Is the American diet really worse than it used to be?

[Teaching3bears]

I always hear people say this but yesterday we went to the museum cafeteria.  What would they have served in the 50s-70s?  Burgers, fries, hot dogs, maybe ham and cheese or tuna sandwiches, pop and jello?  Maybe iceberg lettuce salads? What did I see yesterday?  Sandwiches and bowls with quinoa, a variety of fermented vegetables, a real variety of greens, salmon, beans.  Flavored waters instead of pop.  Apple chips and homemade baked goods, not necessarily super healthy but better than jello and pudding.  Smoothies have replaced milkshakes.  I am seeing less McDonalds and burger and fries fast food places and more healthier fast food places.  People are more aware of what is healthy and are trying to make healthier choices.  Do you agree that diets have gone downhill or do you think that we are moving towards healthier eating in recent times?  

[SHP]

I think people see those types of options and assume they are making healthy choices when in reality the choices are not as healthy as they think.

[HomeAgain]

I think we hit a period in the 70s-2000s where packaged food was more doctored than previous decades to taste better.  I remember around 2009/2010 grabbing what I thought was just oven roasted sunflower seeds and looking at the ingredients.  There should have been maybe 3: seeds, oil, salt.  There were a lot more, including high fructose corn syrup.  And none of that was indicated on the front.  It made me a lot more wary of having someone else prepare food for me.

While I think the U.S has cut back on things like the technicolor food of the 80s, I don't think a lot of what people eat on a daily basis is really great for them. Packaged foods are still 'flavor enhanced'.  We get Hello Fresh, dropping down from Blue Apron.  Hello Fresh is simpler and usually quicker to the table, but that comes at a price.  There are less veggies involved and often if I make the dish as intended my kids hate it.  They use too many sweet things to enhance the meal and the balance is very off.  So I double the veggies, cut out the sugar, and often make little swaps like brown rice or other grains for their white rice.

 Your observation about museum cafeterias is spot on, but here's a different take: people ate out less and there were less fast food restaurants in the 70s. A hamburger was a treat.  The portions were smaller, too, so even when they did eat out it fit into their standard diet.  If you're seeing quinoa and smoothies, these are finding their own place in the new American diet.  Are they there because people eat out more and this is a treat from the rest, or are they there because this is what people are eating at home?

[Katy]

The problem with today’s food isn’t the people choosing quinoa and salmon. It’s constant availability (snacking on sugary junk that used to be desserts only), and packaged or fast foods engineered to hit a bliss point and have you overeat. 

[regentrude]

There may be healthy options available in some places, but that does not mean that the majority of people eat like that. Some people are choosing a healthy diet. But when Americans consume annually 40 gallons of soda per capita, it is obvious that many are not.
Nutrition culture varies greatly across the country. In my small midwestern town, there isn't any restaurant that offers a selection of healthful, vegetable-rich meals, except for Panera. Anybody who wants to eat healthy has to cook from scratch. In other states, folks are much more health conscious, and the available options reflect that.

 

Edited January 7 by regentrude

[Laura Corin]

6 minutes ago, regentrude said:

There may be healthy options available in some places, but that does not mean that the majority of people eat like that. Some people are choosing a healthy diet. But when Americans consume annually 40 gallons of soda per capita, it is obvious that many are not.
Nutrition culture varies greatly across the country. In my small midwestern town, there isn't any restaurant that offers a selection of healthful, vegetable-rich meals, except for Panera. Anybody who wants to eat healthy has to cook from scratch. In other states, folks are much more health conscious, and the available options reflect that.

 

There's also the question of what people are eating at home.  Certainly in the UK - which tends to follow US trends - most home-eaten food in the fifties, sixties and seventies was also home made.  It may not have been the healthiest, but people's palates were not being tricked so much by highly industrially designed additives into over-eating nutritionally poor products.

Edited January 7 by Laura Corin

[Carrie12345]

It’s the ingredients more than the type of food. I remember real sugar in processed foods!

Dunkin Donuts, Sara Lee, Drake’s, etc… none of those pastries taste or feel like they used to. Nor do fast food hamburgers, nuggets, or fries. PASTA has more ingredients than it used to. Finding sugar free peanut butter is a chore for me. Etc., etc.

There’s also more widespread fast food availability, normalizing it. Where I was, FF MIGHT be a treat on a long road trip. Where I am now, we didn’t have any FF within 8 square miles 19 years ago. Now I can grab a fountain Sprite through a drive thru during almost any errand. Or, of course, a giant iced coffee in the summer 😉 .

Food delivery was also almost non-existent when I was a kid, and when I moved to this area. Suddenly, I have almost every option that city folks have!

But, from my perspective, it’s still the chemicals, corn syrup, and fillers that have been the biggest problematic change.

[Innisfree]

2 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

people ate out less and there were less fast food restaurants in the 70s.

This has been my experience.

In the 1970s, we spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who had a big garden and canned and froze much of their food. Other than meat, dairy, and starches, most of what we ate there was from the garden. Meal planning was a matter of “Well, we’ve got lots of tomatoes, and we can shell some butter beans, and bring in some ears of corn.” There were lots of vegetable dishes on the table, most pretty simple, and straight out of the garden.

I can count on one hand the times we went out to eat there. Doing so was an Occasion. Food was just prepared at home. This wasn’t in a cultural backwater, though not in a major city either. There were restaurants around, but eating at home was the family culture, just as it had been when my mother was growing up in the ‘30s and ‘40s. In the’30s they had had a cow, chickens, and ducks, too, on a big city lot. None of that was unusual for the time or place, though my grandfather sold shares in the cow to some neighbors who didn’t have room for a cow, so they could share the milk (they had to own the cow, legally, to use the raw milk).

Foodways have changed a lot since the 1970s. Obviously even more since the 1930s, but a lot just since the 1970s. Some people still live the same way, but a much smaller percentage, I suspect. Even just the fact that the grocery stores are so.much.bigger and have so.much.more.stuff… people are buying all that stuff. Some of it is laudable diversity in our foods, but a lot of it is prepared convenience food which is so highly processed. The changes are enormous.

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

There may be healthy options available in some places, but that does not mean that the majority of people eat like that. Some people are choosing a healthy diet. But when Americans consume annually 40 gallons of soda per capita, it is obvious that many are not.
Nutrition culture varies greatly across the country. In my small midwestern town, there isn't any restaurant that offers a selection of healthful, vegetable-rich meals, except for Panera. Anybody who wants to eat healthy has to cook from scratch. In other states, folks are much more health conscious, and the available options reflect that.

 

Same here.

And it is important to remember that the "healthy choices" of places like Panera are still often based on dump and go, pre packed items which are laden with sodium, nitrates, and other add on that are not healthy. So yes when traveling the Panera mediterranean chicken bowl of arugula, olives, cucumber, quinoa, hummus, and chicken is a much better choice than the grilled cheese, that premade hummus is laden wth sodium, and the amount of actual vegetables in the dish is low. The 800 gram challenge and having to measure and weigh veggies showed me just how much veg it takes to be a serving, and how much more it takes to get the bulk that is best for decent gut health. It is so much higher than what folks think it is. The amount of veggies that comes with this bowl is not high in the grand scheme of things. I think it can be very hard for folks to grasp just how much bulk they need to eat to truly get 5-7 servings of fruit and veg.

To be sure, dried fruit and trail mix type things are a better choice than other empty calorie snacks. But read the labels. The sheer amount of sugar added to fruit is insane. I have taken to dehydrating my own - more work for me 😜 - because Mark loves to have dried fruit to snack on and take in the car. This is the only way it is actually nutrition without spiking blood sugars. Most kids have a palette trained to desire sugar, sugar, sugar, because of how much of it is added to everything.

I make my own barbecue sauce. Go read the labels on those jars. The amount of high fructose corn syrup and sugar added is staggering. Meanwhile, I make if with only a little molasses which adds iron, and then all the fresh ingredients, tons of herbs and spices, and a splash of bourbon, the alcohol cooking off. My family raves about that sauce, and it is a bazillion times healthier. However, this is at the cost of me not working full time outside the home so I can do these things.

Meanwhile, my sister living in France has fresh markets around every corner of her town, and their foods are not sodium and nitrate laden, not grown with RoundUp sprayed on everything, and without sugar added to every item. She does say that there has been a cultural push for more convenience foods and those are starting to become available, and with it, a rise in health problems which is really upsetting French medical practitioners who want this stuff OUT of the French diet. A typical lunch served in French elementary schools is a salad started, beginning in preschool mind you, grated carrot salad being popular, then a main course of cooked whole grains and veggies - usually very tasty since they employ actual chefs who use fresh herbs - followed by a cheese course, and then a small dessert treat which is baked at the school, and tends use fruit as the sweet element. Meanwhile, the elementary school in our district still serves corndogs claiming the corn breading as a vegetable as well as ketchup! Poptarts are the free breakfast. Frosted blueberry poptarts, as of 2022, were considered smart food compliant. 😠

This stuff is ultimately regional. I know there are places in Michigan where the offerings are better, the options decent. But let's be honest, those places are nearly always in affluent neighborhoods. Same old same old. 

[elegantlion]

Fast food is alive and well in my city. 

The amount of time to eat meals has shifted, imo. SO's work went to 9 hour days and most people eat lunch at their desk. I just started working part-time and my lunch schedule is 30 minutes. I'm still trying to figure out a good system from the foods I already eat that is easier to prepare. I tend to eat slower. 

I'm also concerned about the amount of additives etc in US foods. 

I would assume a museum would have a more healthy cafeteria. Around here, restaurants that serve better food are usually sit down and not as affordable for most people. 

 

 

[Kassia]

Good question.  DH will be 60 soon and grew up on pop tarts, Lucky Charms, hot dogs, white rice, white bread, etc. and hardly any fruits or veggies.  Certainly no fresh produce.  I remember packed lunches always contained a sandwich on white bread, chips, and some kind of dessert like shelf stable pudding or cookies.  So certainly not a healthy diet back then.  I don't really know what the typical American diet is now, though.  I feel like people are more educated about it now, but don't know what people are actually eating. 

[Indigo Blue]

I think that there has always been some unhealthy eating, but now there are so many more fast food places than before. They are everywhere, and the healthier places tend to be in wealthier areas. 
 

The soda sizes are humongous with free refills. It has become so common place to eat unhealthy, and, in lots of the areas where more people do than don’t, you’re seen as an oddball and you get side eyed if you try to eat a healthy diet. 
 

So, years ago, people ate a plate of potatoes, pork, and green beans for dinner and had a sweet here and there. Now, many people eat an unhealthy dinner and there is more unhealthy snacking, etc. It’s on every street corner and is so convenient in the busy and stressful times we live in. 

[KungFuPanda]

5 hours ago, Teaching3bears said:

I always hear people say this but yesterday we went to the museum cafeteria.  What would they have served in the 50s-70s?  Burgers, fries, hot dogs, maybe ham and cheese or tuna sandwiches, pop and jello?  Maybe iceberg lettuce salads? What did I see yesterday?  Sandwiches and bowls with quinoa, a variety of fermented vegetables, a real variety of greens, salmon, beans.  Flavored waters instead of pop.  Apple chips and homemade baked goods, not necessarily super healthy but better than jello and pudding.  Smoothies have replaced milkshakes.  I am seeing less McDonalds and burger and fries fast food places and more healthier fast food places.  People are more aware of what is healthy and are trying to make healthier choices.  Do you agree that diets have gone downhill or do you think that we are moving towards healthier eating in recent times?  

I still think the servings are much larger than they used to be. There never used to be free refills and people ate out less often. They also used to eat more home grown foods. I done know anyone who grew iceberg lettuce. Smoothies can have as much sugar as milkshakes and gourmet salads seem great until they dress them and the calorie count goes way up. At home, people used to just use oil and vinegar or oil and lemon on a salad. We ate a lot more apples because we grew them. 
 

I think dining out choices are getting healthier than they were 20 years ago, but 40-60 years ago people had fewer options overall and ate out much less frequently. They also moved a lot more and were in better shape overall. 
 

ETA: I remember when High Fructose Corn Syrup hit the market and the whole old coke/new coke scandal. Now you have to really try to avoid hfcs

Edited January 7 by KungFuPanda

[Faith-manor]

Yes, work schedules are a big issue. Mark has to take "working" lunch in IT which means he is listening in on meetings, and mutes his mic in order to grab a bite. The only reason it isn't a burger and fries lunch is he is working remote, and so if he is at his mom's house, he eats a salad and a piece of fruit. If he is here, I usually make one of my many veggie laden soups and stews, and we consume that. His coworkers working in person have no time to consider a from scratch meal unless they take the time to pack, and the only ones that can do that are the ones who live very close to work, and do not have a one hour, ten mile commute, in insane traffic since many have 7 am meetings.

One of our ds's only has 30 minutes at lunch which the manager is CONSTANTLY infringing on which means often 10-15 minutes to gulp whatever you have down. Can't exactly do that with a salad, and an orange that has to be peeled, so often a mug of ramen. Sigh. I really want him out of that job.

If work days had more protections for workers, it would really help so they can slow down and eat better. But it isn't like the capitalistic machine cares. The lords of the land do not care what the serfs eat, and how that plays out for their health, and frankly, pharma makes a hell of a lot of money off the consequences of this.

[regentrude]

8 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Mark has to take "working" lunch in IT which means he is listening in on meetings, and mutes his mic in order to grab a bite.

I hate lunch meetings with a passion. It is an insidious way of undermining the lunch break, and it contributes to a culture that does not value food and mealtime. While eating, one should be able to focus on eating. 
DH has a lot of lunch meetings. And when the university feeds them, it's usually crappy pizza. Ugh.

Edited January 7 by regentrude

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

I hate lunch meetings with a passion. It is an insidious way of undermining the lunch break, and it contributes to a culture that does not value food and mealtime. While eating, one should be able to focus on eating. 
DH has a lot of lunch meetings. And when the university feeds them, it's usually crappy pizza. Ugh.

I am 100% in agreement with you! And it fosters this idea that human workers are robotic automatons and should be treated as such. Disgusting!

[Bambam]

Based on what I see in folks carts at the grocery store, many of them are mostly purchasing frozen/prepared foods. 
Cans of beans vs dried beans. 
Hamburger helper/meal options where you just add meat. 
Microwave meals - fish sticks, chicken nuggets, stuff like that. 

I too have some of those options in my pantry for emergency meals (little time to prepare). But they are rare here. 

We have a local Thanksgiving Food Drive. For years, people donated turkeys.  About 5-6 years ago, the organizers requested folks bring canned meat products vs frozen turkeys as many of those turkeys were not being used. People didn't have the pans/know how to cook them/etc.  This may not be typical as people who received those boxes went through a process to make sure they meet the qualifications of need. 

[Halftime Hope]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

I make my own barbecue sauce.

@Faith-manor would you mind sharing your recipe?  Thank you!

[Faith-manor]

11 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

@Faith-manor would you mind sharing your recipe?  Thank you!

Sure: but it isn't really a "recipe". I am the queen of tossing it in the pot, and tasting as a I go! 😂

One quart of canned tomatoes (I use my home canned, Amish paste tomatoes which are super delicious so my guess is that the commercial equivalent is canned San Marzanos if you can find them, or maybe fire roasted romas...I don't really know what is available.)

2 tbsp of tomato paste (I do buy that because I do enough things without having to stand at the stove all day cooking down tomatoes until the water is gone.)

Bourbon (I use Very Old Barton) but truly, any bourbon will do.

Molasses

5 garlic cloves ( we like garlic so adjust according to your own palette)

One large, sweet onion. Amish Candy onions are da bomb, but we can't get them in winter, so vidalia is the substitute.

Smoked paprika

Sea salt

Apple cider vinegar

Liquid smoke

Olive oil

In a sauce pan, caramelized onions in a little bit of olive oil and add the minced garlic at the end since they take very little time to carmelize. I like my diced onions to catch a bit of color and not just be a light saute. Just don't burn or you will have to start over because that scorch flavor comes through in the sauce. 

Add the caramelized items to your blender or food process plus the quart of tomatoes (no need to drain first) and puree. At that time de-glaze your hot sauce pan with bourbon (I don't measure, but my guess is somewhere around an 8th cup.)

Add the contents of the blender back to the sauce pan with the bourbon.

Add roughly a tbsp of molasses - again, I don't measure, I just pour a small dollop in there. A dash of smoked paprika, a dash of liquid smoke, 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar (or more if you want a tangy tangy sauce), sea salt to taste, and the 2 tbsp of tomato paste, and cook down until it is the desired consistency. At 15 minutes of simmering, 40% of the alcohol is still present.So keep that in mind. If you want zero alcohol, you will need to simmer on low for 2 hours if my memory is correct.

Some folks want a very sweet sauce (giving the side eye to middle son) so I add a little honey if I feel like pleasing him. I avoid adding actual granulated sugar like the plague, and this is a no artifical sweetener house so none of that. We also do not use stevia. I like tangy sauce, and since I am the cook, I get my way. So I am always tasting and adjusting. Sometimes it gets extra apple cider vinegar, sometimes not. It all depends on the original sweetness of the tomatoes which of course varies over the life of that fruit so no two quarts of my home canned may be exactly the same, though in general, they are all quite yummy. Amish paste is a good variety, and more consistent in flavor I have found than romas. I have never worked with San Marzanos, but I have heard good things.

My recommendation is throw recipes for sauces out the window, get a set of tasting spoons, and add what you like in small amounts after every taste until you think, "Oh my gosh that tastes soooooo good". Most recipes do NOT call for enough herbs and spices. Americans apparently adore bland food! And I openly laugh at any recipe that says " a tsp of cumin". Cumin should be used by the, at minimum, tablespoon!

 

[Heartstrings]

4 hours ago, regentrude said:

But when Americans consume annually 40 gallons of soda per capita,

What’s really scary about this particular stat is that some people drink 0 or near 0 soda, meaning some people are consuming much much more than the 40 gallons average.  We gave up soda years ago, but I am pretty fond of the unsweetened seltzer waters. 

[Heartstrings]

Even cooking at home is expensive.   The FDA food budget charts have $900 as the thrifty budget for 4 people per month, and that’s described as not including much fresh food.   You need the highest tier budget of $1500+ a month to include fresh veg and a variety of meat.  That’s hard when housing and childcare have been going up too, and wages aren’t. 

Cookware is crap now too.  Cheap cookware is worthless really quickly and the mid priced stuff isn’t much better.  A lot of people are cooking with old, worn out non stick stuff that’s chipped and not healthy on its own.  (Me, I’m some people).  That makes home cooking more difficult.  
 

Food provided by schools and daycares are absolute garbage.  

Edited January 7 by Heartstrings

[Kassia]

16 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

What’s really scary about this particular stat is that some people drink 0 or near 0 soda, meaning some people are consuming much much more than the 40 gallons average.  We gave up soda years ago, but I am pretty fond of the unsweetened seltzer waters. 

that would be me.  I drink an embarrassing amount of diet soda.  It's a very expensive habit now too.  😞

[Heartstrings]

3 minutes ago, Kassia said:

that would be me.  I drink an embarrassing amount of diet soda.  It's a very expensive habit now too.  😞

Inflation has made me cut out my seltzer drinks, they are for special occasions only now.  I’d like a soda stream but I’m not sure it would be worth it.  

[scholastica]

It depends on what you mean by “used to be”. It depends on what class in society people lived in. Ultra-processed food has caused health to deteriorate everywhere it has been introduced. Some people have always been malnourished due to poverty. Most people who have had the means ate NOVA-1 through NOVA-3 foods for most of human history. NOVA-4 foods aka ultra-processed foods, are a recent invention and are wreaking havoc. 
 

This book, Ultra-Processed People, does a good job explaining what ultra-processed food is and what it does on a personal level and a societal level. 

Edited January 7 by scholastica

[Bootsie]

When I was a child in the 60s/70s, my mom thought we were eating a much healthier diet.

My parents breakfast in 40s/50s--bacon, eggs, biscuits; my breakfast in 60s/70s a poptart or dry cereal sprayed with vitamins topped with skim milk and a glass of Tang--much healtheir--lower fat/cholesterol and what the astronauts ate.

My parents lunch in 40s/50s--fried chicken and mustard greens cooked in the bacon fat left from breakfast, along with cornbread, cooked with the bacon fat with a glass of whole milk

My lunch in the 60s/70s:  Campbell's chicken and star soup or vienna sausages; we didn't drink soda but had kool-aid or Hi-C (again healthy because of the Vit C)--sometimes it was "enriched" by the heavy syrup from a can of fruit cocktail or canned pineapple.  

We did not have nearly as much variety in our diet as my kids have had; I did not have fresh pineapple, spinach, kiwi, jicama, salmon, cranberries, rhubarb, and many other things until I was an adult.  Red apples, bananas, and oranges were common--any other fruit was highly seasonal.  

[regentrude]

6 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Inflation has made me cut out my seltzer drinks, they are for special occasions only now.  I’d like a soda stream but I’m not sure it would be worth it.  

We did the math a few years ago, and using the Sodastream was way cheaper than buying bottled seltzer, even factoring in that we filter our tap water. Define worth it for us.

[kathyl]

I've been getting really annoyed with the messing around with the actual ingredients that's happening more and more.  The most recent one that I noticed was honey.  I've eaten honey for decades and never had a problem with it.  But last year I began noticing it made me feel kind of bad or something when I put it on my food.  So ds (who scours labels and is great about finding that stuff) read the labels.  And I googled some.  And we figured out that it's no longer just plain honey.  They are processing it somehow and it doesn't even taste the same anymore.

So I ordered some honey from France and it really does taste like I remember honey tasting.  

Anyway, this has happened more frequently over the last 10 years or so maybe?  I think it began with corn years ago.  

[73349]

Historically...

• Most meals were prepared and eaten at home--so even if there was a lot of butter or sugar in a dish, it was on purpose;
• Many people made little use of restaurants, with most families going once a month or less--an occasion rather than a habit;
• A higher percentage of the population lived on farms (about 40% in 1900) or had gardens;
• Grocery stores featured fresh ingredients plus, post-1950, some novelty foods like TV dinners and cold breakfast cereals;
• The female half of junior high and high school population was often required to take home ec, which was sexist but did make sure someone got the basics;
• The great medical (and government, particularly military) concern was lack of adequate calories, and programs were oriented to that.

Now...

• 1/3 of US adults eat food from a restaurant on any given day, often fast food;
• Millions of Americans live in food deserts;
• The typical US grocery store contains over 30,000 SKUs (different products), most of them not really nutritious;
• The buying power of low-income households has not kept up with inflation, so people need the cheapest food available even if employed full-time (and with long commutes, prep time is at a premium);
• Children spend more time in structured activities after school, conflicting with meal preparation;
• Meal planning and cooking are often learned from the internet or not at all;
• Government and medical concern is adequate nutrition without excess calories (which often come from sugar and animal fats), and the ever-increasing burden of chronic disease.

 

I personally eat a healthier and more varied diet than I did thirty years ago, but I also live in a higher-income household than I did then.

 

 

Edited January 7 by 73349

[Bootsie]

The percentage of their income that Americans are spending on food has steadily declined over the past 60 years.  In 1960, almost 18% of a family's disposable income went to food (with the bulk of that being at home); Today, the average American family spends less than 10% of its disposable income on food--with about 1/2 of that being away from home eating. 

hi

[cjzimmer1]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

2 tbsp of tomato paste (I do buy that because I do enough things without having to stand at the stove all day cooking down tomatoes until the water is gone.)

 

I'm not willing to do that either but here's a couple of easier options.

1) save the peels from the tomatoes you can, dry them, grind to powder and use that to thicken instead of paste.

1) if you are lazy like I am when I can and don't bother to remove the peels, take dried tomato slices (dried to crunchy state not chewy) and powder them and use them to thicken instead of paste.

But paste is cheap so maybe you don't mind buying it, I always have more tomatoes than I can possibly use, so drying them for paste is helpful since it gives me another way to use up my surplus.

 

[Corraleno]

People spend less on food than they did decades ago because they're eating way more ultraprocessed food, which is cheaper than fresh: "73% of the US food supply is ultra-processed, and on average ultra-processed foods are 52% cheaper than minimally-processed alternatives." (source)

[Heartstrings]

1 minute ago, Bootsie said:

The percentage of their income that Americans are spending on food has steadily declined over the past 60 years.  In 1960, almost 18% of a family's disposable income went to food (with the bulk of that being at home); Today, the average American family spends less than 10% of its disposable income on food--with about 1/2 of that being away from home eating. 

hi

I wonder how that’s changed post Covid with the inflation.  
 

Groceries hit the lower income populations hardest.  The lowest quintile of income spends around 30% of their household income on food.  Higher incomes can afford more expensive food and more take out, which probably balances out health wise, or at least it comes down to choices at that point. 

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=107545#:~:text=In 2022%2C food spending represented,income for the highest quintile.

In 2022, food spending represented 31.2 percent of the lowest quintile’s income, 13.4 percent of income for the middle quintile, and 8.0 percent of income for the highest quintile. 

[Bootsie]

I found an updated chart that includes 2022:

[Bootsie]

This https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-america-spends-money-100-years-in-the-life-of-the-family-budget/255475/ says that in 1900 Americans spent 43% of their income on food (which dropped to 30% by 1950).  Many of the poverty measures/statistics were based upon the notion that the typical family would spend about 1/3 of its income on food.  

[HomeAgain]

3 hours ago, Bambam said:

We have a local Thanksgiving Food Drive. For years, people donated turkeys.  About 5-6 years ago, the organizers requested folks bring canned meat products vs frozen turkeys as many of those turkeys were not being used. People didn't have the pans/know how to cook them/etc.  This may not be typical as people who received those boxes went through a process to make sure they meet the qualifications of need. 

Short story: when we were young and poor with a toddler dh and I would be given what we came to call "That Damn Turkey Box".  The intent was good, but we didn't have extended family around for Thanksgiving. 2 adults and a toddler would have been eating turkey for weeks.  The kind gesture was overwhelming for a dual income couple in their early 20s.  Not only did we have to find a way not to waste the food, but we had to find the time to prepare and deal with it all around our work schedules (which sometimes coincided with Thanksgiving) and limited cooking skills. This is a state that most of the people who receive the turkeys are in.  They just don't need a meal for 8-10 people.  Even now, we eat a single turkey breast for T-day and all the sides.  With 4-5 of us there are plenty of leftovers for a few days.

That said, when it was so few of us, a small, easy to cook dinner, even different canned/boxed products, would have been a welcome treat to celebrate the holiday and the opportunity to rest and relax together.

[Danae]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

What’s really scary about this particular stat is that some people drink 0 or near 0 soda, meaning some people are consuming much much more than the 40 gallons average.  We gave up soda years ago, but I am pretty fond of the unsweetened seltzer waters. 

I mean, it sounds scary, but 40 gallons is 213 cans of soda.  That’s a little over 4 a week.  So someone who has one can a day at work and none on the weekends is an above average soda drinker.

[Heartstrings]

13 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I found an updated chart that includes 2022:

We’ll be able to pinpoint Covid 2020 on graphs like this forever won’t we?  Wow. That’s such a noticeable dip and then jump back.  

[marbel]

3 hours ago, Bambam said:

Cans of beans vs dried beans

I agree with you!  But I have a quibble regarding beans... dried beans require planning ahead, energy (fuel), and time which many people don't have. I have found that grocery-store bags of dried beans are really not much cheaper per serving than canned beans. One of the arguments against canned beans is salt, but they are available with low or no sodium. Of course the lower-sodium varieties are more expensive. For me, buying canned beans is the better way for me to make vegetarian soup, chili, etc.  Without them, I might resort to even more processed food!  And I am a person with leisure time to cook from scratch, and have time-and-effort-saving appliances, such as a pressure cooker. A person without those things is better off buying canned beans, low-salt if possible, than buying no beans at all. 💗

[Carol in Cal.]

14 minutes ago, marbel said:

I agree with you!  But I have a quibble regarding beans... dried beans require planning ahead, energy (fuel), and time which many people don't have. I have found that grocery-store bags of dried beans are really not much cheaper per serving than canned beans. One of the arguments against canned beans is salt, but they are available with low or no sodium. Of course the lower-sodium varieties are more expensive. For me, buying canned beans is the better way for me to make vegetarian soup, chili, etc.  Without them, I might resort to even more processed food!  And I am a person with leisure time to cook from scratch, and have time-and-effort-saving appliances, such as a pressure cooker. A person without those things is better off buying canned beans, low-salt if possible, than buying no beans at all. 💗

Costco sized bags of beans are MUCH cheaper than canned, though.

But I’m not buying those anymore because I have gotten hooked on Rancho Gordo dried beans, which ARE a lot more pricy but also taste much better than others—canned or dried.  The difference is remarkable, and significant enough to get me to eat beans much more often by choice, which is half the battle really.

[Carol in Cal.]

I was born in the late 1950s, so probably earlier than most of you, and one of the biggest changes I have observed during my lifetime is portion sizes.  The reason the McDonalds quarter pounder is called a quarter pounder is that having a full quarter pound of meat in a fast food burger was big news when it first came out.  When Jack in the Box first started, their burgers were so thin that they looked like they were spread on the buns with a spatula.  We couldn’t imagine how they could be turned.  And when you ordered a soda, it was about 8-10 ounces in a fairly small paper cup.

A typical burger meal at home was 4-5 hamburgers, each considered a full serving and ‘enough’ from 1 lb of ground beef.  When we had a roast chicken, I got a leg.  Or a thigh.  Never both.  We ate a lot of casseroles, and yes, they did involve ‘a can of this, and a package of that’, but they were also fairly monotonous to eat (as one pot meals) and we just plain did not eat as much.  

I use a lot more fresh ingredients than my mother did, but also cream, which she never used.  I look for organic produce and grass finished beef, but I think that the levels of chemical use in growing and processing food back then were less extreme than now.  So it’s maybe kind of a wash.  

But portion sizes—that is a BIG shift.

[Heartstrings]

11 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Costco sized bags of beans are MUCH cheaper than canned, though.

But I’m not buying those anymore because I have gotten hooked on Rancho Gordo dried beans, which ARE a lot more pricy but also taste much better than others—canned or dried.  The difference is remarkable, and significant enough to get me to eat beans much more often by choice, which is half the battle really.

Costco-sized bags aren't practical for everyone though.  The membership, the drive to a Costco, the upfront money, the storage space, the investment in the food-safe buckets to store it all.   

Dry beans also have a texture that takes getting used to. I can get my picky people to eat canned beans but they won't food that I make with dry beans because of the texture difference.

Really though, if the ONLY issue with the American diet was canned beans versus dry beans this would be a very different conversation.  Single-ingredient canned beans or canned corn or green beans are pretty far down on the list of concerns, I would think.   Doritos, bean dip and a can of coke comprising a $10, 1000 calorie "snack" with no nutritional value is a much bigger issue, both health and budget wise.  

Edited January 7 by Heartstrings

[KungFuPanda]

2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

Even cooking at home is expensive.   The FDA food budget charts have $900 as the thrifty budget for 4 people per month, and that’s described as not including much fresh food.   You need the highest tier budget of $1500+ a month to include fresh veg and a variety of meat.  That’s hard when housing and childcare have been going up too, and wages aren’t. 

Cookware is crap now too.  Cheap cookware is worthless really quickly and the mid priced stuff isn’t much better.  A lot of people are cooking with old, worn out non stick stuff that’s chipped and not healthy on its own.  (Me, I’m some people).  That makes home cooking more difficult.  
 

Food provided by schools and daycares are absolute garbage.  

Cast iron is so inexpensive, but there’s a learning curve. I think it’s a way to get quality cookware on a budget. A lodge Dutch oven performs as well as a Le crueset. 

2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

What’s really scary about this particular stat is that some people drink 0 or near 0 soda, meaning some people are consuming much much more than the 40 gallons average.  We gave up soda years ago, but I am pretty fond of the unsweetened seltzer waters. 

I buy a case of mini (emergency) Dr Peppers with about 10? cans and it lasts me three months or more. Someone out there is taking up my slack. My MIL is a Pepsi drinker. She has a lifetime weight watchers membership. She told me they tell everyone to drink water and nobody in her group can make the switch. 

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

The percentage of their income that Americans are spending on food has steadily declined over the past 60 years.  In 1960, almost 18% of a family's disposable income went to food (with the bulk of that being at home); Today, the average American family spends less than 10% of its disposable income on food--with about 1/2 of that being away from home eating. 

hi

I wonder if this chart factors in home grown produce? It used to be more common to have gardens and those gardens would produce fresh fruits and veggies consumed outside of this chart. 

13 minutes ago, marbel said:

I agree with you!  But I have a quibble regarding beans... dried beans require planning ahead, energy (fuel), and time which many people don't have. I have found that grocery-store bags of dried beans are really not much cheaper per serving than canned beans. One of the arguments against canned beans is salt, but they are available with low or no sodium. Of course the lower-sodium varieties are more expensive. For me, buying canned beans is the better way for me to make vegetarian soup, chili, etc.  Without them, I might resort to even more processed food!  And I am a person with leisure time to cook from scratch, and have time-and-effort-saving appliances, such as a pressure cooker. A person without those things is better off buying canned beans, low-salt if possible, than buying no beans at all. 💗

I don’t get your math. Today at Giant a can of store brand chickpeas is $1.29.  A pound of store brand dried chickpeas is $1.99.  A pound of dried beans can equal about four 15 ounce cans. You’re paying over $5 when you get the cans. Add to that that cooked-from-dried chickpeas are more nutritious and the broth is more usable and you’re overpaying for convenience when beans are relatively easy to make, freeze well, and are fairly quick in a pressure cooker/instant pot. I do buy canned beans on occasion, because they ARE better than no beans, but they don’t taste as good. 

[KungFuPanda]

13 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Costco sized bags of beans are MUCH cheaper than canned, though.

But I’m not buying those anymore because I have gotten hooked on Rancho Gordo dried beans, which ARE a lot more pricy but also taste much better than others—canned or dried.  The difference is remarkable, and significant enough to get me to eat beans much more often by choice, which is half the battle really.

Rainbow Plant Life reviewed these and REALLY liked them. I’m afraid to get started.  

[EKS]

6 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

But, from my perspective, it’s still the chemicals, corn syrup, and fillers that have been the biggest problematic change.

This and the erroneous idea that fat is evil.  

Oh and just a few giant ag companies controlling the vast majority of the inputs.

[prairiewindmomma]

One aspect of the discussion I haven't seen discussed here in micro plastics, phthalates and other forms of non-food things in the current food array.  

Do not read this link if you are anxious about food quality: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the-plastic-chemicals-hiding-in-your-food-a7358224781/

[prairiewindmomma]

Note that the concern there is about packaging.  Studies are also finding micro plastics in fruits and veggies, straight off of the vine/root: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40840-z

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10455475/#:~:text=A total of 210 microplastics,and pear 3.1 ± 1.3.

[marbel]

16 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

I don’t get your math. Today at Giant a can of store brand chickpeas is $1.29.  A pound of store brand dried chickpeas is $1.99.  A pound of dried beans can equal about four 15 ounce cans. You’re paying over $5 when you get the cans. Add to that that cooked-from-dried chickpeas are more nutritious and the broth is more usable and you’re overpaying for convenience when beans are relatively easy to make, freeze well, and are fairly quick in a pressure cooker/instant pot. I do buy canned beans on occasion, because they ARE better than no beans, but they don’t taste as good. 

At my Giant, store brand 1# bag chickpeas = 2.29  Cans are .75.  So a savings of 71 cents over 1 bag/4 cans. So really not much cheaper when you factor in time and fuel.  I'm sure prices vary widely depending on location!

Speaking of Rancho Gordo... their chickpeas are $6.25/pound. I have no doubt they are wonderful! But not realistic for many budgets. 

ETA: low or no sodium are probably more expensive so there's where a real savings may come in. 

ETA2: I'm wrong! Store brand low-sodium are same price. 

 

Edited January 7 by marbel

[Carol in Cal.]

15 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Costco-sized bags aren't practical for everyone though.  The membership, the drive to a Costco, the upfront money, the storage space, the investment in the food-safe buckets to store it all.   

Dry beans also have a texture that takes getting used to. I can get my picky people to eat canned beans but they won't food that I make with dry beans because of the texture difference.

Really though, if the ONLY issue with the American diet was canned beans versus dry beans this would be a very different conversation.  Single-ingredient canned beans or canned corn or green beans are pretty far down on the list of concerns, I would think.   Doritos, bean dip and a can of coke comprising a $10, 1000 calorie "snack" with no nutritional value is a much bigger issue, both health and budget wise.  

I completely agree.

I find, just in general, that if I cook dried beans in my Sun Oven, they come out as soft as the canned ones.  I don’t like them as much that way as I have gotten used to the ‘from dried’ texture, but if I really want them soft but still distinct that is how I do it.  I think I would get the same results if I cooked dried ones slowly in an iron pot in the oven inside at only 300 or a little less, instead of on top of the stove, because that is essentially what I do outside—for hours and hours, checking every so often.  Just, as a hint.

But yes, I agree with what you’re saying, and in fact have often argued about the Costco issue in working with food bank volunteers and supporters—that it’s not reasonable to expect people in our area to be able to manage the economies of scale that could save a lot of food money since they don’t have the room or the facility for storage or preservation that someone with a house could.

BTW, I didn’t keep my Costco beans in food safe buckets.  I kept them in the original sacks, in a regular 5 gallon bucket with an Alpha seal lid.

[Carol in Cal.]

16 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Rainbow Plant Life reviewed these and REALLY liked them. I’m afraid to get started.  

My cousin gave me a bag of their Mayacobas for Christmas once, and I got hooked.  They were as much better than normal beans as garden tomatoes vs. standard supermarket ones.

But honestly, with both of us working, it’s such a savings to eat at home compared to eating out that even a somewhat more expensive ingredient is worth it.  

Separate issue—the plastics generally in storage—I use glass canning jars for most storage, and they are great.  Very durable, you can see right into them, and awfully sturdy even though they are technically breakable.  Pretty inexpensive, too.

[Heartstrings]

11 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

ne aspect of the discussion I haven't seen discussed here in micro plastics, phthalates and other forms of non-food things in the current food array.

When micro plastics are in breast milk and deep sea creatures I don’t think individuals can do much on a household level to combat them.  I do what I can but honestly it’s a societal problem that needs corporations and national buy in to fix.