Same food, same day

[Cooper27]

Someone raised an interesting idea with me, about eating a diet a bit closer to that which our more recent ancestors ate: same meals on the same day. I'm curious whether people do this, and whether it's beneficial?

I know my gran stuck to a pretty firm rotation of meals - I can't remember what she had on each day, but she lived quite healthily to a good age with no major health concerns (other than mild arthritis and cataracts). She started each day with a bowl of porridge, and tended to eat a sandwich or soup for lunch. A typical week of dinners might look like this:

M: Gammon with potatoes and veg

T: Sausages, mash and veg

W: Toast with eggs

T: Bridie (similar to a Cornish pastie), with potatoes and veg

F: Home-made fish and chips

S: Mince and tatties

S: Roast chicken with potatoes and veg

You'll have to excuse the fact this is a big list of meat and two (and a tonne of potatoes :D), but I'm trying to think what my gran would have eaten - and her generation weren't fans of rice, sweet potatoes and pasta. Of course, you can adapt the meal plan to your personal preferences!

[Agoodenough]

I wonder whether you would restrict your diet eating like that. I am too impulsive so it wouldn’t work for me 😁 I don’t think it would go down well in my house either as we don’t like things to be predictable. I thought people ate like this so that they could budget for what they spent on food as it would always cost about the same rather than it having any health benefits but it could have also been a way of making sure nothing went to waste. Maybe it just changed with the change of eating habits and there is so much more variety now. I bet your grans food was lovely as back then it wasn’t unusual to make everything yourself 🙂

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to Agoodenough]

I'm inclined to agree - everything seems to tell me variety is important (like the 30 plants challenge). But when you look at the introduction of variety, circumstantially, it seems to also coincide with expanding waistlines/growth in disease. Maybe our guts don't like surprises?

You're right though, nothing beats granny's cooking, especially porridge - you'll never find anyone that makes it as good as your gran did!

[benwl in reply to Cooper27]

That's a really interesting question.

I recall seeing recently the suggestion that too much variety of flavours in a single meal tended to make us eat more (i'll try and find the reference)

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to benwl]

Yes, I heard about it on a radio show last year - I think they called it textural satiety, or sensorial satiety? It was about why we always have room for dessert, even if we couldn't clear our main plate. Essentially because we've had enough of the textures on the main plate, but if you put something a bit different down in front of us, we'll get more pleasure from it.

I was just reading into something else, and they mentioned that by eating the exact same thing regularly, we will tend to get used to it, so will naturally eat smaller portions. Maybe by having so much variety, we eat larger portions, because we know we won't eat it again for a while?

[Fran182716 Prediabetic in reply to Cooper27]

Similar to why people tend to eat more at a buffet than a sit down meal, because they don't want to "miss out" on all that's on offer?

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to Fran182716]

Exactly, great example!

[Fran182716 Prediabetic in reply to Cooper27]

I think the expanding variety of foods available brought the bad with the good, there are many vegetables and fruits available now that you couldn't find in the supermarkets when I was young (1970s) but the fast food market expanded at the same time. I'm glad there's more variety nowadays and I wouldn't want just 7 rotating dinners, but junk food is responsible for a lot of ill health.

[Zest]

Hi Cooper27

I definitely tend to stick to the same kind of breakfast - which for me is porridge based with extras. I've also found that I will tend to have a stir-fry or risotto around the weekend, as I feel excited on a Friday evening, and like to mark that with a favourite kind of meal.

My lunches are often soup with some wholegrain bread, but as the Summery weather is coming, I'm delving more into a few colourful salads.

Your thread is 'food for thought' and I am sure I will be thinking more about it.

Zest

[Penel]

Hi Cooper

I think perhaps there was quite a bit of variety which came from the seasonal and local vegetables everyone would eat, there would even be different varieties of potato at different times of year. There were few imports of foreign veg until the 1960s and certainly no fruits or salad out of season.

One of the reasons for our increasing waistlines is the snack food so readily available, it didn’t exist back in our gran’s time, no one ate between meals.

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to Penel]

Yes, my grandad grew a lot of his own veg, so it would also have been quite seasonal and nutritionally dense.

I disagree that they never ate between meals - gran always had a couple of sweets per day, and a few biscuits with her afternoon tea. AlthoughI'm aware I'm making a correlation/causation faux pas!

[Penel in reply to Cooper27]

Yes, a biscuit with your cup of tea was traditional if not obligatory! There are so many snack type foods nowadays, a couple of biscuits seems quite moderate.

[Bazza1234]

I agree with learning from Granny's eating habits - however perhaps it may be better to look at what she didn't eat!!! First of all, nothing commercially manufactured and sold in supermarkets. ( They didn't have supermarkets way back then) . Nothing cooked by somebody else ( Granny did all of her own cooking), no alcohol (Granny was teetotal), no biscuits, chocolates, sweet lollies, fruit juices or soda pops ( Granny didn't have the money for such extravagances) What else???

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to Bazza1234]

I dunno actually! She did eat biscuits and a couple of hard boiled sweets a day, although probably cutting back during rationing. It's hard to judge where supermarkets played in, because they came along during her lifetime. But yes, granny's often were tee-total aside from Christmas!

I think they prided themselves in their physical fitness though, walking several miles a day