Another depressing thread

Gran22boys

In our small town we had, until recently, 3 butchers, 2 bakeries, 1 fishmonger, 1 greengrocer and a deli. All selling real, unprocessed food. Now all gone except 1 butcher’s shop. It was mostly the older people using these shops. In recent years, 3 supermarkets have come to the town. The food sold there does not compare to the food that the town shops sold but people buy it as it’s cheaper and convenient. It’s difficult to buy real food now without travelling some distance.

But supermarkets sell "real" food too (even if it's not always local).

Amongst my friends and acquaintances it's the women that are dying first, cancers being a large number, dementia and auto immune problems too, mostly in their 60s

Because of the decline of drinking and smoking along with much better safety at work the men are living longer.

Aldi and Lidl make a point of selling additive free food. My diet has improved dramatically since I started shopping with them. I follow several people on instagram who take you round various supermarkets each week highlighting the healthiest additive free foods. Marks and Spencer’s are following suit. It’s through these instagram pages that I realised Bisto gravy has no meat in it whatsoever, it’s just a cocktail of food flavourings emulsifiers etc. I also follow people that show you how to make wholesome healthy food. I’ve persuaded my partner to no longer have bacon for breakfast most days, or ham in sandwiches.

My weekly habit is to buy quite a few root vegetables in Aldi to make soup for lunch, which usually lasts 3 to 4 days. It works out pretty cheaply compared to bought fresh soup in cartons or plastic containers which are generally anything from £1.50 upwards.

I meant to add, given the title of the thread, yes it's a problem for society when people can't afford to feed themselves properly. However, I can't get depressed about other people's unhealthy habits, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise and unhealthy take away food etc., we all have enough information at our disposal to know what we should and shouldn't be doing.

MayBee70

Aldi and Lidl make a point of selling additive free food. My diet has improved dramatically since I started shopping with them. I follow several people on instagram who take you round various supermarkets each week highlighting the healthiest additive free foods. Marks and Spencer’s are following suit. It’s through these instagram pages that I realised Bisto gravy has no meat in it whatsoever, it’s just a cocktail of food flavourings emulsifiers etc. I also follow people that show you how to make wholesome healthy food. I’ve persuaded my partner to no longer have bacon for breakfast most days, or ham in sandwiches.

MayBee70
It’s sounds as if you were influenced by those evil numskulls😂 That’s according to the majority on that thread.

No-one will persuade my DH not to eat bacon.

twaddle

Oreo

In some areas people drink more, smoke more, take drugs more?
I should also think that living in a run down looking area has a bad effect on people and affects jobs and therefore money, so not going to spend what they have on salads. Where you live must always have had an effect on lives.

Of course it has an effect! That's the whole point of what I've been writing.

…and I was backing up what you wrote 😄

Allira

Norah

Whitewavemark2

I think diet (processed food) is a huge factor.

Another factor is the poor state of the NHS.

I agree. Perhaps people could scratch cook really food, apart from eating processed foods, takeaways and ready meals.

Perhaps many people are time poor.
Rushing out to work in the mornings, organising children for school, picking them up from after-school clubs, childminders, getting home, trying to get a meal on the table, clear up, supervise homework, children's activities, sort out washing, clothes for the next day etc.

Perhaps those who've never had a full-time job as well as bringing up a family don't realise there isn't always time to cook a made-from-scratch meal every night of the week.

We did work full time while raising a family and all the above, AND we cooked healthy meals every day because we prioritised diet for child health and development.

In my childrens early years we lived in an area of high deprivation in Glasgow where poor diet and different spending priorities visibly affected both adults and their children for life. It was devastating to watch it happening as our babies and children grew up together.

I gave birth in a Glasgow maternity hospital where many of the mothers were so scrawny and stunted the average birth weight of full-term newborns was 4lbs.

Allsorts

UK still good for life expectancy, people are aware of what they should eat and get exercise more than ever and yet lots choose not to. I go into supermarkets and can’t get over the rubbish in trolleys, much cheaper to eat healthily.. Agree with what Aveline said.

The OP in this thread is talking about a report into HEALTHY life expectancy. Not to be confused with " how long they last".

In UK and USA, many people spend the last decade+ of their life in such poor health it affects their quality of life.

Where my DS and family live, its really sad in that - how to put it - most of the women - and men - seem to be overweight at a young age

- they are loving and caring in communities where families stay close, its not "Deprived" all round, the children and older people are not alone or unloved:

but ex mining and not enough jobs, semi rural but not a lot of farming either. My DiL says quite a lot of home cooking, but not healthy stuff, and if it's eating out, it's pizza or chips food.

So when did it all change? and why? Simply the growth of fast and processed food? We try to educate children now about healthy eating, but I honestly can't recall that really even when my son was at school in the 1980's unless they chose it as an option for GCSE.

Or the fact that some or even many women - and some men - actually simply don't like cooking at all and sadly accept factors like shorter lives and stuff like diabetes 2 as being par for the course?

As a child the meals I can remember were always roast - probably beef on a Sunday. Cold meat with mashed potato, pasty, lamb chops, casserole, home made fish and chips, salad - cold meat salad potatoes etc, stew, and so forth. Always simple food home cooked. I can’t think of any processed food. Except perhaps custard powder. Always had a pudding.
Breakfast was often bread, jam and cream - skimmed off the milk that had been scalded over night - or bread and milk. School dinners mid-day - cooked in the schools canteen - proper food often centred around minced beef with custard type puddings. And I think we were far more active Walking too and from school - out to play all day long.

But no snacking. No sweets except Christmas and birthdays perhaps. Later we had sweets from the penny box, paid for with pocket money.

And doctors who paid home visits and knew the family and its history.

Its greediness, pure and simple

Whitewavemark2

As a child the meals I can remember were always roast - probably beef on a Sunday. Cold meat with mashed potato, pasty, lamb chops, casserole, home made fish and chips, salad - cold meat salad potatoes etc, stew, and so forth. Always simple food home cooked. I can’t think of any processed food. Except perhaps custard powder. Always had a pudding.
Breakfast was often bread, jam and cream - skimmed off the milk that had been scalded over night - or bread and milk. School dinners mid-day - cooked in the schools canteen - proper food often centred around minced beef with custard type puddings. And I think we were far more active Walking too and from school - out to play all day long.

But no snacking. No sweets except Christmas and birthdays perhaps. Later we had sweets from the penny box, paid for with pocket money.

And doctors who paid home visits and knew the family and its history.

But in the 1950's the fizzy drink people driving up and down the street to be stopped were very common. and yes my family didn't allow us many sweets not because of obesity but for teeth.

My Mum, when we rushed in, mum mum I'm hungry, would give us a carrot. "good for your teeth and eyes"

But the big difference as posted out in the quote, was how much more active we were. Or some of us were there were some girls that were not encouraged to be physical and outdoors at all. My mum was "go and climb that tree jump over the stream oh dear you fell in"

I read an article last week ( telegraph or Guardian so reasonably reputable) about the shortage of docs in hospitals and it mentioned how several hospitals are now using advanced nurse practitioners to do doctors tasks. It mentioned one area where an anp had been doing a specialised endoscopy that carried several risks and it said 68 patients had either suffered damage or died as a result of this. I can't remember the time span over which this took place and no reason was given as to why the practice wasn't stopped earlier but surely this is one reason for the decline in public health in this country.

Don't you think the lack of cookery lessons in schools has exacerbated the problem?We had to cook from scratch and learn to iron!My friends daughter asked for ingredients for a cookery lesson a few years ago,list a tin of rice pudding,a tin of pears and a bottle of chocolate sauce,to make pear belle Helene,you couldn't make it up.

.

Don't be such a scaremonger.
And anyway what constitutes a 'healthy life'? Everyone is bound to have some health issues as they age but with good and advanced medical care we are living much longer and lovely lives.

Everyone I know is enjoying a reasonably active life, good food, good social lives, lovely holidays abroad - and dozens of them are way into their 80's. Okay, they move more slowly but they are enjoying themselves.

In two decades I've only been to the funeral of one person who was under 80 and that was due to a very sad accident.

According to the Office of National Statistics life expectancy in the U.K is way into the 80's, so don't let this hyped nonsense get you down.

Onwards and upwards.
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CarrieAnn

Don't you think the lack of cookery lessons in schools has exacerbated the problem?We had to cook from scratch and learn to iron!My friends daughter asked for ingredients for a cookery lesson a few years ago,list a tin of rice pudding,a tin of pears and a bottle of chocolate sauce,to make pear belle Helene,you couldn't make it up.

No.

I never did cookery at school but my DC and DGC all had to, it was a compulsory subject from Y7 to Y9.

One DGD always used to 'forget' to take her cookery ingredients to school but she eats very healthily indeed now.

Sadly, Barbadoselle, several people we know who have been under 80 have died in recent years, some very young people too. I am sure there are other factors involved such as genetics, pollution, and in fact Chernobyl, the fallout from which was covered up to a large extent.

CarrieAnn

Don't you think the lack of cookery lessons in schools has exacerbated the problem?We had to cook from scratch and learn to iron!My friends daughter asked for ingredients for a cookery lesson a few years ago,list a tin of rice pudding,a tin of pears and a bottle of chocolate sauce,to make pear belle Helene,you couldn't make it up.

I couldn't agree more! My sons cookery lessons were in the late nineties and noughties, absolute rubbish compared to mine back in the '60s, where we cooked from scratch. One such lesson, chocolate mousse, hardly a day to day staple, ingredients chocolate and cream, many ate the chocolate on the way to school, they obviously thought the ensuing detention was worth it. Worse, and no you couldn't make it up. Told to bring in a ready made supermarket Ceasar Salad kit, they didn't even have to make the dressing and just dress it from what was already provided. Waste of a bloody lesson, demonstrating how to assemble a few lettuce leaves and Parmesan shavings, who ever devised those so called lessons should be ashamed of themselves. The fact that both mine cook all manner of tasty food from scratch now is certainly nothing to do with what they learned, or rather didn't learn in school. Zero inspiration there.

I agree with all who have criticised ultra processed food and the effects of all the artificial sweeteners. All this plus a sedentary life style has led to an increasing number including children who are grossly over weight It would be interesting to hear if those that are having problems earlier come within that category

A few years ago I did a survey about facilities at a local fitness centre. One of the questions was about what people thought of the food on offer. Most said it was good or very good. It consisted of sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks.

I'm amazed so many had cookery lessons at school in the 1950s and 60s!

the effects of all the artificial sweeteners.

This!
Some of these sweeteners are a danger to health but are forced upon us by governments.
They are worse than sugar. No-one needs too much sugar, of course but a little is healthier than the rubbish such as aspartame that is endangering health.

Or in our case “Domestic Science” ☺️.

Not only did it cover feeding the family, but also all things domestic. I remember the lines of sparkling tea towels that we had boiled, rinsed and hung out to dry. Stain removal, without the benefit of modern chemicals. How to clean wooden tops in the kitchen. They were white! Cleaning utensils etc.

The autumn term after half term was spent making the Christmas cake and pudding. The teacher kept her eye on the cooking - whilst we were off doing maths or English or whatever, and the following week there they all were on our individual tables ready to marzipan etc.

Those lessons stayed with me throughout life.

My education was obviously sadly lacking ☹
But somehow I have managed!