A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s • Hacker News Board

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#161

Post by quercusa » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:13 PM UTC

mauvehaus wrote: post #150

technothrasher wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the "Mexican" coke started making a splash as "better than American", Coke tested it blind with taste testers and came to the conclusion that there was no perceptible difference, and that the glass bottle makes more difference than the cane sugar vs HFCS (The whole point of HFCS is to be formulated to contain the same amount of glucose and fructose as cane sugar). Many other folks then performed tests (of better…

Come Passover, all Coke in the stores is cane sugar (so I'm told). I don't drink much Coke, and if you put two glasses in front of me, I'm pretty confident that I could tell you whether they're the same sweetener or different. I'll notice the switch at the beginning and end of Passover. Since I'm not Jewish, and since Passover moves around, I'll claim this is close enough to a blind test. For my money the elusive per…

Yep, Passover Coke with cane sugar comes in 2L bottles with a yellow cap.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#162

Post by micromacrofoot » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #102

Reading some of the stuff people used to eat, I have a really hard time understanding how obesity is worse today than back then.

a lazy person in the 20s would probably seem fairly active by today's standards... outside of reading books you would have been hard pressed to find an abundance of things to do while sitting around

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#163

Post by fivefifty » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #73

chrisco255 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their argument is that height has increased as a result of the meaty and fatty diet. It's definitely a factor. If you look at height differences between South Koreans and North Koreans, for example, you will see the effect that nutrition can have on height. South Korea's meat consumption per capita has also increased consistently since the Korean War. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-relationship-between...

The counter argument is that it's simply better nutrition increasing height and you can have better nutrition even without a lot of animal product (especially in 2022). It's not intrinsic to meat and animal fat.

This is correct, you don't need animal products specifically to get the height increase it's more about just getting a decent amount of protein along with associated vitamins and minerals for the mother during pregnancy and through the childs early life up to early adulthood.

With animal products it's basically just easier to reach this nutritional point at least when compared with more traditional plant based diets. Of course with modern plant based supplements and nutritional knowledge and food availability etc. you can more or less narrow the gap these days at least in a technical sense, but sometimes in the real world the problem can be getting the kids to actually eat enough protein if they are fussy eaters who decide they don't like a particular protein source (whether animal or plant based) or are filling up on nutritionally sparse junk food first.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#164

Post by micromacrofoot » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #129

ufo wrote: post #120

Is milk being on every relief menu a sign that people had a derranged love for milk? Or just the strength of the milk lobby?

I don't think you can easily separate the two. Things might start as a marketing campaign but then catch on in general culture. In modern culture, this would be true of bacon. Bacon was falling out of favor in the US in the 1980s as people were beginning to become heart and weight conscious. But then there was a massive marketing push and now bacon is everywhere even on things like donuts. People think bacon is the m…

you see this in a lot of food trends through the years... a lot of marketing-pushed popularity people aren't even aware of

almonds and avocados are incredibly popular at the moment despite being particularly bad for the environment, they have their own lobbying groups and political action committees

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#165

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #132

bprieto wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European mediterranian countries. Bacon wrapped dates were pretty common at parties in Spain. Then they were considered bad for your health because of the fat, and now they are considered bad for your health because of the sugar.

ah ok a bit like the french used to do prunes wrapped in bacon. do the spanish grow dates? never seen a spanish date

Not in significant quantities, looks like, but Morocco and Algeria, which are basically next door, are significant producers.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#166

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

Dracophoenix wrote: post #157

dismantlethesun wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? Speaking as someone from a '3rd world country' [1], the traditional food preparation has been unchanged since the 1920s. The last great change in diet occurred when tomatoes and corn arrived from the America's to W. Africa, then later again when rice became a staple. The US has a fantastical food culture because it's a large country that can natively produce almost every crop, and was historically agrarian.…

>> The US has a fantastical food culture because it's a large country that can natively produce almost every crop, and was historically agrarian. Adding to that, the US food culture always changes to wars, new immigrants, boycott, and government subsidies. Most countries aren't like that, and are significantly more conservative with dietary changes. With all these advantages in the US's favor, why is it that Europe i…

>With all these advantages in the US's favor, why is it that Europe is held as a standard of food done right?

Because filter bubbles and liking Europe[1] is very fashionable in filter bubbles that are demographically similar to HN and most of HN has a social circle full of similar demographics that they get their food opinions from.

There are plenty of people who hold middle America in high culinary regard. The rest of the things those people tend to have to say are generally not welcome around here so those people don't hang out here and don't hang out with the kind of people who hang out here so there's little discussion going on between these groups of people.

[1] For a very specific definition of "Europe" that is a far smaller than the actual continent.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#167

Post by ghostly_s » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

My midwestern farmer grandparents ate a diet not very dissimilar from the farm-diet described here - right up until my grandfather's fatal heart attack in the 90's.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#168

Post by thatguy0900 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #120

Is milk being on every relief menu a sign that people had a derranged love for milk? Or just the strength of the milk lobby?

I mean it is cheap while being nutrient and calorie dense. It makes sense to put on a relief menu lobby or no

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#169

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #64

camhart wrote: post #46

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the paper cartons? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the plastic? Tastes like garbage. Organic milk in a paper carton? Some is good, some taste like garbage. I didn't realize how different milk tastes until I spent some time in Germany. Prior to that I just thought I…

Just a note: the taste difference you're picking up on is not due to the simple presence or absence of plastic. Paper cartons are lined with LDPE film and milk jugs are usually composed of HDPE. Both options are, in effect, polyethylene plastic containers.

Too bad. It seems like paper cartons were wax-coated when I was a kid.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#170

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

justsomehnguy wrote: post #121

postexitus wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impact of modern packaging on the taste itself has been proven to be neglible in double blind studies. However, the taste of milk varies wildly based on the animal (food, location, roaming, season etc.) and also of course the process applied to sterilize the milk (pasteurization/UHT, skimming, filtering). Same milk from from same cow will taste very different when raw vs UHT. I am very much a UHT person, but for some…

> modern packaging But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently. If the milk came in a plastic bottle I have no problem drinking directly from the bottle, if it came in TetraPak... If I bothered to cut it with scissors I would probably be fine drinking milk directly, but if I just ripped the corner by the perforation then I would definitely drink from the mug…

> But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently.

I agree with that. When container-touches-mouth I think there surely must be some electrochemistry involved that makes the drink from the aluminum can taste ... metallic.

Or it's all in my head. (But that too is important.)