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Illogical question, obviously everyone was way more active in 1914.
"Historically people worked a lot more than they do now. They also ate a lot more than they do now."
The theory is about total carbs, which includes sugar, potatoes, etc, not just grains. Strange to just focus on grains.
I thought that the theory was the simple carbs (e.g. sugars, refined grains) were worse offenders than complex carbs (e.g. potatoes).
For example, even though a cherry has much higher GI than a potato, you eat more sugar/carbohydrates in one potato than in one cherry, so a potato has higher GL and thus higher insulin response.
I don't think it is at all fair to say "they were already using white flour..". Much bread had very different qualities back then- more likely to be slow fermented instead of quick rise, much more likely to be local, etc.
I think this misses the point anyways- the quality of food was different- you see a large increase in sweeteners in the graph, oils transitioned away from natural animal fats to industrial processed seed oils- and in general food became much more processed.
The theory is about total carbs, which includes sugar, potatoes, etc, not just grains. Strange to just focus on grains.
The theory is about total carbs, which includes sugar, potatoes, etc, not just grains. Strange to just focus on grains.
The theory is about total carbs, which includes sugar, potatoes, etc, not just grains. Strange to just focus on grains.
In 1914 far more jobs involved physical labor, even house work. Also, there wasn't as much opportunity to consume excess calories in 1914. The killer combination today is sedentary lifestyles PLUS too much food PLUS the wrong sorts of foods.
The theory is about total carbs, which includes sugar, potatoes, etc, not just grains. Strange to just focus on grains.
Table 4 of the original report gives more detailed numbers. In the period 1909-1919, grains, potatoes and sweeteners together contributed 54.4% of American calories. In 2004, it was down to 43%.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...
On the other hand, fat consumption nearly doubled over that period (from 12.6% to 23.9%).
Take a cup of oatmeal from 1914 and a cup of Quaker Oats from 2011. Place them side by side on the counter top. Tell me how they are different from each other.
Take a slice from loaf of bread baked in the home from 1914 and place it next to a slice of bread from the grocery store bought in 2011. Tell me how they are different.
So no, it's not just grains that are making us fat. It's how grains are typically available to us. Highly refined, protein and fiber reduced, extended with fillers and soaked in sweeteners. It's a fact. People won't eat things that taste bad. If I gave you my great-grandmother's breakfast from 1914 (the Scottish one, you get oatmeal), you just might not eat it. I've heard she liked it with ham.
And, as other commenters point out, it doesn't hurt that people walked pretty much everywhere 100 years ago. And swept their floors, washed their laundry by hand, walked up lots of stairs as elevators were not in wide adoption.