Portion sizes when you were young

Butterfly_Brain

kiss_me_now9 wrote: »

I disagree. My parents dinner set is from their wedding in the mid 80s and it's bigger than the set that I bought last year from Morrisons and the set I bought back in 2008 from Woolworths. I feel like that purely depends on what plates you own!

I think a lot of it is that we've moved as a society out of restriction from rationing and into an age where we can have anything we want. We don't just see this excess in food, but in benefits, the NHS and even education. People feel like they're 'owed' whatever they want and don't have to go without any more. We've created a society where we can get whatever we want whenever we want without 'real' consequence (cos why does it matter that you don't have a job when you can pop to cash converters and get that Xbox with your JSA payments?) and consequently people take advantage.

This sort of rhetoric makes me so angry :mad::mad::mad:

People have paid their national insurance to receive benefits, that is all of us.

Do you not comprehend that they had the xboxes, sky etc BEFORE they were unfortunate enough to need help from the State?

I have a sky dish but no sky TV, stop trying to make peoples lives even more miserable than they already are.

Why do you feel it necessary to post such a nasty Daily Hate comment?
Maybe you should try being on benefits, it might open your eyes to how little they actually get after paying £thousands over the years into the system,only to find themselves made redundant or worse sick and disabled.
DWP figures on fraudulent claims for DLA was actually only 0.7%, less than 1% yet they have attacked the disabled.

I would like to see you face to face with a JCP laughingly called advisor or in front of a tick boxer from Atos, Capita or Maximus.

We don't believe Tory lies, they are using the same lies that the Nazis used :mad::mad::mad:

We all have our own experiences of life on the benefits front, and it is a disgrace that one of the richest countries in the world villifies those with so little whilst greasing the palms of the tax dodging rich :mad::mad::mad:

We should be angry about the way that the bankers, who crashed the global economy and got away with such blatant frauds. We should be angry at the corporate tax dodgers and the private tax dodgers.

We should not be attacking those who are poor, sick and vulnerable:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Do not judge lest ye be judged and have some humanity!

moneyistooshorttomention

Monnagran

From what you say - it doesn't sound to me like you should be fat. Have you been to your doctor about this? - ie as to whether there is a health problem at the root of the way your body seems so determined to be fat (despite you not causing it by the sound of it iyswim).

I listen to people moaning about their weight (and yep...the ones concerned are fat) and then the next thing you know I watch every one of the "moaners" reaching for a cake (ie so it is their own fault). But it doesn't sound like you are in that category.

Your doctor will take some convincing (as he/she will know just how many self-deluders there are around) - but, if you went in with a few weeks worth of every single morsel of food/drink recorded and listing daily activities undertaken (eg 30 minute walk to shops and back), etc, then that should convince him its not your fault that you are.

Maybe you have thyroid problems or something that is causing this?

Pollycat

I think it's a pity that such a nostalgic, interesting thread has taken such a nasty turn.

I have the following things to say about Butterfly Brain's post below:

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

People have paid their national insurance to receive benefits, that is all of us.

Do you not comprehend that they had the xboxes, sky etc BEFORE they were unfortunate enough to need help from the State?

Not everybody has paid National Insurance (nor income tax).
Some people have never worked and are better off financially than those who work on minimum wage.

Some people afford 50" TVs and new cars on the benefits they receive.

dandy-candy

Please don't derail this thread into something nasty and unrelated.

I'm really enjoying reading about other people's diet when they were little, let's keep it on topic.

FairyPrincessk

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, mostly in the USA but a bit elsewhere as well. I was taught that one pound of meat fed four and still use that guideline today. Our food was always served 'family style'--it was put into serving bowls on the table and we were encouraged to take a bit of everything and then come back for more if we were still hungry. There were always snacks available in the form of fruit, bread, cheese, leftovers, crudites, plain yogurt and anything we could be bothered to make. Sometimes there were pre-packaged granola bars but we were usually limited to one per day.

Crisps were almost always bought in the 'normal' sized bag and we might have a small handful alongside a sandwich for lunch. The 'normal' bag would last two meals for the four of us, so well under the portion size of the little packets you get today. The little packets were available but they were just too expensive.

We didn't have fizzy drinks or the american equivalent of squash-they were a rare treat. We did usually have ice cream in the summer but we had to get permission before having it and our portions were fairly small. I remember once visiting a cousin and watching in awe as his mother dished out huge bowls of ice cream for all of us. My brother and I felt sick by the end of it and couldn't finish ours but our much younger cousin quite happily polished off the lot. I suspect his experience was far more typical than ours was.

I learned to bake around 10 or 11 as it meant we could have cookies and cakes more often. The stuff was always in, so I could bake with permission--but in practice this meant a family of four would eat a maximum of one batch of treats/puddings per week and usually not even that as the whims of an 11 year old don't come round to baking that often.

We played out as well, although some of the places we lived weren't safe enough for us to roam far we would ride our bikes in circles within our 'limits'. In other places we roamed all day. One city had a municipal pool and we spent all day every day of summer there. I'm still active now, but I'm also well aware that you 'can't outrun a bad diet.'

I've always been slim, technically underweight until my mid twenties when I made a concerted effort to put some weight on. I did get a bit worried a few years ago as my dad developed health problems related to his weight. He had many complicating factors but it was a wake up call to me and I re-thought what was in my portions a lot more. I'm still at the slightly lower end of a 'healthy' weight and that is with 40inch hips--I'm 5ft 7in and wear a vintage size 16 (I've just been making up a dress in a pattern size 16 from 1939). While I think the sizes/measurements/BMI etc can be helpful I think its important to remember that bodies should vary some. Some of us will be bigger or smaller than average even at our healthiest. I think most of us know deep down if we're eating the right amounts of the right things and moving enough, and if we aren't sure we know how to figure it out.

HappyMJ

Pollycat wrote: »

I think it's a pity that such a nostalgic, interesting thread has taken such a nasty turn.

I have the following things to say about Butterfly Brain's post below:

Not everybody has paid National Insurance (nor income tax).
Some people have never worked and are better off financially than those who work on minimum wage.

Some people afford 50" TVs and new cars on the benefits they receive.

A 49" TV is £12.50 a week (just googled that and taken first quote not checked for cheaper). A family would consider that an essential. At £12.50 per week it's not that expensive. A single person could manage with a much smaller TV, the computer or mobile phone browser for entertainment.

A car is usually in exchange for mobility allowance. It's either a car or paying for taxi's everywhere. People with normal mobility can catch a bus and walk to their final destination which is much cheaper than a modified taxi taking someone from door-to-door. Travel is an essential expense.

Why take this thread that way? Families need children to be distracted and a TV is essential. People with limited mobility need to get around and a car is essential.

cbsexec

I agree about portion sizes and snacking between meals. Also when I was a child we walked to school and back (and my mum) everyday. I have revisted where I used to live when at primary school and was suprised to see how far away from my old house my school was (I thought I might have imagined the distance!) But nobody complained - it was what everyone did. We also did not have so much snacky food like crisps (only plain) or sweets. Food was mostly home cooked. Portion sizes were definately smaller. Yet I was never hungry. Too busy playing or reading I expect. The car and constant TV (we had children's hour when I was small!) are also to blame.

mumofthetwins

when we were kids we were given far to much food and we had to eat it ! Servings were bigger than now and we always had a pudding. We never had fizzy drinks but did have occasional biscuts and chocolate from nanas house (the amount of sweety things were lower than normally given out now and I probably eat about the same amount now but my kids do eat more then me.)
I eat much less now in general and very rarely have dessert.
Then again I was a little tubby as a child and im now a size 8-10 36 year old.

Lisa x

iclayt

Older doesn't always mean smaller....Mum gets out her ancient wedding-present Denby dinnerware for Christmas dinner every year simply because the plates are absolutely enormous compared to the everyday ones

culpepper

We didn't have snacks much. If mum had made or bought biscuits, we could have one with a cup of tea. Usually everyone would have drinking tea at the same time so a batch or packet was gone quite quickly.
Crisps were only bought if one of us was going on a school outing.
Fruit was very rare unless it was fruit salad in a tin with carnation milk or sometimes banana sandwiches with sugar on.
Pop was for days when we had guests or a tin for the school outings. We could have water from the tap or sometimes there would be squash . Never milk or fizzy stuff. We had our glasses by the sink and would go and take a big cold drink of water then rinse out the glass and put it on the draining board. You only ever used the same glass each time.
Meals were often meat and veggies (typically a shop bought pie would stretch to the 5 of us however small)but mum did make a good curry.
Dad's cooking, if mum was at work,was usually egg and chips which was alright by us kids. He always made flat slices of chip because we didn't have a deep frying pan.
We had a roast most Sundays and Bubble and squeak on Mondays.
Very very rarely(if dad was in the money after the gee gees,he was a compulsive gambler so that was very rare indeed), we would have fish and chips from the shop over the road. It was always Rock and Chips never plaice or cod which were more expensive.
Sunday tea would be salad, some kind of cold meat or tinned fish and bread and marge for making the ingredients into a sandwich.Afterwards there would be tea time style cakes from the shop.
School dinners were quite glamourous in our eyes.. Big Meat pies and always a pudding.