growth of produce for matching the markets demands…..anyway….I think I would rather have a little lard then processed spread alternatives as the body process the butter better than processed spread…but have a little butter and be very sparing… too much of anything will kill you….lol….
Good genes…..It starts there….If your family history is long…then you will have a better chance of living a long life too. If not….then.
I agree in part with this article we should definitly get away from processed foods.. The butter and Lard I disagree… Everyone has different genetics while some folks may thrive and live long lives eating such others may not… Read up on the APOE Gynotypes I am a 4/4 and suffered a Heart Attack by 47 (No I did not smoke) for people who are Apoe 4/4 Lard and butter from any source will kill you quickly… Perhaps Heart disease does not run in some familys and that accounts for the long longevity… There are writing by Socrates of people clutching there chests and dying… Mummies have also hardening of the coranry arteries… This is not a new disease and it is completely irresponsible to assume that butter and lard are good fits for everyone.
What’s missing in this discussion is the danger and spread of electro magnetic fields. Smart meters, cell phones, wi-fi, computers, cell towersall are a big contributing factor why there is such a rise in cancer, heart disease. Its killing our cells. I for one am very sensitive to all that. Read Zapped by Ann Louise Gittleman. There’s also all these medicines wreacking havoc on our health. There’s chemicals, pesticides that they didn’t have back then. Of course, the GMO thing. So i think trying to eat organic, exercise, sunshine, grounding is more needful than ever. Also though they ate that. Im sure they probably ate a lot of vegetables and fruits as well. They didnt have aspartame. All these fake stuff.
maybe we just went through a period where we over did it — bang for buck meals where a lot of food meant you were getting your money’s worth rather than high-quality foods. growing a little garden is the best way to learn about nutrition. I just never wanted to put anything processed on veggies and fruit from the garden, it was like they were my children and I wanted to treat them well, relish them. and then EAT them 😉 no … but really …. wholesome foods are SO tasty, why screw it up with anything over-processed.
I’m always amazed at how many generations some families squeeze into 100 years. My family is the exact opposite. I was born in 1964, my father in 1917, and his father in 1863!
Of course, there’s also the fact that all the people who might have succumbed to degenerative diseases in old age were dying as children….
That’s really speculation. However, I do agree that modern medicine’s ability to save the lives of babies/children who otherwise would have died has weakened our gene pool. Take caesarean sections for example: if a deer births a fawn that is too large to pass between the doe’s hipbones, both die, therefore the gene for narrow hips and/or large head does not get passed on. Not so with humans, and the problem perpetuates through the generations. (I am aware that narrow hips/large head are not the only reasons for C-sections, but hopefully you can see my point).
But a better analogy perhaps would be Type 1 diabetes, which is quickly fatal if not treated. The discovery of insulin and subsequent treatment has saved untold numbers of lives, and has also allowed these individuals to pass on their genes for predisposition to Type 1 diabetes.
But you are asserting that Type 2 diabetes is more likely in someone who would have died from an infection at birth or whooping cough as a child had they not been immunized. There’s no way to prove that. And while genetics may be part of the risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, it seems clear that lifestyle is the major player in this modern epidemic.
Excellent and very interesting post. I’m not surprised and don’t doubt that their food was a big factor. But I believe quite a few other factors all synergistically contributed to overall health-not just longevity but minimal disease and vitality and overall contentment in life. All their hard physical work which not only burnt off all those healthy calories, but kept their bodies trim, fit and in excellent shape-but also relieved a lot of stress and contributed to mental health. Also the work was their own farms or shops so with a sense of dignity and autonomy vs today’s workers often driven or slaving as a cog in a wheel with often little satisfaction. Also those folks normally had healthy, intact families which along with the larger network of good relationships with the extended community of neighbors, was also such a vital contribution to mental and emotional and so physical health. But also our ancestors by and large had a strong faith in God. Studies show that 75% of illness is due to stress and 80% to negative emotions (the mind-body connection of the limbic system). Studies also show that people with a strong faith in God are better able to handle life’s stresses and things like negative emotions. Plus many studies also clearly show that prayer itself definitely does help bring healing. I myself have seen many miracles of healing from prayers of faith including breast cancer, and all sorts of ailments.
But also back to the food-our ancestors soil was not near as depleted of nutrients as today’s soil. They’ve found food from the civil war in jars that despite the processing and over a century of storage was still far more nutritious than vegetables grown today.
The millions of bacteria, fungi, viruses that lived in natural soil contributed to the thousands of chemicals and trace elements that bodies and crops need to thrive. Plants need much more than 8-8-8 fertilizer added to today’s sterile clay farm dirt.
Our bodies need lots of iodine/magnesium, which naturally occurs in animal manure. Most commercial farming use chemicals these days, so no iodine/magnesium in the plants/animals. The US is mostly depleted of iodine in it’s soil since commercial farming took hold.
The gut needs certain bacteria’s to work properly…now that most things are be irradiated against all bacteria’s you may as well be eating cardboard.
Great article! I do juicing & smoothies so that I can get all the good from them (especially since I don’t like veggies) but believe in a regular real food (organic-grass fed) diet. I truly dislike the fads going on about eating raw foods, vegans, Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, etc.; when all we have to do is eat real food and exercise since we no longer work the hours and do the kind of work our grandparents did.
Hi Rosa, Most vegans choose that lifestyle because we don’t want to be involved with the cruelty that ‘food’ animals are subjected to for the most part, in this day and age. Except for grass fed beef, most purchased eggs, dairy, and pig come from horrible environments that you would never, ever want to subject your dog or cat too. Even CAFO beef has it better than the other animals that you eat or use because at least the majority of their lives are spent on a field somewhere whereas it’s ‘prison’ from birth to death for pigs, chickens and turkeys. Our lifestyle also pertains not only to the food we eat (or don’t) but also to whether or not household and personal care products are tested on helpless animals (most are), our clothing (no wool or leather) and entertainment (we don’t go to zoos, rodeos or dog fights, etc.)
I agree with most of your post Debrah except the “no wool” clothing. Harvesting wool does not involve any animal cruelty (unless there is a new method of it that I”m not aware of?). I think sheep would be uncomfortable if they were not sheared so it is doing the sheep a service just as you might have your dog groomed.
I am not a vegan but I relate and am also disgusted by conventional modern farming. We raise all of our own meat and eggs for that reason.
I just discovered lard from grass fed fat. I get the butcher to save me the fat. I heat the fat at 210 for several hours. The crunchy parts left over make excellent treats for the dogs. This is the best salve for feet and minor wounds. We have been brainwashed into thinking fat is bad. The Bible has several references about land rich with fat, honey or milk. The fat makes a great suppository, using gloves, for constipation.
Frying up the fat……My grandma use to take bits of fat and some meat to fry up. She would fry it most of the way hard…but made sure it had some moisture still in it. It was called ‘Cracklins’. This was used as snacks..to stuff in your pockets or cooked into cornbread…Wonderful stuff that..
I wonder if it wasbacon soaked in nitrites that was shown to have affected men’s health.
Great post!!!
You mean salt? It isn’t bacon if it isn’t preserved with salt.. by definition.
I agree with the concept of real, whole food being better but I don’t think Sacrates was the best example to use here. Sacrates’s diet would not have been “bacon, lard &. Whole milk”. At least not normally. Greek diets would have traditionally included nuts, fish, fruits, grains, ect. The fats from bacon, animal fats & dairy aren’t nearly as healthy as oils from nuts, oily veggies, & fish.
I’m all for food cooked in lard. If it is breaded, all the more better. I grew up on that kind of food, however, I worked on the farm and burnt at least 3,000 calories a day.
I don’t do that sort of work anymore so I can’t afford (health-wise) to eat that sort of food.
And when does frying make something natural? Now we are getting into chemistry, remember using a bunson burner in highschool to begin a reaction ? lard is not pure saturated fat – so what is happening to those unsaturated fats… they get turned into transfats.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18680380
That is an article on nuts and seeds find an article on lard or animal fats, then come back.
I was raised on a farm with 9 bros. and 3 Sisters and we used to mix lard and syrup together to dip the bread in..Mom baked 8 loaves of bread every day and we drank whole milk bacon ,ham , eggs potatoes and vegies that were grown on the farm..We were to poor to buy anything but sugar and flour and yeast and baking pwoder..My Dad would take a 50 bushel load of wheat to town in th fall and trade it for ten hundred pd bags of flour..My mom lived to be 93 and all of us lived to be over 85 on av.but we all worked off all the calories back then..We didn’t eat much sweets so we all had good teeth..I didn’t have a cavity until I was 21 yrs old..From drinking a lot of milk no dought…I am 87 and in real good health..Still bowl ten games a week and no aches or pains and my fingers are still in good enough shape that i can play my guitar ..I give God credit for that !!!
Wow!! You’re amazing! We are trying to give our kids that lifestyle today. You’re story is inspiring!
yes inspiring….blimey!!!
Love this story Earl!
Loved the article. But have 1 little thing. They did not drink whole milk, they drank skim milk. they would skim the cream off the milk, to make butter. That’s where the term skim milk came from. It was literally the milk that had already been skimmed of the cream, the other milk was sitting, waiting for the cream to rise to the top. I lived with my Great Grand Parents, while I was a teenager. I remember the milking, and putting it in a big bowl and putting it in the fridge over night. The next morning the cream was skimmed off and stored in a pitcher, and the rest was poured in a bottle, to be drank. Once a week, my GGmother churned the butter. I, still to this day, do not care for whole milk, would rather drink 2% or 1% milk.
I’m with you, Kevin West. When I was growing up, we went to the dairy farm and got our milk almost directly from the cow. Took it home and let it sit overnight. Next day, poured off the cream and drank the skimmed milk. I still can’t drink whole milk, either. Way to fatty!
I also grew up without TV so we played outside a lot more than modern children do. Then I grew up and lead the same sedentary lifestyle of most modern humans and it certainly shows in my waistline and the number of pills I take. I think we added bad stuff to our diets and removed good stuff from our physical behavior (walking, working outside, etc.) and we suffer from it. Too far removed from the farm.
From what I’ve heard, skim milk was considered undrinkable. Families wouldn’t drink the milk once they’d skimmed the fat off the top. They would feed it to pigs, however, to fatten them up. I mean, if you have a dairy cow, you’re getting way more milk in a day then your whole family (probably of like 10 people) could drink in a day.
Um no whole milk is less than 4% fat, where did the other part go to, it was skimmed off the top, heavy whipping cream is only 30 something percent fat. I know there is Protein and water and some sugars, so todays whole milk sounds like yesteryears skimmed milk. Of course not Always pasteurized and certainly not homgenized.
Brandi, Cow’s milk is naturally about 4% fat, straight from the cow, while goat’s is about 3.5% fat. The previous posters’ statements were correct.
Find a good healthy natural product that provides all the nutrition your body needs. As a cancer survivor, I found something that has turned back the clock for me. I also stay away from junk food, GMO products and HFCS. Loving life and living it to the MAX.
What did you find
I’d like to know too!
It is true that not everyone died young. If you made it past early childhood, you had a better chance of a long, full life. It’s hard to actually say that heart disease and diabetes and cancer was rare – they had no technology for diagnosing these illnesses until they were at the very late stages. Eating the way our ancestors ate only works if you live the life our ancestors lived. They walked many miles rather than depended on cars to get them everywhere. They worked hard from sun up to sun down. Even the act of drawing a bath required a whole lot more effort than it does today. You cannot expect to live a 21st century life while eating a 19th/20th century diet. It won’t work. Avoiding processed foods and eating a whole foods diet is big start, but you also need to keep active as well.
It actually isn’t hard to say at all. Heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer were rare and they did have the means to diagnose them. We’ve been mislead and lied to about the the lipid hypothesis and it’s done nothing but lead us to disease !
Most Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Lard from pastured pigs is second only to cod fish liver oil in it’s vitamin D content. We replaced that with hydrogenated cotton seed oil (CRISCO) which had none and was full of free-radial causing, oxidized lipids. Today it’s Canola, corn, soy, etc. Not as bad as hydrogenated oils but still lack vitamin D and oxidize when heated even if they’re cold pressed. And then in the summer we block vitamin D with sunblock !
Yes, I agree. Medical technology was far more advanced in the 1800s than we have been led to believe. I know for a fact they had the means to diagnose heart disease at least – I don’t have time to look up a link now but the info is not hard to find if you look for it. To listen to people nowadays you would think anyone who lived before the 1900s was an ignorant cave person with no brains or technology whatsoever.
THAT is a great point you make here! Thanks.
Hi Ginger, good point. It is true, i grew up on a farm, we ate only pure food that we grew and reared. I didnt have one ounce of cellulite on me, we were fit and healthy, outdoors all day riding the horses or working the farm, we were in balance. After i left the farm and had a home in the suburbs ate packet food and drank chlorine water i became very ill with chronic fatigue and had more cellulite than i could point a stick at, then we went back to farm living, cooking on the fire and working outside, hand washing. the weird thing is even though i was glad to have my modern conveniences back i couldnt help but notice how thin and strong i had become again and how my health improved as did my emotional state, until we moved into the house and all the cleaning products and stress of paying power bills and mortgages hit again. I personally found that more stressful than the outside work. I think our living environment does cause more stress than doing some things the old fashion way, but washing machines and bathrooms is the one thing i would not like to be with out again.
I would so love to live like this! I just don’t have the time 🙁 I love food from scratch too! Especially bread. My dream is to buy an old farm house with some property and be able to raise chickens and grow veggies…and not have to work a regular job…I do love my bacon drippings and butter though. I refuse to substitute that stuff 🙂
Well if it lowers sperm quality it must not be to big of an effect,people back then ate it and had LOTS of kids (family sizes were much bigger on average then). Its probably some of the chemicals found in some of the processed stuff they call bacon today.
Plus they were very active…no sitting at the computer hour after hour. They labored for their food and ate what they grew..and didn’t have all the stuff injected or fed into their meat that we do now. Yea for strong pioneering family to guide us along.
Actually, it was recently proven that eating bacon lowers sperm quality in men. Although I Agree on avoiding processed food. And our ancestors didn’t have to deal with alarm-clocks, mobbing and other stress-sources we deal with today, it was a different kind of stress, it wasn’t some corporate authority that dictated their lives, especially those farmers’.
I would be interested in seeing the study behind this statement. Was it clean pork that was cured in traditional methods or was it chemal laden CAFO pork? I’m thinking the chemicals are the likely culprit.
Mimi, I read about bacon being bad for fertility in men also. That’s why the only thing I would add to this wonderful post is that the meat, bacon and lard in the stores today is not the same as our ancestors ate. If we raise it ourselves or buy organic meat we might be able to come close to their diet.
And another scientific study that was recently released said that eating bacon extends your lifespan. If you’re worried about nitrates/nitrites then avoid spinach, celery, etc as they have tens to hundreds higher levels of nitrates/nitrites than bacon and ham.
mimi there is bacon and there is free range bacon. First one is high in Omega 6 (inflammatory) and free range is high in Omega 3 (anti-inflammatory) plus no antibiotics. Same goes for all animal product like cattle and chickens.
Given there was no birth control, I would think a lowered sperm count would be a blessing to a lot of women!!!
Why?
Actually they did have worries in their lives. Look at the dates and then what was going on in history. Also if they farmed it was always a stress due to weather , insects, flooding blizzards etc. I think most peoples faith was a great help and they did what had to be done ! read the Little House series….but store bought foods and too much of any thing isn’t good for ya! Great post! My great grandparents lived into their late 70’s . Their children { 9} all dies in their late 80’s or 90’s and one died at 102.
Love, love this post!
I loved this! Thanks for sharing!! What really surprises me today to is the number of people with diabetes???? You never hear of anyone before the 1900’s having diabetes. I have a family tree book for my grandfathers family on my mothers side that goes back about 200 years. I’m still amazed when I look through it. Ooooh the untold stories tucked away in there! 🙂
Diabetes has been recorded since the Greeks. The reason you hear of people living with diabetes now is because we have insulin to treat it (and because type II diabetics prior to requring insulin are detected and diagnosed – although of course, diet does have a lot to do with type II diabetes and it probably was quite a bit rarer when sugar wasn’t in everything). Prior to insulin therapy, people with diabetes just died.
Wow. That’s interesting! And yes sugar is in EVERYTHING it seems like.
Correct….diabetes was then too……but more of undetected,unterated and all….
Agree witht he article though. We eat too much pasta bread, rice etc not enough complex carbs. I own a healthshop an am seeing mature onset diabetes (50-60 yr old) in children as young as 8. IT IS THE FOOD AND LIFESTYLE!! too much energy food not enough energy expended running around outside building cubbies and exploring.
Allison, I think you have alluded to a very important distinction; when we talk about diabetes being diet related and therefore more common now than it was before 1900, we’re referring to Type 2 Diabetes, not Type 1. Type 2 diabetes is caused by lifestyle (diet, stress, sedentary living), but Type 1 diabetes typically is not. Type 2 diabetes is not treated with insulin. Type 2 diabetes can be treated and in many cases reversed with dietary changes.
605 pounds of dairy?? That seems so unrealistic. I would consider myself a heavy dairy consumer and can’t figure out how I am eating more than 400 pounds of dairy in a year.
Dairy includes a LOT of products besides milk, like butter, cheese (slices, shreds, cottage cheese ricotta, etc.), yogurt, ice cream, cream cheese, sour cream, etc. etc. etc. and remember that a gallon of milk weighs eight pounds 😉
Type 2 Diabetes is often treated with insulin. Runs in my dad’s family, six generations back at least. They used pork insulin back in the way back. That is on my dad’s mother’s side. My dad’s father’s side, heart attacks took them all in their late 60s for as far back as we can trace, which is 12 generations. Oddly, on my mother’s father’s side, it is cancer we can trace back for generations. My Grandfather died of pancreatic cancer in the early 60s. They did not eat “modern” foods. His family tree was thick with cancer going way back. My mother’s mothers family…they just live and suffer with congestive heart failure and “rheumatism” which is most likely osteoarthritis until their mid-80s. So, this is not fact for me. The other thing, if you search genealogy records, so many people died of “natural causes”. If we can cure THAT disease, we would be in great shape. But there is NO telling what that really meant. Most likely heart disease or cancer. Our family record lines have been carefully kept. While I am all for a clean diet, I think I need to see more real research into this topic before I believe this line of logic.
And they weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty and some hard work!! So much we could learn from our ancestors if we look past what those “general numbers & facts” try to tell us. Such a great reminder!
SO true!
I think that has a lot more to do with it. Our ancestors actually did more physically demanding jobs than we do nowadays, not to mention had more physical work at home(even something as simple as doing laundry was not so simple back then).
You see the people who live a long time nowadays – they exercise a lot. It has less to do with what they eat, and more to do with how active they are.
Exercise is a factor, but food is more so. I can vouch for this based on my own experience in pulling back from being obese unhealthy and unfit. Exercise made me fit, a little healthier, but I was still obese. Sorting my diet out (which happened later) got rid of the weight and paid huge health dividends. (I did pretty much what is advocated here).
Now if my exercise slips, I pay later in the gym, but it doesn’t affect my weight or vitality. If my diet slips (I eat sugar) it affects my waistline, my mood, my energy levels and my health.
Great article!! Haha, I laughed out loud at the excert from you ggg grandmother’s journal! What an amazing woman, wow!
And then gave birth? After buttonholes and buttons, milking cows, cleaning and cooking? And no sleep? Wow, she must have been strong. And she writes it in the most casual way, like it was no big deal. Amazing!
I know, crazy right?
She had a serious case of nesting! lol!! (and crunch time before school started for 1/2 a dozen kids…)
That’s what I was thinking! I went into a nesting frenzy before my son was born. I cleaned everything in sight. It was weird…I cleaned things I’d never thought of cleaning before. lol.
Actually, I gave birth to many of mine the same way — early labor was long (about 24 hrs) and mild, so I’d sleep when I could and work when I couldn’t sleep. When I was in early labor w/ my 10th, I took my kids to the mall for a “final hurrah”, saw to the usual meals that day, swept floors, swept the back patio, and did laundry. The baby was born at home with no problems, just plenty of kiddos around to help each other with breakfast & school.
And no, I’m no superwoman. Just a mom of many who tries to have a healthy diet & positive outlook on life & family. I know a number of other 21st century moms living the same lifestyle.
God bless you Granny Smith! That’s a lot of kids! I would have wanted more than the 2 I have but this day in age we can barely afford the 2 we have!
People spend their money on what’s important to them. We can afford more children because we’re not worried about keeping up with the Jones. It doesn’t cost that much to give children what they need. If we cared about brand new everything and electronics and data plans plus a nice vacation to some resort every year then yes it would be difficult to afford. If my husband and I cared about having a new spacious well-appointed house to live in, or having new cars to drive, or him having a country club membership and my having perfectly manicured nails and just the right color of blond hair. We could both have full time jobs and send our children off to be babysat by a frazzled classroom teacher with 30 other kids to look after. But family, especially the children we call blessings, are important enough to us to spend our money and our time on them instead of ourselves.
True. They ate healthy food and had little to worry about, that is stress was not a cause of illness at that time and there was very little air pollution.
Today we all breath all this polluted air and toxic car waste .
Stress is also the most common cause of disease nowadays.
So ,now , adopting all kind of vegetarian diets is nothing else but trying to compensate for all this bad environment we all live in.
Um no, if you were fortunate and didnt live in or around a city, you didnt have air pollution. It was 10 times (or more) as bad as it is now.
Um no, you’re thinking about after the Industrial Revolution. History of man goes back a FEW years before that!
Yes and no on the Industrial Revolution comment. Check out this article about the environmental factors that the car, and machination in general was intended to be a solution for. Interesting read here, check it out –
https://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf
For those Harping like a$$hats on Anita shame on you! You do NOT have ANY of the facts yet you immediately jump to horrible assumptions. You call her ‘not much of a daughter” and you whine about the ‘government pays’ yet you have no clue.
Did it even remotely occur to you that her mother who may be frail has NO desire to live with her daughter or anyone else for that matter and wishes to remain on her own in her own home where she feels she can still make choices for herself… to the one who says she isn’t much of a daughter maybe I should assume that you prefer taking over and gaining complete control of those you cared for? Leaving them no self respect? No feeling of independence? I choose Not to accuse you of that…
And for the governement paying and you grasping at your purse strings because you automatically assume it’s coming from YOU if it’s government money- how do YOU know that her mother didn’t work her butt off for years and earned that government money? How do you KNOW that she wasn’t in the military and has a VA income? I don’t and niether do you unless you know her personally.
Instead of keeping to the article you people have jumped on the “Let’s lynch Anita” bandwagon …for shame…. I do not know Anita nor her Mother nor her situation and until I do? I will not make accusations or conclusions against her. And for those of you whom are true Trolls- Oh do hate on this because I know your life is not complete until you enforce your misery on others… and to those that know that this is about you and you get your knickers in a knot? Get over yourselves becasue if my diatribe hits too close to home then you need to sit down, shut up, and take stock in your own life before you trash someone else.
Contrary to common myth, pollution has been with cities for their whole existence. The ancient Greeks complained bitterly about soot soiling their togas…. a single example.
I do wonder about the statement many people make that we have more stress in our lives today than our ancestors did. I think it may have been *different* stress, but there was still plenty of it back then. (e.g. Possibility of crop failure, necessity of preserving enough food, animals getting sick, losing more children to illnesses, overt and extreme discrimination/ class divides, no social safety net, no good medical or dental care, too many pregnancies, every single thing was more labour intensive, no employment standards protections, hazardous working conditions with little safety gear, necessity to provide elder care, etc.) Now I’m going to go have a warm shower with store-bought soap and safe, running water in one of my 3 bathrooms and then eat a good breakfast with imported fruit, put on warm clothes I did not sew myself and then get in the car to go help out my elderly mother — who does not live with me — because even though she is sickly and frail, government pays for caregivers to assist her to stay in her own apartment. I have a lot of stress – especially via work – but I don’t discount the stresses others endured and am grateful not to be pregnant with my 10th child right now. 🙂
Funny, I was thinking the same thing… sewing 100 buttons on, milking cows, cleaning a house all day, preparing dinner without our modern conveniences, — all while VERY pregnant b– and then giving birth… yes, I would consider all those things to be stressful. I certainly can’t say my life is any more stressful than that. I really do think so many of our “ills” today are related to what we ingest on a daily basis. But, who really knows for sure whether it is environmental or physical or just life? As for me, I am trying to do the best I can for myself and my family to make wise choices, but you can never do that 100% of the time. I am glad to trust in God for my life here and also for my death whenever and however it will come.
The things mentioned were every day life and expected. They rolled with the punches and lived one day at a time. Their working conditions were what they were … there was no stress from lack of safety gear because there wasn’t any safety gear … can’t stress about something you don’t know about. We can’t base their lives on our experience. Their life was the only thing they knew and many were content … which in and of itself is less stressful. The shear level of physical activity and time required to do daily chores helps reduce stress as it helps us focus on the task at hand … on the moment.
If you read about many of these time periods, it seems like they just worked themselves to death…the stress was enormous. Many societies were continually and barbarically repressed…think of the public hangings and torture for having dissenting religious beliefs or not following dogma to the letter. They did horrible things to people and the stress caused by fear must have been overwhelming. Imagine a good traditional diet with a loving and supportive environment, we’d be healthy and happy past 100!
I agree that their stress were different. One thing is for sure they did not have knowledge of psychopathic corporations like Monsanto and other corporations who are radically changing the landscape and/or health of the planet just for GREED with no regards to the future generations .
I am not going to pile on this subject, this is not the platform but I don’t think our ancestors needed to worry if the planet is going to be around for many more centuries or our we going to exticnt ourselves.
We have stress with no fisical activitie. They had stress working out all day…that is the difference no?
“too many pregnancies” Who decides this?
There were 12 children in my Grandmother’s family. My Great-Grandmother was happy to have them. In the 1980’s I had several friends with 11 or more children in their family – one had 17 – and those Mom’s were perfectly happy and glad to have them. Children are a blessing.
Aw shoot! I was a steel worker for 23 years, abused alcohol for close to 30 years, ignored high blood pressure for all my life, worked hard like a maniac, enjoyed the fruits of my labor like a king(no x-mas tree was too tall, no whiskey was too strong and I dipped buttered toast in the bacon grease and ate it. I’ve also had 2 heart attacks – mild – and 2 strokes. My gait is impaired thus I limp and drool at times but otherwise, I’m fine!! I gotta take pills for the hypertension which has settled down and I can’t drink any more cuz my kidneys are shot but I’m still kicking! No diabetes Thank God!
Your imported fruit alone could kill you! NONE of that stuff is truly good, rarely do the foreigners pay any attention to the pesticides they use, and definitely not to the amount they use! Then, take a hard look at the venomous snakes, spiders and other baddies that have been sneaking (which might be questionable) into the shipments of fruit coming into the country!
How nice of you not to have your mother live with you–not much of a daughter are you? I took care of my mom, my daughter, her three children, my dad, the house, the yard, and went to school–I have also taken care of two sick husbands in the past, and six children on my own!
Now, tell me about your silly “stress!”
Well said! “Back then”, they did have to work their tails off doing things we all take for granted these days. Times have changed…but as you say, the stress is different. But they had plenty of stress just trying to stay alive.
Anita October 20, 2013 at 2:28 pm you wrote this:
then get in the car to go help out my elderly mother — who does not live with me — because even though she is sickly and frail, government pays for caregivers to assist her to stay in her own apartment.
Whose money does the government use to pay for you to be a care-giver to your own mother or am I mistaken and you aren’t even a caregiver to your own mother?
Has it occurred to you that possibly your mother could make out quite well at your home with the 3 bathrooms with running water? I didn’t say safe running water since chances are good it has chemicals in it which lower your intelligence level enough to th ink it is okay for the government to support not only your mother but also her care-giver(s)?
I just love it when someone says that the government is paying for something. Just please remember where the government gets the money that is used to pay for anything even if it is just borrowed money and interest is being paid on it. So when there is no more “government” money who will pay for the care givers and if no one will where will your sickly mom live then and will that cause you any stress. And after reading this does it cause you any stress?
You’re grateful to not be pregnant with your 10th child? What a disgusting comment, as if you are somehow living in a superior way to your ancestors because you can pop a pill that obstructs your natural and God-given fertility, a sign of HEALTH. Truly, women of the past are vastly more dignified than modern women; they did not have such a perverse mindset toward motherhood.
I’ll thank God if I am able to give birth to a tenth child.
Anita, I liked your comment. You are absolutely right that we wax poetic about ye olde glory dayes without considering how much better off we have it now.
As for all the asshats commenting about your mother – I appreciate that you are preserving her independence. Getting old is a terrible thing for many people and their loss of independence is heartbreaking to them. I’m glad she gets to live on her own. If she worked, she paid taxes, and it is HER tax money and HER status as an American citizen that is paying for HER care at this stage in her life. It’s not “our” taxes paying for her. It’s hers and her husbands. And even if it WAS our taxes paying for government care for the elderly, I’m happy they have it. They honestly don’t have enough.
I love kids. I want at least three more. However, I too am grateful not to be pregnant with my 10th child. 🙂 Its nice to have the option to say enough is enough and its nice to have the medical care not to die in labor (very much) anymore.
Everyone else picking on Anita? Get a life.
Modern medical science, as the article states has reduced dramatically the incidence of death in infancy, childbirth, and from disease. This gives more people to develop cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. I don’t know the science but it may have little to do with diet.
Mike if you look at stats chronic diseases have sky rocketed and starting at a much younger age late onset diabetes for example, we see a 500% increase in children. Alzheimer’s wasn’t heard of per 1950. Cancer and heart disease are common in younger generations. I have a health food shop and we see heaps of kids with supposed adult diseases, like heart disease and arthritis. Diet is the major change in the last 100 years, increase in sugar consumption, grain products and toxic seed (polyunsaturated vegetable oils) oils, all causing inflammation problems. All chronic diseases are inflammation problems.
the part about the infant death rate is rediculously untrue…we have have a higher infant death rate since doctors stole the business from midwives. midwives in most european countries deliver about 70% of the babies while here in america its only 8%. we lose 5.9% of american babies…germany 3.4 france 3.3…the docs have improved their own methods since taking over the midwife business…but midwives still do it better….doctors use to have barbaric methods and killed many women all because they didnt know to wash their hands.many women use to be terrified to go to a doctor over a midwife because back in the beginning of the takover it was considered a death sentence.
Jacqueline, the “percentages” you cite are per 1000, which means the US infant mortality rate is 0.59%. You should have been tipped off when Afghanistan, at the top of the list, had 119 (%, according to you). Or maybe you just need a middle school math refresher.
No Stress are you kidding me? One day of not being able to flush my toilet or get a nice cold drink of water…or take a shower throws me into a frenzy ha ha. My question is how the heck did they get so much done? My great grandmother I’ve heard was a tyrant, worked everyone to the bone. Tell me her kin wasn’t stressed. As a farmer myself I can tell you weather alone can devastate a person and cause great and deep suffering. The thing is, and I think this posts speaks to this is we are at the latest diet craze or “scientific” findings mercy. We want to be well and healthy so we pay attention, we’re vegetarian, vegan, paleo, south beach, makers, raw… on and on. All to be well and perhaps also make the planet well in the process. But I happen to see these “diet styles” nothing more than western privilege. I think this is something that should be discussed more. We always think about privilege just in terms of race or status but diet is also deeply rooted in privilege. I personally choose to eat like my ancestors frankly because I farm (I have access to these foods) and I’m poor, (something I hate to admit but is true) Its true there are many factors at play, the important thing is we each live our own truth. Not condemn or shame, that’s what politicians and preachers are for 😉 But support each other in efforts to better ourselves and the planet.
AMEN! “Western privilege,” indeed! I think you hit the nail square on the head!
No TV, Internet, cell phones, social media to distract them!
Back then people physically worked off the food they ate. And there was no sitting around for hours watching Tv & playing video games. People actually got up and Moved! We hear all the time how physical excercise helps eliminate stress. Our ancesters did what they had to do & didn’t psyco-analyxe it!
I agree with you, we eat very close to an ancestoral diet because we too grow much of our own food and to be honest are pretty poor too! But that being said, I think a lot of the modern day stress is brought on by ourselves. Keeping up with the Joneses, having everything new, being so far in debt and thinking that it’s all gonna be ok if you just get that brand new iPhone. Lots less stress if you don’t / can’t buy into all the materialistic bull*%$#! Do I want nice things? Sure I do but am I pretty practical about it? You betcha! I will admit I need to move more, but our diet is as healthy as I can get it. You know what’s sad? I have 3 boys, youngest is 18 and he gave me a hug the other night and thanked me for not being like his friends’ moms. I asked why and he said, mom you cook with real food, not boxes, mixes or takeouts all the time. I guess maybe that’s not so sad because I’m getting through to them after all =) Lead by example!!!
I agree with you about the food! I spend far too much just trying to get enough to last through the month, but, I do get it done!
I would love to be back on my farm, even though is was worthless for growing anything, but, I did grow the best rocks in the county!
I miss milking, feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, and just knowing that I was doing something for myself!
A short comment on stress in “the good ole’ days”. No one mentions here how happy people were back then. Many of them knew this as their life from day to day. Many of them loved to work hard. I know my mom, who is in her middle 80’s loves to work hard. It is one of the things that keeps her going and makes her very happy. Too bad the generation of today don’t love to be moms, homemakers, gardeners, etc. They all want what their parents years took years to have, and they want it now. Life is truly how you perceive it and how you embrace every day to the fullest.
Juliana (and everyone who disagrees about the fact that there is more stress these days),
I would agree that there was less stress. For all the arguments in this thread about how many conveniences we have today, we fail to realize that our society functions with a speed, surplus, and intensity unheard of not only to the people of the past but also to the people in many other countries. The dear old grandmother who sewed all those button holes was not taking her other children to soccer, racing around the room, answering phone calls and emails and Facebook. She most likely walked more slowly than our generation does and found stress-relief in milking that cow (I’ve done my fair share of cow milking and goat milking and it’s been true time and again.) After living and working in India for six months, I can testify to the fact that strenuous environments, when more down to earth and simple, do not have to be stressful environments. Our so-called conveniences are used by most of us merely to enable us to pick up the pace – leading to a deadly, or at the very least debilitating, level of stress. This is then coupled with the removal of stress-relieving activities and environments (activities like knitting have stress relieving qualities, as does caring for young children or making bread; environments of long friendships and tight communities also serve to relieve stress and keep people grounded) only furthering the impact of stress on our lives.
Well stated.
The other thing is that all our meals were prepared from scratch and not tasteless, over processed food that is heated up in 15 – 20 min or less. That crap has absolutely NO dietary value. So cook your food and buy fresh produce and meat from farmers that raise animals that are not pumped up with growth agents. EAT HEALTHY and LIVE LONG.
I agree that their stress were different. One thing is for sure they did not have knowledge of psychopathic corporations like Monsanto and other corporations who are radically changing the landscape and/or health of the planet just for GREED with no regards to the future generations .
I am not going to pile on this subject, this is not the platform but I don’t think our ancestors needed to worry if the planet is going to be around for many more centuries or our we going to exticnt ourselves.
I recommend anyone tending to believe that the good old days were anything other than terrible read this book: “The Good Old Days, They Were Terrible” by Otto Bettmann.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Old-Days-Terrible/dp/0394709411
Sometimes terrible, but there was a lot of fun along with “striving to make things work” as my 89-year-old mother puts it in her book: Black Rocks and Cold Winds — Surviving the Good Old Days. https://www.mirabooksmart.com/Black-Rocks-and-Cold-Wind–Surviving-the-Good-Old-Days_p_142.html.
We certainly do take a lot of things for granted. She describes what it was like washing clothes for a family of 11. Definitely too much work, even with the older kids helping. Now imagine trying to get your water vats boiling in the winter and with freezing hands, hanging the clothes on the fence where they freeze solid.
One comment from a reader “this book should be mandatory reading for every school child in this community, so they can appreciate what it took to make this nice town, and so they can be grateful for what they have.”
She’s been a vegetarian for about 50 years now. Healthy, she can easily out-hike me. She avoids sugar, chemicals, and other additives. Until she moved in with us, she was still driving herself to line-dancing class (35 miles to town, one way). She got her license renewed here in Michigan with no restrictions. Way to Go Old Timers. Eat real food. Live authentically.
What if I told you, people used work all day for everything. From chopping wood, to sheltering it to dry, to removing the dried wood near the house under a roof, to starting the fire, to maintainig the fire. That was just to be warm, while we just twist our wrist and boom there is heat. You are hungry? Go work in you garten, go feed the animals, slaughter them, chop it apart, prepare the meat, make dinner. Water? If you were lucky you had a water well, if not, go carry liter of water home. Going somewhere? Walk..
People burned around 4000 calories a day back then, while people today burn maybe 1500 to 2000 some even less, so they could eat the caloric food.
Not saying yea or nay, but remember that being written down doesn’t make it true. Even with pictures.
Both of my grandmothers (one who was physically active; one who was forced into a more sedentary lifestyle by back injuries) lived beyond age 85. Fat back, buttermilk, cornbread, sweet tea, fried chicken, gravy, bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, mashed potatoes, corn, whole milk, cheese, butter and ALWAYS a cake baked and waiting to be enjoyed were staples in both their houses. (They were WONDERFUL cooks!!)
Considering they both grew up during the Depression, and one was a single mother of three who had no support from their father, putting two of her kids through advanced schooling despite living in Southern Appalachia, I think she did well, She worked in a nylon fiber factory (highly toxic environment) until she retired. I believe stress was a large part of her life. I know it was. She was constantly worrying about the next thing…I remember that. The other grandmother had a husband who worked in a paper mill and then as a truck farmer–bringing in all sorts of chemical toxins daily (he lived till age 83). Both, however, had faith which was strong–that helps one not to feel hopeless and lost.
They didn’t belong to gyms…the more active one took up walking when she had a heart scare in her late 70s…and the one who lived longest led the most physically inactive life for her last 30+ years. They just lived their lives and loved on their families. Maybe that is the key–being content and loving.
I live in southern Oregon. In my county we probably have 1,000 evergreen trees for each and every person. You can see evidence of air pollution at times, but not really. It’s not a factor here. We are blessed in that area. I just wish the people who only think they know about the environment would let us harvest our God-given bounty. Nobody would take better care of it. It that could happen, many more of us could afford to eat better, healthier and that often enough.
We are also forgetting now if we ate conventional bacon,(full of nitrates,) and lard and all,that was NOT organic in nature,we’d have the same problems. I say if God made the food,then it’s good for us. food created in the lab is NOT food,just sayin
Major point!
No GMOs, antibiotics or growth hormones, either. No factory food….
except god isnt real so your argument is invalid. Were talking about science here. real facts, not a bedtime story.
My family tree, that I’ve compiled, consists of 16,883 individuals and their average life span was 60 years 11 months.
I would like to add validity from a the research of Dr weston A Price who was a dentist and noticed a link between tooth decay and poor health …he was born 1870 and traveled the world studying tribal diet vs modern diet..His findings show that it didn’t matter how high fat the tribal diet was as it differed depending on where they lived and what they had…what effected poor health and tooth decay was the new modern processed diet. the tribal ppl that left the traditional ways for modern lifestyle features even changed from a wider rounder face without any teeth crowding to a more narrow face with teeth crowding. even though they didn’t brush properly they still had white cavity free teeth. back then everyone thought his findings were mad because of course modern civilized educated man can’t be wrong over the ways of tribal living. https://www.westonaprice.org/nutrition-greats/weston-price
The air near a wood fire is way more polluted than in a city today.
Have you seen the air quality figures for Beijing? Your statement is a dubious assertion not backed by any sources, in short, just an opinion.
Also, there were not all the harmful additives to food that there are now. Antibiotics, GMO’s, chemicals, food colorings, etc. etc…the list goes on and on. Most if not all have been proven in some way to be a detriment to human health.
Ever read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”?
Hmmm. Wasn’t it pretty stressful to stay up all night sewing on buttons so the kids would have clothes to wear to school? I think they did have stress the same as we do, just maybe not so much environmental. I do agree about the bad environment. Also, about all the refined and processed foods.
No, because in the 1900’s, light was basically sun or candles,e tc… which are not so great for button sewing… people slept or screwed at night.
Honestly, one part of this that I believe is crucial is the type of work that was performed. You are talking about a group of people that were out of bed before the sun was up and didn’t stop till the sun was down, and I mean manual labor here. Not these cushy jobs like we work today… Walking be hind a mule plowing fields, splitting wood (without hydraulics), heck, just felling a tree was a major ordeal! And the women did their fair share as well… Bringing water from the well, crop work, tending the house (wasn’t any wonder soap back then either, she usually made that as well), washing clothes without a washer or dryer…. Life demanded physical labor. Hard labor. And I don’t believe that we can imitate that in a gym setting. Notice how workouts are moving more toward manual labor? Flipping tractor tires, swinging big ropes, and swinging sledge hammers? I want to live my life the way they lived their lives. Hard.
the meat and eggs of those days were ‘organic’ by nature.
our food sources are fed incredible garbage, in many cases.
you are what you eat.
however, the other side of the diet coin is movement. if you are burning off most calories by chopping wood, hauling water et cetera you will have few problems with storage of leftover nutrients– there won’t be any!
That is why the outer ring in the grocery store is called Grandma food.
they had no stress are you joking, they had to grow and/or hunt & gather every bit of food they put in their mouth,they had to harvest fuel to keep warm and grow feed for their animals by hand,no running water,no electric, a woodstove to cook on, all was dependent on the unpredictable, they had to make many of their own clothes then wash them
by hand, and on and on….their days were long and very tough…..thats STRESS
It sounds stressful to us because few of us know how to do those things. When I imagine myself doing those things I see myself stressed out, yes, but mostly from lack of knowledge. There was an abundance of game and few laws such as we have today limiting what and when they could hunt. From their earliest memories they learned how to fell trees, hunt, raise, and butcher animals, and cook them. Girls learned to sew, wash, and mend clothing. Their mothers taught them how to prepare and cook meals with as little waste as possible. Every farm child went to school for the winter season and learned more in those three months than many of us did in nine. The other three seasons they were busy learning how to live. So, I think it’s just our perspective.
I agree with everything but the stress part. Back when my grandparents were a young couple they physical work harder and longer than we do today. They didn’t have vacation days and the only holiday was Christmas and Easter. They were also very stressed during the “Depression”. My grandma would make my dad’s favorite breakfast – eggs, bacon and bread fried in duck lard. However, they also ate a lot of home grown fruit and vegetables that were grown on the farm without pesticides or fertilizers. They did fertilize the garden in the fall by tilling in aged chicken manure but it went through many rainfalls and melting snow which turned it into a naturally rich soil. They even drank fresh milk straight from the cow to the kitchen table. Nothing was FDA approved as there was no FDA it was just more natural without any chemicals. There was no need for the FDA. There still is no need for the FDA as they are killing us with all of their guidelines and the forced enforcement of chemicals in our everyday food, drugs, health and beauty aids and so on. They still had a lot of stress but it was different stress. My grandparents lived well into their 80’s and my parents are still alive living at home without any special care in their mid 70’s.
I believe we owe it to the FDA for the cancer hazzards today and for the auto immune, heart diseases etc…We also owe a big thank you to technology for people losing interest in active activities and for being ignorant to how electrical charges and radio active discharges damage not only our health but the health of our environment.
They HAD their fair share of stress just not in the way we do today, they HAD to survive the elements, make sure there was food (no grocery stores or minimal) watch out for raiding factions, life was NOT easy out on the plains and in the cities you had pollution and horrid working conditions. All was not a rosy picture. I am a farmer and I can’t imagine doing it the way they did ( and I am physically whooped as well at age 60), they have even longer work hours(no punching out after 8 hours) than I!!!! Everything depended on the weather so you could make it thru the winter. People also worked every dang day which kept them more physically fit, maybe the key to working off their stress. Both my grandfathers worked their ass’ off and both died farming, both were skinny wirey like men, one died of a heart attack making fence line by the woods, the other after coming in at the end of a hard day’s work. Pioneers worked hard for what we have today and take for granted.
People ate real food with all the “bad” stuff in it because people worked. They worked HARD back then. The body either used what was eaten, sweated it out or nature took care of it. Today, people do not do enough physical work for good, traditional food. I am in my 50’s and absolutely LOVE meats, gravies, vegetables and fruits. I could eat sausage gravy over toast or biscuits every single day. According to my latest physical, my cholesterol (bad) is really good while the so called “good” cholesterol is a little low. The doctor can find nothing to argue about, including my weight. I take NO daily medications, which doctors seem to find extremely odd. I eat what I want, stopping when I feel full and I work. I do yard work, I have a public job, and am a mother, grandmother and wife. The main thing today’s people lack is the ability to get up and actually DO something. Computers, gaming systems and TV are doing more harm than good.
Sorry, I entered too quickly. I have 7 children of my own. 4 of those children are grown and the other 3 are 11 thru 14. For the record, my great-grandparents (both sides) lived to be 97, 96, 93 and 89. My grandfathers (both) died early due to accidents. My grandmothers both died at age 88. My dad died at 69 with cancer and my mom is almost 80. She still has a garden and lives in her home. She is as healthy as anyone I know. She doesn’t, however, eat lots of processed foods, foods from restaurants, etc. Maybe there is something to all of this.