Was that a cool head of hair, or what? 1982 was a great year for hair and rock&roll, but a bad year for food. Here's an article from 1983, FOOD TRENDS: WHAT AMERICANS ARE BUYING. It's quite illuminating. The quotes below are from the article.
Americans continued their helium-fueled search for lightness in everything from cereals and spaghetti sauce to wine -even that insouciant big guy on the block, Coca Cola, acknowledged that it was time to go on a diet.
Growing up in rural Ohio, I don't remember ever worrying about the quality of the food Mom fed us. Bologna sandwiches, TV dinners, homemade bread and jam, margarine, ice cream...good wholesome food. And we thrived on it. We played in fields of corn sprayed with paraquat herbicides, drank from the hose, and rode bikes without helmets. And we survived.
But now it seems all this emphasis on health is taking its toll.
A large contingent of low-calorie, low-salt and low-fat foods led the parade.
It's hard to say exactly what changes in the food supply made the biggest difference, but the '80's were undeniably the start of something bad.
Fast-food restaurants seemed to pop up on every corner in the '80's. Mom's started working outside the home more.
There are dozens of ''natural'' foods sold in supermarkets today that contain artificial coloring, monosodium glutatmate, processed oils, thickeners, stabilizers and preservatives.
Technology exploded in the '80's with the first home computers, but also for food manufacturers who learned to make fake sugar, fake fat, and fake food in general.
Finally, 1983 may be the year of aspartame, the low-calorie sugar substitute that is said to be indistinguishable from the real thing. Aspartame, which is called NutraSweet on food labels and Equal when sold by itself, is expected to receive Food and Drug Administration approval soon for use in carbonated soft drinks.
It's not too late for us to turn back the clocks of food-time. Just eat real, whole foods. Pass on the fast food and fake food. It's time we stop looking to food manufacturers to create foods that will keep us healthy and lean. Nature's been doing it for millions of years.
Just thought I'd throw this out there, holidays and all. Think about this when trying to decide what to eat for the next couple weeks.
Merry Christmas!
Tim
1982, isn't that the Reagan era? He, along with Maggie Thatcher, privatised industry and gave them free range!! And they went at it wholesale. 1500 new products!! OK not all are food, but basic food is only about 2 dozen or so. A potato is a potato, how many ways can a food manufacturer split it into different products without adding lots of chemicals to the mix? And were they concerned about our health? No, only about making big profits.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's face it. What did we know about food and nutrition? I know I didn't. And we didn't have the internet available so how could we learn about it? We didn't have access to scientific literature. That was only available to the happy few who could access the university library. Who were the investigative journalists at the time. And was it being done to warn us of the dangers of all that fake food appearing on the market.
I know for me it only took off when we got access to the internet and could start reading it for ourselves. And the more I read the more I changed my view.
Jo tB
Gee.
ReplyDeleteBack in the late '70's and early '80's, those of us who were already suspicious of industrial food were derided as health freaks and hippies. But our 'guts' - literally and figuratively - told us we were on the right track.
We scoured used book stores and swapped books in our big circle of friends - Books like Frances Moore Lappe's "Recipes for a Small Planet" taught us how to use whole grains. Adele Davis's "Let's Eat Right" series taught us about the importance of liver (but her recipes sucked!). We shared worn out back issues of the Whole Earth Catalogue and in those days Harrowsmith Magazine was a valuable resource too. So the information was definitely 'out there' in some circles!
We combined everything we learned, adapted it to our tastes and found our own way. We ate well, breastfed our babies. We grew our own food whenever we could and somebody always had laying hens so we could get good eggs.
Now it turns out we were ahead of the curve. I hate to say we told you so, but ..
At this time also started the war on saturated fats and cholesterol (eg, meat, eggs, and dairy). This stigma that they are unhealthy still exists today.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was 17 in 1982! For millions of reasons. And hair metal! Heard of dokken tim? Dutch(-american?) hair metal band that i like very much. Since you lived for a while in the netherlands.
ReplyDeleteOh well, lets live it up in these interesting times. Starting it age 25 (as I get rid off the ill effects created by the worrylessness and ignorance of the good old days).
But I feel as if sometimes we go in circles. Yes, eggs and meat were vilified in the low fat era, but just today, I finished listening to a Chris Masterjohn podcast, where he recommended a Kitavan style diet for the management of family inherited heart disease...low fat, high tubers, fish and fruit....so....
ReplyDelete