Was Everything Better in the 70's?

Was everything better in the 70’s? Probably…….

On average we are heavier, fatter, taller and have slightly bigger feet than in the 70’s.

So, I guess it’s not all bad. The worrying stats are around the fatness – particularly children which does seem to be becoming a problem which isn’t fixable by standard methods in the modern ‘big food’ society. I guess with education people can vote with their feet. Here’s a few things we are doing differently.

It’s not just about calories either…

We were leaner back then by about 14lb of fat leaner.

Britain decreased calorie purchasing inside the home and increased purchasing of calories outside the home.

In the UK the National household survey suggests since the 70’s we have been eating;

Less white bread and less full fat milk
Less liver and offal
More Italian meals especially pizza – I think pizza’s the culprit to be honest
Cheaper food
Faster food and less time in the kitchen
More frozen food
Less tea
More chips and crisps – we’re obsessed with crisps actually

Got this from a really interesting article which if you have some time this weekend is worth digging into.

We have a winner – also for the competition so congratulations to John Louis Riccardi on that one.

Nice to know there’s a bit of a move towards growing our own veggies and keeping some chickens as we opt out somewhat of ‘big food’ options. I’m just dusting off the pots, grow bags and planters at the moment.

So, I guess in the UK if we start to eat more liver, full fat milk, cut down on pizza, eat more fish, drink more tea, spend more money on food, eat more vegetables, cook more at home and eat out less and take longer to prepare the food we might get a bit smaller around the waist line. Simple eh?

There’s a bit more we can do below also if we assume some of the American stats also apply to us, which they certainly do in the fast food and vegetable department. Here’s what we can do to live a little more like we used to;

Eat more fish
Cook more at home
Eat out less
Eat more veggies
Drink more full fat milk
Eat less pizza (or make your own with a low carb base)
Eat less fast food and ready meals
Eat more offal
Drink more tea (presumably with a dash of full fat milk)?

There’s also a heap of reasons why we move around much less and save calories. Everything from playing out less, screen time to dish washers there’s a reason why a device can save us calories.

Generally as a species we opt for the easy way out whenever we can. It’s a survival thing.

There’s some other stuff going on also. Which means even when we standardise calories, movement and so on we will be 10% heavier than our 70’s ancestors.

Why? A couple of possible reasons, gut flora or the microbiome, drugs – SSRIs (Prozac) plastic contamination – shown to increase insulin resistance, and yes it is in your fat cells right now. So it looks like you need to work even harder now than your parents to stay lean. Can you get the plastic out of your fat? – yes of course, can you support your gut flora?, of course you can – here’s how you do it;

Sauna – if you can’t afford or find a convenient sauna get a sweat suit instead off amazon
NAC and liver supporting herbs like milk thistle
Curcumin
Probiotics and pre-biotics like inulin
Sweating and exercise
Fibre increasing generally
Use natural mood support – talk to your GP about changing medication
Increasing glutathioneR5’s are one of the best ways to potentially do this
Losing fat, email me for a free programme
Taking alpha lipoic acid (it’s in the MAC aminos)

You can read a full list of references associated with detoxification at the end of this blog.

And yes, you can get great additional support for these systems by using Amino Man Alpha Greens, The Metabolic Optimiser, Metabolic Amino Complex, Curcumin…. All of which can be found on the website.

You’ll see inulin in many of the Amino Man products as a natural and effective pre-biotic it just helps your microbiome stay healthy. There’s a good dose in Amber Aminos Adaptogenic Hot Chocolate mix, HOTCHOC40 = 40% off that one.

Strangely some of this data also shows we are eating less calories than before.

At least in the house – but this can’t right as we are generally all getting much bigger and fatter. Good news is though we are a bit taller, slightly more muscled and our feet are a bit larger too. Just we got a belly to go along with this now – generally speaking.

This does highlight one key point, we all under report what we eat and also how many alcohol units we consume. Generally, people in the UK under report by 50% in terms of how much we drink. How do we know this? Cause we import and sell twice the amount people own up to drinking, unless we are pouring half of this down the sink we can assume it’s under reporting.

So how are our American cousins who we follow closely in the obesity race eating well it looks like they are generally;

Eating more pineapple – good right? Except that cause it’s on pizza, they like us seem to be addicted to the stuff.

Oh – we are now selling some items in the USA on www.amazon.com specifically you can get, fish oils, curcumin, male and female optimizers on there now. More products to follow shortly. If you live there you can order and get Amino Man – hurray!

Coffee remains the best source of antioxidants in the standard American diet (SAD).

American’s are eating a bit more fruit (mainly pineapple) and less veggies – although generally this is up since the 70’s trouble is it’s mainly tomato and potato as part of fast food consumption.

They are eating more potatoes. Generally, this isn’t a good thing as the more potatoes consumed in a household the more likely the household members are to be obese. This isn’t because potatoes are bad for you it’s just that normally these are consumed as crisps or chips.

Remember if you eat just one bag of crisps per day it’s the same as drinking 5 litres of vegetable oil each year. Popping the picture of the girl drinking vegetable oil helped my kids ask for crisps less often.

Grain consumption is generally up, and protein products are generally down. There’s been a big increase in dairy product consumption.

There’s been a big increase in added fats and oils – especially vegetable oil, I truly believe this is one of the biggest culprits. Along with refined wheat flour.

Sugar consumption is down. This doesn’t mean the insulin theory of obesity is debunked, as grains are up these are more potent insulin stimulators in any case – everyone knows that.

Overall Americans stats show that they are eating more calories 40% were overweight or obese in 1975 and now 70% of people are overweight or obese.

There’s a really nice summary here which shows the super sizing of fast food in simple infographics.

If we try to turn back the clock in America, we’d be;