Is a healthy diet more expensive?

Longwalker

First off, brown bread is no more healthy for you then white bread nutritionally wise. 

Then what is a healthy diet? We have been bombarded for years, this is good for us, this isnt , for years eggs were bad, now they are good. Go low fat, cut the sugar, cut the carbs, go keto - Mind blowing, now wonder we dont have a clue

Im getting old now and for me, what I have decided for me personally - the further away it looks like the original product, the worse it is for you. In other words cut the processed food

Which is easier said then done when obviously a loaf of bread and a tin of baked beans are processed

So for me its about scratch cooking as much as possible, Im not superwoman, course I cheat at times, but at least 5 days a week I cook food that I have bought into the house in its original form

With that I also use full fat milk and proper butter. Ive also thought lately about vegetable oil, I use very little , but then I thought to myself what veg actually give oil by cold pressing - olive, avocado ,ground nut and possibly a few more Ive never heard of. But sunflower and vegetable oils - processed. 

So for me eating what I personally consider heathy isnt any more expensive then any other diet - just more time consuming ( oh Id love to serve a ready meal at times ) lol

We eat meat, eggs, cheese and fish., now yellow stickered whenever possible. Not being a saint, I also serve sausages and bacon , not as a regular occurrence but a bacon roll on a Saturday when we are just too busy to eat isnt going to kill me and yes I cook chips in a chip pan once a week 

Now both Mr L and Mother thrive on it . Im still as big as a house but I walk 5 - 10 miles daily and up till an injury had a very heavy physical job - not bad for someone hitting 60 

I find that when I do eat highly processed food, I dont feel full for long. I also tend to feel very thirsty and generally sluggish 

YoungBlueEyes

I've often wondered about veg oil too. Which vegetables are oily?? I thought sunflower oil was alright though because aren't the seeds squashed to release the oil? Like olives basically?

My innards definitely like a healthy diet. Himself is away for work and I couldn't be bothered cooking last night so I had a big plate of crackers + cheese + dried fruits + nuts. I'm definitely not my shiniest healthiest best this morning.

MattMattMattUK

YoungBlueEyes said:

I've often wondered about veg oil too. Which vegetables are oily?? I thought sunflower oil was alright though because aren't the seeds squashed to release the oil? Like olives basically?

Vegetable oil is just a generic catch all, those oils come from seeds, sunflowers, rapeseed, palm, soybean and coconut. The higher quality oils are from an initial cold press, the cheaper lower grade oils are made by heating, steam injection, solvent separation etc.

Floss

MattMattMattUK said:

...I am slightly sceptical of the excuse of lack of skill, there are thousands of recipes online, from the basic to Michelin star level food, many with full idiot guides, accompanying how to videos etc. so it is not a lack of knowledge that holds people back...

I have highlighted those two phrases as they are profoundly different. For example, while I may know how to make pastry, by no means do I have the skill, despite cooking for over 50 years. Skills are learnt by practice, which if someone is not able / not confident will never be gained. My sons are both over 35 and only 1 did cookery at high school, curricula had changed before the younger got there.

Nelliegrace

I used The Pauper’s Cookbook by Jocasta Innes when we were very hard up with a new baby, a mortgage, and very high interest rates. The book had useful pages on what was needed for the pantry and the basic and useful cooking utensils.

I had to make the bread then, by hand, because we needed the pennies it saved, proper bread, white flour, water, lard, salt and yeast, (certainly not containing Palm Oil, Palm Fat, Spirit Vinegar, Preservative (Calcium Propionate), Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Flour Treatment Agent. Asda Essential white loaf.)

I stretched all of the pressure cooker, frugal soups and stews with pulses to eke out the cheap cuts of meat, proper recognisable cuts of meat from the butcher. We ate a lot of potatoes for energy. Everything was cooked from basic ingredients, using the lessons from Mum’s cooking in the years of post war austerity. I used the same old Be-ro recipes and margarine for baking though now we use proper butter. We used the same size portions, and proportions from the fifties school dinners, which had full fat milk in the puddings and school milk. Children thrived then as never before.

Breast feeding was certainly the cheap and healthy option, and worth the effort and all the disapproval from the health visitor, the in-laws and complete strangers. DD was weened onto real, home cooked food. We reduced our salt in cooking to levels safe for her. 

It was a healthy diet from fresh ingredients, with no nasty chemical additives and no preservatives for a long shelf life, and used minimal plastic packaging. It was cheap and we had enough of all the essential food groups, we were fit and had no weight worries. 

It seems so easy looking back, before we were bombarded with a lot of advertising for cheaply produced convenience stuff, instant soups, and ready meals, and then all the bad advice from people and groups with a financial interest in bad diets and products. 

Everything seemed to go wrong when we were told to buy low fat food because we were told it would reduce heart disease and be healthy. Why was the NHS telling us to have half a plate of carbohydrate and cut out the essential and filling fats to loose weight? Unscientific, and utter rubbish, which has made a fortune for the food and pharmaceutical industry and created a multi billion dollar diet industry. 

YoungBlueEyes

That's very interesting @MattMattMattUK, I didn't know that. So is sunflower oil at the better or lower quality end of the scale?

annieb64

I had the Paupers Cookbook when we were first married. Still use some of the recipes today. My mother had a post war cookbook. At the top of each page it had little hints like"always save your bacon fat" Can't remember what it was called but there was a picture of cooked fish with the tails threaded through the eye sockets which put me off cooking fish.

I also have a Bero book. When I look after the grandchildren at Easter I'm planning to make melting moments with them.

trailingspouse

Longwalker said:

First off, brown bread is no more healthy for you then white bread nutritionally wise.

Wholemeal bread is MUCH better for you. White bread is made with white flour, which is a refined carb, and has no nutritional value at all. Wholemeal bread retains all the fibre as well, which is better for your gut health. And it fills you up, meaning you're likely to eat less overall, thus cutting calories if that's what you need to do.

Brown bread on the other hand is marginally better than white, but not as good as wholemeal.

It's the fact that wholemeal bread is more expensive than white that prompted me to ask the question in the first place!!

KxMx

Oooh and wholemeal granary is even better... So many flavours in every bite and extremely filling. Two slices plus fresh fruit makes a lovely breakfast.

MattMattMattUK

Floss said:

MattMattMattUK said:

...I am slightly sceptical of the excuse of lack of skill, there are thousands of recipes online, from the basic to Michelin star level food, many with full idiot guides, accompanying how to videos etc. so it is not a lack of knowledge that holds people back...

I have highlighted those two phrases as they are profoundly different. For example, while I may know how to make pastry, by no means do I have the skill, despite cooking for over 50 years. Skills are learnt by practice, which if someone is not able / not confident will never be gained. My sons are both over 35 and only 1 did cookery at high school, curricula had changed before the younger got there.

One is able to learn though, follow the videos, follow the process, absorb the knowledge and gain a skill, confidence to try is down to the individual, it is up to them if they are willing to try. The only cookery I was taught at school was things that did not need teaching, make toast (put slice of bread in toaster), or make a I was never taught by someone how to do most of the work on my car that I have done, but I did learn by following videos etc. though there are of course limits to that, I did not attempt to change the timing chain myself, just as I would not attempt some Heston Blumenthal liquid nitrogen dish. Equally I did most of learning to fly a helicopter initially by watching YouTube videos, reading and then practising myself in a simulator, by the time I started paid lessons (which are unfortunately expensive) I was more than able to fly the helicopter, although unfortunately I had to stop working towards my PPL (H) due to first Covid and then the financial impact Covid had. 

People can learn and gain both skills and knowledge if they wish, or they cannot if that is also what they wish.