"Bad" food? | TheaterFire

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AnniemaeHRI@reddit

I’m 58, we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was a kid and it was all home cooked. Then breakfast became sugary cereal which we of course begged for. We didn’t snack during the day and only occasionally had dessert, even that was often something like canned fruit or applesauce. Things like ice cream and cookies were such a treat because we hardly ever had them but in the 80s is when our mother started to buy chips and cookies at the grocery store, we loved them! I guess it just became more available. Now my grandchildren constantly want snacks and seem to graze all day instead of eating at meal times.

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AardvarkAapocolypse@reddit

I'm a bit younger than you, but I remember when a can of frozen strawberries (that you had a peel open using a key) was a BIG DEAL in our house when I was a little kid.

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AnniemaeHRI@reddit

Similar to orange juice concentrate!

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No_Committee5809@reddit

OMG!! I'm 52. I was trying to explain these canned frozen strawberries to my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago. She looked at me like I had 3 heads.

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panzan@reddit

My mom kept the kitchen stocked with cool whip, margarine, crisco, spam, velveeta, and sunny D. Industrial food predates Gen X.

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Most_Maintenance5549@reddit

Swanson Hungry Man

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you_enjoy_my_elf@reddit

Squeeze Parkay

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fuckreddit-69@reddit

Cheez whiz, as well

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Thirsty-Barbarian@reddit

When I was a kid, someone gave me a sugary drink made from a powdered drink mix, and I told them, “This is just chemicals.” And they told me, “Soon the only food we will have to eat will be chemicals, so you have to get used to it now and train your body to live off chemicals so you’ll be ready.”

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gravitydefiant@reddit

All food has always been all chemicals. Stop with the pseudoscience fear mongering.

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Thirsty-Barbarian@reddit

Technically all molecules in the universe are chemicals, and because all food is composed of molecules, all food has always been chemicals. Thats true. But generally when someone says something like, “This food is all chemicals,” what they mean is it has artificial ingredients not found in nature, or is made of ingredients identified by a chemical name on the ingredient labeling. So for example, if the Tang ingredients are sugar, fructose, citric acid, maltodextrin, calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), natural flavor, artificial color (Yellow 5, Yellow 6), and guar gum, then that’s so-called “chemicals”. While if the ingredients in your orange juice are orange juice, then that’s not “chemicals”, even if orange juice contains thousands of chemicals in it. Stop with the intentionally obtuse playing dumb while posing as smart idiot mongering.

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pantstoaknifefight2@reddit

Tang is for Astronauts!

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Thirsty-Barbarian@reddit

lol! We drank so much Tang. We also had Country Time lemonade powder and Nestea iced tea powder. My mom didn’t buy soda because soda is bad for you, same for Kool Aid, but we had plenty of chemical flavored sugar powder to make drinks. I’m not sure what the thinking was.

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azrolator@reddit

I still want Tang. When I met my wife, she couldn't understand it. She's always made us get real OJ. I water it down usually.

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KalistoCA@reddit

I mean all food is chemical compounds

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AtTheEndOfMyTrope@reddit

Food in general is less healthy. Even fruits and vegetables. Food is becoming less nutritious due to soil depletion, with studies showing a 25–50% decline in minerals and vitamins in fruits and vegetables over the past 50–70 years. Modern intensive farming, including monocropping and chemical fertilizers, depletes soil organic matter and microbes, reducing the nutrients available for crops to absorb. This is one of the reasons farmers use crop rotation, but this just slows down the issue. Our children and grandchildren are eating less nutritious food than we did, even if they eat the same diet.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

I remember when they taught us about crop rotation in school. The problem is these days, they most often replenish the minerals using chemicals instead of doing it the natural way.

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montbkr@reddit

The Bible talks about resting your fields every 7 years for that very reason. Also, if you’re farmer here in Tennessee, the government will pay you NOT to farm a section of your property so the land can rest. In Southwest Tennessee (where I am), it doesn’t matter as much because the Mississippi Delta and flooding keeps the land fertile.

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OccamsYoyo@reddit

So summerfallow must have been a good thing after all.

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montbkr@reddit

In some areas, yes.

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Three3Jane@reddit

That and sheer lack of variety.

I just asked Google how many different types of apple varieties there were in the early 1900s versus today.

The answer was 17,000. There were 17,000ish different varietals of apples in the early 1900s versus now just 7500 total in the world and the mere 15 that dominate the market today.

That goes for almost all fruits and vegetables, and the ones we have now are a mere shadow of what they used to be. Oranges? Strawberries? Grapes? Bell peppers? Watermelon? Blueberries?

All cultivated for long shelf life, long ripening stages, and damn near zero flavor.

I wrote a comment a long time ago and I'm too lazy to dig it up, but it was about the difference in taste that the single orange my [wildly underperforming] orange tree produced in my backyard versus the bullshit "oranges" you can buy in stores.

That single orange was like...the essence of 1000 of today's oranges condensed into each little segment. We ate that orange reverently and slowly, and realized how badly we've been hoodwinked by modern farming methods.

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MhojoRisin@reddit

Average life expectancy is 79.8 in the U.S. versus 68 in the 50s and 70 in the 70s, so we’re doing something right.

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AtTheEndOfMyTrope@reddit

Medical technology. Also, U.S. life expectancy has experienced significant declines, falling to roughly 76–77 years between 2020 and 2022—the lowest in over two decades

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MhojoRisin@reddit

Worldometers stats have life expectancy back up to 79.6 for 2025. So maybe that was just a Covid dip.

Monaco is at 86.7 though!

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/us-demographics/#life-exp

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Ahleron@reddit

Monaco also has the highest concentration of wealthy people. Go figure - having a lot of money helps to stay alive and healthy.

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analogpursuits@reddit

Same diseases and stupidity, just better drugs and technology to keep us alive longer while we suffer through it.

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flicmeister@reddit

what's the sauce on these claims?

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AtTheEndOfMyTrope@reddit

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10969708/

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East-Garden-4557@reddit

And yet when I and my family get blood work done we are not deficient in any nutrients, and we don't take any supplements.

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mnmsmelt@reddit

When we started shoving buckets on antibiotics into livestock ..

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JudgeJuryEx78@reddit

...which fueled the ultraprocessed fat free snack craze of the 90s.

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mnmsmelt@reddit

Plus, I don't remember anyone using olive oil...it was lard, crisco, vegetable oil and then canola hit the stage. Oh and country crock...I just knew, even as a child, it would all come back to bite us. Fake butter?.! I really development strange feelings about many foods back then & carried until almost 40! I believe my IBS started after I was a teen able to run around and eat fast food on a regular basis as well as started working in FF. But, also, I suddenly couldn't digest cow milk...after heavy consumption my entire life until then.

Remember the Olestra craze? Chips fried in fake oil our bodies couldn't digest and just shit ran through us? I ran a Subway and I remember...the fake "wheat bread"...fake white, for that matter! Another huge change was CORN SYRUP exchanged for natural sugar. Remember how insane everyone thought paying for bottled water was...?

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JudgeJuryEx78@reddit

Fortunately my friend tried Olestra and reported her findings so I never had to go through that.

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MissDisplaced@reddit

It started in the 70s with cereal but in the 80s nearly everything became processed food

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pantstoaknifefight2@reddit

Yep. As four kids in the 70s, my mom cooked us dinner, usually some sort of meat, and seasonal vegetables we grew in the suburbs.

We always made a sandwich for ourselves for lunch and a bowl of cereal for breakfast. The cereal was sugary but not those insane cookie kids cereals.

We never bought cookies or cakes. Just baked with mom on Sat or Sunday. Never drank soda but would bust out Hawaiian punch in the summer when BBQing in the back yard.

We were pretty upper middle class, got the same brand of glass bottled spring water they still sell at Whole Foods (which didn't exist back then). We also lined up and took a tablespoon of cod liver oil from the refrigerator and a multivitamin. We got those things at a smelly local health food store.

My mom wasn't a hippie, but she sure acted like one when it came to our health.

Sometimes we ate fast food (McDonald's, Burger Chef, Steak n Shake) and stuff like hot dogs, and hit restaurants once in a while. But we were all insanely active and only settled down after dark.

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MissDisplaced@reddit

We were lower middle class but lived in a rural area. My mom cooked real food and we had a big garden at my grandparents so she was always doing up vegetables: corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, tomatoes, peas. Even made her own jelly. It’s not that we didn’t have junk food, because we had cokes and chocolate of course, but she baked our cookies and cakes. Then, maybe mid 80s it began to change. Suddenly there were more convenience foods in the house as we got older.

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Nevyn00@reddit

Most people approach "bad" food from a moralistic position and not a health one. When we talk about junk food, what we're primarily talking about is sodium and sugars. Anecdotally, I'd say most kids eat less of those now than back in the 80's when I was a kid. (I drank soda with every meal, and so many chips).

The other issue is that junk foods generally don't have all the nutrients and vitamins we need. But there's more ways to supplement one's diet to get those.

Your real purpose (and that of anybody decrying ultra-processed foods) is to claim a moral superiority. That people who don't make food from scratch are lazy and deserve to be sick. You are an absolute ghoul.

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GenX-ModTeam@reddit

Pertinence to GenX - Posts may be removed if they are not pertinent to Generation X in a specific way.

This includes non-specific ramblings, any sort of conspiracy theories that have nothing to do with GenX, or posts about people who happen to be GenX….and that’s it.

AI videos or articles MUST have the proper flair identifying the content as AI.

Just because an article or video mentions Generation X does not automatically make it pertinent. Moderators will make this determination at their discretion.

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SoCal_Duck@reddit

Go spend some time in Europe and the difference in food quality is stark, particularly when it comes to bread, fruits and vegetables.

So much of the food in US restaurants is blandly similar because it all comes from a handful of major distributors like Sysco and US Foods.

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RustbeltMaven@reddit

Snack foods are so much more prevalent now than back then. I don’t think my mom gave us goldfish crackers as kids, and I remember when tortilla chips were new to the Midwest.

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gravitydefiant@reddit

I don't think the "healthier food" was in our lifetimes. And I'm not sure it ever existed at all. I don't think there was very much time between food scarcity being the norm for most people, and ultra processed convenience food being the norm for most people.

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TripMaster478@reddit

Fair. I blame Fabio for a lot of other things too.

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Pretty_Couple_832@reddit

T.V dinners and Chef boy r dee ravioli for me.

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NegScenePts@reddit

The invention of canned food is where it started, waaaaaaay before us.

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Extension_Sun_5663@reddit

It's a myth that fresh veg has more nutrients than canned ones.

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NegScenePts@reddit

Not referring to that. The idea of long-lasting packaged food not dried in smoke or salt led indirectly to the creation of heavily-processed 'food', loaded with preservatives that are toxic to us...which was then used as a baseline for what the human body should NOT be exposed to (or at least the minimum exposure levels for not dying/getting sick).

Cans themselves weren't the problem initially, but the heavy metals that leached out of them were. Then the toxic plastic linings became an issue, etc.

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UrsaMajor7th@reddit

Preserved food prevented spoilage for travellers and the military before refrigeration was common. It was revolutionary and certainly not the problem.

Mass production is the issue. They had to make the items 'shelf-stable' to last as long as possible; enriching the white flour in sliced bread, adding sodiums like sodium nitrate, or unhealthy oils and sugars to foods is what made them unhealthy compared to locally grown food.

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battery19791@reddit

Shareholders and infinite profit growth are the problem.

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UrsaMajor7th@reddit

I consider those both downstream results of mass production.

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pantstoaknifefight2@reddit

Napoleon offered a cash prize to anyone who could safely can food for his mobile armies in 1795.

A guy won the 12,000 franc prize in 1809 by heat sterilizing food.

I'm pretty sure he used glass bottles, though.

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hemidak@reddit

I'm 54 and for the last 20 years I have alternated off and on a strict ketogenic diet where I eat only meat and fat and cut carbs for the most part completely out except for a cabbage, lettuce and celery. It has been such an eye opening event that has shown me how bad processed food and man made oils are. On keto, bloat and inflamation are stripped away. Aches and pains are gone. Mind is clear and weight loss is easier. However after a month of nothing but meat, I usually want to blow my brains out. Not much variety but am healthy. Then when I go back to regular foods body swells, knees hurt, back tightens, my wife says I become an asshole. I gain weight and am mentally foggy. However, love the engineered food.

So to sum it up. Life is short, choose the poison you can live with.

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caffeine_nation@reddit

This is still somewhat individual also, as I will not have any weight loss or decreased inflammation on keto (and yes I'm doing it "right")

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hemidak@reddit

Yes Keto is not for everyone. It is extremely demanding having to cook for every meal. Eatting meat only seasoned with salt and potassium chloride is boring. I have noticed over the years that unless I go balls to the wall and cut everything else out it is not as effective. Like "keto" bread and cookies are a scam. No dairy or anything other than meat and fat not cheese. It's not for everyone but if done that strictly there is nothing to cause inflamation and you do eat way less food since you are tired of it and can go longer with out for because your body is more efficient at burning bodyfat.

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Three3Jane@reddit

You also missed the fact that eating keto is extremely expensive. As mentioned elsewhere, in food deserts or underserved places, often the only place you can buy food is a wildly overpriced local grocery store or an even more wildly overpriced convenience store.

Meat is incredibly expensive, grass-fed / organic feed even more so. Vegetables aren't terribly expensive in and of themselves, again unless you go organic.

Then there's the time and labor of either meal prepping or cooking every night, which necessitates stocking up shopping, which can more difficult if you ride the bus, and the list goes on and on.

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hemidak@reddit

It is and it isn't. I just buy regular meat. Coupled with not buying all the extra carbs and junk food defrays the cost. The bigger benefit instead of not eating grass-fed meat is that I'm not eating sugar grains and man-made oils.

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FancyRise@reddit

Very true.. it’s not easy and definitely not for everyone. I don’t know if I will be able to stay on it forever but I do feel so much better I’ll try to at least always be low carbs as much as possible.

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caffeine_nation@reddit

I did all of this. For a year. It was miserable and I felt no better and lost no weight

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FancyRise@reddit

Same with me. I’m your age and since I began the ketogenic diet I feel like my body is working more efficiently now. My blood sugar’s are normal, my brain works better, I sleep better, no more aches, no headaches, no crashes in the day and so on. I actually think in years to come the way we grew up eating all the processed foods, sugars will be looked on the same way tabacoo is now.

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liquilife@reddit

What? No GenX population has fully avoided the days of ultra processed foods. The solution to eating healthy has always been to make your own meals. Nothing different about that in the last 60+ years.

As a matter of fact it’s easy as shit to steer clear of ultra processed foods nowadays.

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JudgeJuryEx78@reddit

Not if you're poor and live in a food desert.

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More-Complaint@reddit

Whilst this is far from a specifically U.S. problem, it is certainly amplified there. The majority of the world would not recognise the sheer amount of heavily processed food in the American diet. Growing up in the UK, overtly processed food was seen as an indulgence, not the norm. Even now the majority of people outside of the US and Canada make their meals from base ingredients. The trend is spreading, but strict laws around the level of processing are still very much in force across Europe and Scandinavia,for instance.

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CharleyDawg@reddit

Early 70’s we ate candy and pop tarts and pudding treats and Sugar Smacks was an actual breakfast cereal. I remember eating tv dinners and canned spaghetti o’s with kool aide and topping it off with some packaged dessert with cool whip.

What we did not do in the 70’s was sit inside day after day after day while we ate all the processed garbage. And the processed crap was not quite as engineered then as it is now.

We (as a culture) also did not go out to eat back then, the way people do now. Going out to eat or getting take out or fast food was a treat for middle class families. And portion sizes were more normal back then than they became in the 80’s.

So we had plenty of bad food, but probably ate smaller amounts and we certainly moved around more.

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Ok_Driver8646@reddit

Most if not all food from “popular” grocery stores has too much sugar added and definitely too much salt. It’s pretty gross tbh. Peanut Butter does not require added sugar. 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

While some foods have been “improved” (oils etc) there’s so much that’s not good or has extra additives. Get away from as much processed “food” as you can. “Eat your veggies” as they used to say.

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posicivic@reddit

Grocery stores are actually laid out in a way that makes it easy. All the sections around the perimeter are where you should shop to avoid processed foods - Produce, Dairy, Meat, and Bakery. All those aisles in the middle of the store? Short cut foods loaded with sugar and salt. There are exceptions, of course.

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qwibbian@reddit

Pretty sure the bakery is about as processed as it gets.

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posicivic@reddit

I would argue that the aisles full of heavily marketed cereals and meal starters are quite a bit more processed than a loaf of bread.

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qwibbian@reddit

I disagree, but I also think you're cherry-picking. I have a leftover end of store bought whole wheat bread that must be two weeks old (no plans to eat it) and it still shows no signs of mold, but if I bake muffins and don't refrigerate they'll start after about three days. That's not even considering pink frosted sugary cupcakes that will live to see the Rapture, or donuts, snack cakes etc.

Meanwhile I was making coffee so I checked my pantry - my cereal is no name brand (not organic) Canadian steel cut oats, ingredients: oats (may contain wheat). The shelled hemp seeds contain shelled hemp seeds, and the frozen fruits and veggies exactly and only that fruit or veggie. Those are all from the middle aisles.

Part of the issue is that there isn't a clear, quantitative definition of what constitutes "processing" in this sense, but I think it's safe to say that there's a ton of stuff in the bakery section that no healthy human was ever intended to consume.

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Ok_Driver8646@reddit

Yep. Worked in a grocery store as a first “career.” Learned all the tricks they use to get in your pocket.

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Little-Red-Dog@reddit

I remember when they said that eggs were terrible for you and that oatmeal was good for you. Then a while later said that oatmeal wasn't as good as they thought and that eggs were actually good for you. After that I stopped listening to what they had to say.

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Three3Jane@reddit

Somewhat similar to doctors in the '50s recommending that women take up smoking while they were pregnant, so they wouldn't gain too much weight.

Modern medical thinking changes all the time.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

Made me think of this: 😆

https://youtube.com/shorts/e7SLcRNjYh8?si=ucnCCk87sjMxCFpE

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charlottespider@reddit

They’re both pretty good for you, ha.

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Gloomy_Plastic572@reddit

Mate did you not eat anything in the 70s ffs ?

I grew up eating the most artificial shit in the world, it almost glowed in the dark

So wtf you talking about dude, mass produced food has always been radioactive

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PuzzleheadedAbies678@reddit

70s food be like...

gif

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Gloomy_Plastic572@reddit

Ah-hahaha, quality

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Gloomy_Plastic572@reddit

Wat really scares me from my diet between the 70s and 80s is bsb, mad cow disease

I had/have a really autistic eating palate and some kind of mince was part of my daily sustenance

Ie the worst bits of meat and offal and I eat that shit most days along with all that luvly candy with gelatin in it and those luminous deserts

Not eaten meat since a teen but there was a lot of years as a kid I chowed down on that luvly spungiforus brain matter..... fingers crossed and all that

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Gloomy_Plastic572@reddit

hmmm a down vote for a personal fear that runs around my mind in the dark nights ov the soul, indicating how fecking bad food corporations/governments was in the 70s-80s

what me rankled by a random comment in the world of reddit, no not me, so sir-ree, twitch twitch ....

reet thats enough reddit for the day me thinks

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

I was only 5 yo in 1980. My mom cooked everything. She didn't buy prepackaged foods at all.

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Todeshase@reddit

That’s the real issue here, people who had the time and money have always eaten better, if your mom would have had less time and resources you probably would have eaten hamburger helper and hot pockets.

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Gloomy_Plastic572@reddit

Ah well then you wee wipersnaper , tussles Dewellans hair... as you were lol,

Sorry dude just being silly on a Saturday, but aye you missed some great food, not

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East-Garden-4557@reddit

No, my family knew how to cook, they cooked from scratch, they grew fruit and vegies.

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TankApprehensive3053@reddit

When they decided to modify wheat crops in the early part of the 20th century to increase yield but that lowered available nutrition. Creating Crisco and labeling it as a food product. Margarine was the same intent as Crisco.

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UrsaMajor7th@reddit

Mass production is at-fault. We should blame the shelf, then ourself, for buying cheap & easy crap instead of fresh, locally-produced food.

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Athrynne@reddit

Food is way healthier now than it was back then. We got hydrogenated oil out of products, and fresh fruits and vegetables are easier to get no matter the season.

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flicmeister@reddit

absolutely. it's a nonsense take that food is less healthy now than in the 70s/80s. We had no farm-to-table, no locally-sourced, no "organic," none of it. If you're eating less healthy food now than you were 40+ years ago, you're making an active effort to eat like an idiot and that's 100% on you.

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Jezikhana@reddit

OR, you don't have the money and/or access to it. Fresh food is bloody expensive compared to processed. Organic even worse. That and food desserts exist where the only grocer option is a convenience store.

And yes, froze veg exists and are quite good, so are some canned options. But if all you can find/afford come from a can or a box you aren't an idiot or making an active effort to eat that way. Your just trying to survive.

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GreatPlainsFarmer@reddit

I recently bought 10 lbs of potatoes for $2, a lb of cheese for $4, a lb of bacon for $5, and a gallon of milk for $3.
With less than a dollar worth of seasoning, that’s a lot of meals of potato soup. Add in some frozen veggies, and it’s not that unhealthy.

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Jezikhana@reddit

I'm happy for you, those are excellent prices.

The cheapest I can get for potatoes is 6.00 for 10lbs here, and that's basic russets nothing fancy. Other stuff is about the same to a bit higher depending on sales.

That also doesn't address food deserts where folks don't have access to potatoes. Dunno about you but I've never seen a bag of potatoes in a convenience store and if there was one there it would be small a double the price of a grocery store.

My point is that everyone's situation is different. Making assumptions that someone is an idiot cause they aren't eating healthy is a bad faith take. Sure, some folks are actively eating unhealthy, but when your poor or in a bad situation you are simply trying to survive. Many of us here have had to live off of ramen or peanut butter and jelly at some point in our lives after all.

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East-Garden-4557@reddit

We always had access to fresh produce in local stores and growing fruit and veg at home was common when I was a child. We didn't get fed heavily processed food, we ate food cooked from scratch.

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OccamsYoyo@reddit

I agree. Such takes are dead giveaways they weren’t there and their opinion means nothing.

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Good-Philosopher3039@reddit

It depends on who raised you. My mom grew up on a farm and cooked from scratch for us in the 70’s. We only ate home cooked meals, and my parents did their own canning of fruits and veggies. Our food was super healthy until the early 80’s when she started working.

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TravelerMSY@reddit

Yeah, nobody’s going to make you eat it, but I have access to way better food than I ever did in the 70s and 80s. Back then, if it wasn’t grown locally, you didn’t really get it.

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paddedpothead420@reddit

In the 50's-60s with microwavable food

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ClownShoeNinja@reddit

Makes me wanna goose slap that fucker AGAIN

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jaime_riri@reddit

Food between the Industrial Revolution and like, 1990, was not great on the whole. Maybe in the 80s I’d say people STARTED to actually pay attention to food adulteration. Their were fringe efforts much earlier of course. Notably Sinclair’s The Jungle. Though his intention was to expose the brutal exploitation of immigrant workers, not consumer protection.

I highly recommend Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home. That talks a lot about how food and our standards of good vs bad food has changed.

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Quendi_Talkien@reddit

Also highly recommend The Poison Squad. Between the industrial revolution and when the FDA was created, food was literally toxic. Humans have forever tried to get your money at whatever cost.

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jaime_riri@reddit

Ooh The Poisoners is a good one too but that’s not about food.

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OccamsYoyo@reddit

All I remember is that food in the ‘70s and ‘80s could be aggressively bland, almost like parents made it so just to set their kids up for a whuppin’ if they didn’t want to eat it.

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fuckreddit-69@reddit

I got news for you. It started in the 50s With all the quick an easy stuff. Somehow our attachment to fast led to our downfall. Also shelf stable. We ate like shit in the 70s.

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SkweegeeS@reddit

Gave people more time to smoke!

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BrilliantCorner@reddit

Nixon's push for HFCS kind of put the decline on steroids.

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Most_Maintenance5549@reddit

Literally everything is made of chemicals.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

There's a difference between "naturally occurring" chemicals in food and what has happened to food in recent decades.

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Ok-Acanthisitta-5451@reddit

Yes

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No_Capes_9173@reddit

Um. Anyone else remember toaster pizza?

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Bob0584@reddit

Pop Tarts

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Absentmindedgenius@reddit

Margarine

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mtcwby@reddit

It was pretty shit by the 70s. There's been a lot more focus on good food in the last 15 to 20 years. You don't have to eat like shit.

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BlownCamaro@reddit

I wanted popcorn. All grandma had was "Country Crock" which is imitation whipped butter. So, I melted some and poured it onto my popcorn. It made a sizzling noise and melted the popcorn into goo.

Then I yelled, "WHAT A CROCK!" and threw the popcorn in the trash.

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OccamsYoyo@reddit

Had the exact same experience.

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Cubbance@reddit

I had the same experience too, but with real butter. Turns out, putting hot melted liquid on light fluffy popcorn just melts the popcorn and makes it soggy. Nothing to do with using margarine versus butter.

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Cubbance@reddit

Everything is chemicals. Water is chemicals. You could eat healthily or unhealthily when we were kids, just as you can do the same now. Moderation was important then, just as it's important now.

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Rotary_Zeuhl@reddit

As Conan once pointed out (Fabio: Seeeecretttssss), the double negative is a faux pas. Should've been "I Believe It's Butter."

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thesplendor@reddit

Except that “I can’t believe” stands alone as a phrase, so whatever follows needs to agree with it

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Rotary_Zeuhl@reddit

Well I, for one, certainly appreciate the honesty of a product with a positive outlook, so much so that I would be willing to look beyond the fact that said product is an emulsion of salt and petrochemicals.

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Ahleron@reddit

Food has always been a bunch of chemicals.

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Oxjrnine@reddit

They used to put chalk in bread and milk.

Food hasn’t been this healthy in all of human history

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Todeshase@reddit

You’re going to want to go back before WWII, canned soup recipes became popular then to help busy housewives. Plus, we learned so much from the wars that was later repurposed in the kitchen. But, you probably mean “when so much food wasn’t Ultra Processed Food”. Since, you know, everything in life is a chemical.

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TheOsirisOfThisShit_@reddit

Before WWII, people used to die all the time from tainted products caused by manufacturers trying to save a nickel.

"I wish we could go back to the time when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle"

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InvestigatorJaded261@reddit

Not in our lifetimes.

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Alewort@reddit

Wait til you learn about food adulteration in Victorian England.

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NPC261939@reddit

Before Ansel Keyes went and convinced everyone to remove fat from their diet and the food companies in turn replaced it with sugar.

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SDgoon@reddit

I'm pretty sure I'd be 3 or 4 inches taller if I had real food when I was a teenager. I was always starving, every one said it was typical teenage growth shit, no I wasn't getting enough protein, I was fed garbage carbs. It pisses me off.

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Mendonesiac@reddit

you must've grown up outside of the United States because we've prioritized protein for at least the last 75 years

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kalipatchia@reddit

So much corn syrup.

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Good_With_Tools@reddit

I grew up on TV dinners. My mom stopped cooking the day I could reach the microwave. Food is as healthy as you want it to be.

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bigtakeoff@reddit

lol dropping logic bombs

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skeeterbmark@reddit

I survived from age 13-16 almost solely on Torino’s party pizzas and chocolate milk.

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montbkr@reddit

I went a whole year once and didn’t eat anything but peanut butter. I was in a power struggle with my mother over vegetables.

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bigtakeoff@reddit

this all checks out lol

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Princessferfs@reddit

The stuff we ate in the 70’s and 80’s was crap, but now you can actually taste the chemicals in the food. It’s wild.

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PerceptionSimilar213@reddit

I am not an expert, but read an article a while back that said there are strong correlations between the kinds of processed foods made/used in the 70s/80s and the rise of type 2 diabetes

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manuelzmanual@reddit

Even in South EU where "Mediterranean Diet" was considered a shield, prosseced stuff was widely accepted post60s , having settled today w lots of "bad food". And less people have time or appetite to cook from scratch.+sourcing quality food is not easy and often not affordable too.

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GrayBeardBoardGamer@reddit

it's never changed. it's always your choice. just have to make most of your own meals.

last night's dinner of grilled chicken zucchini leeks and peppers, black lentils, mango slices and avocado is just as healthy now as it might have been 1000 years ago.

just stop doordashing, ignore food influencers, stay away from trendy restaurants and fast/junk food and you'll be fine.

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JonnyCotati@reddit

Despite your meal flex, that food is not as healthy as it was 1000 years ago because of environmental issues, farming practices, food processing (however minimal on your fabulous meal, so divine). Doesn't matter that it's just plants. We've messed those up, too.

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Kodiak01@reddit

PARKAAAAAAAY

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MarcusAurelius68@reddit

Buttah

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rogueconstant77@reddit

We cook almost everything. Have never bought sugary cereals for my kids, everyone eats oatmeal for breakfast. Alost never buy fast food or soda. Don't drink alcohol anymore. I will eat candy and cake now and then. Work out a lot.

There is zero reason or excuse to be unhealthy unless time and money are constraints.

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Commercial_Okra7519@reddit

Born in 1976. Like you, we cook and prepare the majority of our meals from “scratch”. I’ve never tried any of the good eats or pre prepared ingredient meal services because I prefer to pay less for the entire bunch of celery or the entire wedge of parm. I hear they can be very good but I like my left overs or option to plan more than one meal with the same items.

I suspect that this may be influenced by my elders encouraging me to cook and be creative with food from a very young age. There was caution for safety but much less restriction on using the stove other than the expectation that they explained “stove hot, don’t burn yourself”.

I regret not encouraging my son to cook from a young age but the saving grace is that he has grown up in a home where preparing dinner and making meals from scratch is the norm.

We do eat take out about twice a month and everything I prepare is not necessarily “health food”. I try to balance things out.

I was always taught to try to shop the perimeter of the grocery store as a baseline. Fresh produce, meats, dairy, bakery, etc., first. The aisles are for the “accoutrements and should not make up more than 25% ish of your order.

Can’t say that’s correct or incorrect but it has served me well as a general rule of thumb. 🤷‍♀️

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CoolFirefighter930@reddit

Well back in the day if you did grow it or kill it yourself you didn't eat it .

We didn't have a microwave to zap some food we had to cook and eat then or have cold leftovers.

I was in High school (middle school now)when we got our first Hardee's In this area .

Times have definitely changed!!

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KitchenWitch021@reddit

I was going to comment the same thing. We only had Jello once in a while and mom ruined it by adding shredded carrots and celery in it. Her thing was..if I can’t pronounce the ingredient, then we aren’t eating it!

I left home and shocked my system with ramen noodles, Kraft Mac and cheese and then Taco Bell garbage after a night of drinking. I‘m better now and eat very little processed food.

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Bl8kStrr@reddit

Microwave Meals

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22Shattered@reddit

Sweet and Low is to blame as well & Diet Coke

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let-it-rain-sunshine@reddit

I recall the warning labels on Sweet n low which said causes cancer in lab rats

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Chibi-Skyler@reddit

Sanka with Sweet-N-Low is absolutely...indescribable!

If my parents were here, they'd call me a coffee snob!! I'm sitting here, sipping some freshly- ground and brewed Colombian coffee with half-and-half and zero sweetener.

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Signal_Glittering@reddit

I blame microwaves. After my mom got a microwave it was all downhill from there. The convenience of food started then. At least in my house.

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Disastrous_Cat3912@reddit

Nah, we had tv dinners in the oven long before we ever had a microwave.

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No_Committee5809@reddit

We definitely did. I remember peeling the aluminum off those dinners to this day, and on that I'll say this...those old tv dinners were actual food, way better than what we're getting today.

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therocketn00b@reddit

I remember the entire family eating dinner from aluminum trays we stuck in the oven.

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Bitter-Assignment464@reddit

We don’t own a microwave. Reheat in the stove.

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Signal_Glittering@reddit

I don’t have one now either. Don’t really need it

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

Yep. Let's add those delicious ham & cheese Hot Pockets to the blame list.

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Niffer8@reddit

Unless you’re older than a boomer, you probably won’t remember a time when foods were healthier to consume. Processed foods have been around since WWII.

GenXers may recall eating a lot of processed foods because we had both parents working and convenience became a priority. It’s a lot of work to plan and prepare meals every day, which is why we now have Hello Fresh and DoorDash. We work our asses off and when we get home at 8:00 pm after a 12hr day, the last thing we want to do is peel carrots and wait an hour for dinner to be ready.

My perception is that this is a North American thing. Other countries I’ve been to seem to eat more fresh/local foods. The “junk” option is there but it’s not a staple like it is here.

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Guilty_Eggplant_3529@reddit

Everything is either labelled as "good", based on current understanding, testing, etc., or "bad", again based on CURRENT understanding. The phrase, "current understanding" encompasses a lot of things that vary wildly over even "short" periods. Scientific understanding of nutrition and its long-term effects on the body, in general, get more complete and nuanced over time. In this country we tend not to do things half-way, so eggs were "bad" for a number of years, then they were "good" for a number of years. Without network TV and commercials, I have no idea what the consensus is these days. But, I'd bet it is much closer to: eggs are good in moderation, and especially egg whites.

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Better_Resort1171@reddit

I grew up on a hobby farm. We had a few steers, 100 roaster chickens in the summer, fresh fish from our trips

And all the free well water via a hose you wanted

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put_simply@reddit

There was a study paid for by corporations in the late 60s that basically paved the way for using sugar and eventually all sorts of things as caloric substitutes for fats in foods. This spurred the anti-fat wave of the 80s and the further addition of processed carbohydrates as fuel sources for the human bodies eventually turning more people soft and spurring the Diabetes wave we see now.

And I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons. Bottom line is it makes more money to feed us bullshit than real food these days. Buy unprocessed whole foods and cook them yourself and eat out at local, made on the spot food joints.

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AardvarkAapocolypse@reddit

We've been trying to eliminate as much "synthetic" food as possible, particularly with fats and oils. Are we actually healthier? I dunno... Do we feel good about it? Yeah, and I suppose that matters as much as anything.

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lassobsgkinglost@reddit

Labeling food as “bad” can lead to disordered eating. All food is fuel - but some fuels are more efficient. I’m diabetic. Refined sugars and carbs in general aren’t optimal fuel for me. However, more natural carbs such as potatoes and grains don’t raise my glucose levels so I eat those in moderation.

For most of human history, starvation was a real issue that killed people regularly - (this still can happen in more impoverished areas). However, in a vast majority of the world people do not starve anymore. There are issues such as diabetes and heart disease and rising colon cancer rates that may be the result of overeating or non-optimal fuel choices. But these outcomes aren’t even close to reaching the suffering caused by starvation over time.

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MrsQute@reddit

If you mean highly processed foods then I'd probably go with 1918 and Velveeta cheese.

Things really started picking up in the post-war boom.

But please remember a lot of the things added to foods today actually do help improve our lives and our health.

Adding vitamins and minerals to enrich foods cuts down on so many health problems caused by insufficient intake. Stabilizers and preservatives allow food to be safe to eat for longer periods of time, especially for those who deal with food insecurity or don't have access to much fresh food.

Remember that many condiments were created to help mask the taste of ingredients, particularly meats, that were going "off".

The biggest problem about a lot of the convenience foods is that they are very calorie dense so it's easy to over consume without feeling full.

By all means, eat all the fresh foods you want and prepare things from scratch as often as you'd like.

At the end of the day - everything in moderation and make the best choices you can afford.

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Donut_Bat_Artist@reddit

This is the correct answer

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zeitgeistincognito@reddit

Great perspective

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ertyertamos@reddit

Pretty sure bad processed foods have been the norm for most of our lives. And that which wasn’t processed was frozen and cooked beyond all nutritional value.

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IAmDaBadMan@reddit

I would say unhealthy food became ubiquitous in the 1970's after women joined the workforce. Time became a luxury for two-income families.

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Helleboredom@reddit

Doritos and Pepsi. Things were already “bad” in the 80s.

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Dramatic_Side_856@reddit

I remember when artificial food colorings and flavorings were labeled safe to eat.

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emma_kayte@reddit

No what you're remembering is diet culture and fear mongering

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

I don't think I'm referring to that. It affected me and my family amd we're all very petite people and don't have family members who have followed special diets. The closest thing I've ever been to a diet is doing intermittent fasting for 3 months this year because meno weight had me up to 135 lbs. 3 months got me back down to my usual 115 and I stopped the fasting. I'm barely 5ft tall.

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therocketn00b@reddit

I think it's important to get the good stuff, and then some of the "bad" stuff is fine in moderation. There are very few foods I would consider just bad. Even junk can be harmless in small doses.

But I cook much differently than my parents did. I try to cook everything from scratch or mostly scratch, and don't eat a lot of premade stuff, and that helps.

It didn't help us that they made things both convenient and super palatable.

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No-Economics-8239@reddit

I grew up on Mountain Dew and Hostess. Food is just food. Both good and bad. Our ability to process it and make it more shelf stable or calorie dense or whatever else means we can have options that are both less and more satisfying. More because we crave them and less because they don't make us feel full.

Our bodies are well adapted to eating for survival. We'll take what calories and nutrients as we can and just keep going without many obvious and blatant impacts due to getting too much or not enough.

Labeling food as 'good' or 'bad' is just setting yourself up for an eating condition. You can make an unhealthy salad and a healthy pastry. It's about moderation, not abstinence or an ascetic lifestyle.

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Round_Ad8947@reddit

When I was in school, I didn’t feel that variety of lean cuisine boxes made me feel fulfilled. I made so much money, I simply bypassed the soda, ice cream, and cookie aisles.

Looking into food costs, I discovered the value in bulk rice. This led to much more cooking from basic ingredients. And cooking larger amounts to save to eat during the week.

Looking back on the discovery that ultra processed foods are technically made of food, but in a form that messes with our brains and our guts.

You can still return to basics. Cookbooks are still available. Invite someone to cook with you and split the bounty.

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RedQueenWhiteQueen@reddit

Cookbooks are still available.

And if you get "vintage" cookbooks, they don't assume you have a million kitchen gadgets.
I bake quite a bit and resent the assumption that we all have a stand mixer(and in the US, the assumption is you have a KitchenAid). I just finally got one (not a KitchenAid) last year because I want to bake more bread and am over kneading by hand, but I made thousands of cookies with just a hand mixer.

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LieOhMy@reddit

Cookbooks are still available

Youtube is on virtually every persons phone, or just google recipes, or just input ingredients and ask AI what you can cook. If you have space to cook and money for ingredients (cheaper than fast food) there is zero reason not to cook to some degree.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

I've always been a person who cooks meals and avoided most pre-packaged foods. My adult kids are pretty healthy because of it. My daughter is 26 and she had an unhealthy obsession with Beefaroni and Pizza Rolls during her teen years. She said she hated everything except those things. She was diagnosed with Crohn's disease a couple years ago. She takes a daily immuno-supressant now after a month in the Cleveland Clinic. I blame myself because I indulged her. I didn't see the harm in it. :(

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Dogzillas_Mom@reddit

I started buying my produce from the local farmer’s market. The first time I bit into a local farm carrot instead of whatever that garbage in the grocery store is, I remembered wha carrots actually taste like.

While I join you in blaming Fabio, you could grow your own or buy from people who do.

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NebraskaCornSucker@reddit

I don’t know that I ate healthier. Seems like my mom made something fried 6 days a week with bologna sandwiches on the 7th day.

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yarnhooksbooks@reddit

Food is not good or bad. It does not have any moral value. Some foods are more or less nutritious/delicious/convenient/expensive than others. All food is made up of 100% chemicals. There are a million ways different foods can have positive or negative effects on our health, and there are many, many other factors that can have a positive or negative effect on our health that aren’t food. Being poor is much more damaging to your health than eating margarine, for instance.

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Throwaway7219017@reddit

Aptly said.

Looking out for the I can’t believe it’s not poverty brand.

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coffeemagic_11-11@reddit

Exactly, thank you

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Entire-Order3464@reddit

A chemical is just molecular structure. Literally everything is made of chemicals.

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RedQueenWhiteQueen@reddit

My mother absolutely prohibited white bread, Twinkies/Ho-Hos, and sugary cereals in our household.

Regarding the latter, we had Cheerios, Wheaties, All-Bran, Rice Krispies, and Kellogg's Corn Flakes. But, she poorly regulated how much sugar I put on any of this. So, I couldn't have actual Frosted Flakes, but I could have regular corn flakes with, let's say, half a cup of table sugar.

Also, Kool-Aid was a special treat, but I could have all the Tang I wanted.

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beetus_gerulaitis@reddit

So much of the problem around food and health is just the result of people eating too much.

Sure, food scientists have figured out ways to make food more fattening and addicting. But at a certain point it comes back to people to make right choices.

We need to redefine what a “meal” looks like and whether or not we need three (or four?) full meals a day.

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Bdoggg999@reddit

Food in the 50s was like jello spam and canned green beans I dunno if it’s actually worse now. You can eat healthy pretty easily nowadays.

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PinkyLeopard2922@reddit

Those aspic mold things with meat and vegetable are horrific. Even the pictures make me gag.

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yarnhooksbooks@reddit

I worked in a small town grocery store in the 90’s, and the choices of fresh produce available now compared to then is mind blowing.

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Administrative-Egg18@reddit

It was long before our time, but the real problem is people eat too much. My grandparents ate 3 meals a day but didn't eat between meals. Food was more expensive (it was) and someone had to prepare it.

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coci222@reddit

Your grandparents weren't healthier because they followed the social construct of eating three meals per day. It's because they weren't subjected to the preservatives and artificial crap that we started seeing in the 80's

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Bokononfoma@reddit

I'm pretty sure both factors, and many others were responsible.

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Administrative-Egg18@reddit

No, they ate less food and did physical labor on their farm.

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coci222@reddit

Let's not pretend all of our ancestors were farmers

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Administrative-Egg18@reddit

I replied to a comment about "(my) grandparents" so yes they did farm. Other people did manual labor.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

That too...

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Reformed-Canook@reddit

And they probably walked places. North American suburban design, particularly in westward-expansion communities, made walking nonviable.

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Dewellah@reddit (OP)

Absolutely. 3xs a day wasn't as unhealthy as it is now.

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LanguageNo495@reddit

They were healthier by not eating a whole bunch of shit in between meals.

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JuJu_Wirehead@reddit

TV dinners were probably the start of it. There were multiple factors at play in the 50s and 60s driving the use of more preservatives in food. Fast food chains, TV Dinners, etc. Companies had to make their products be able to survive cross country transit.

I think when they stopped using wax paper for Saltines was when shit went out of control. Plastics and preservatives in everything.

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Magnum-3000@reddit

I’ll never forget the day I heard of “salsbury steak”

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JuJu_Wirehead@reddit

Chicken pot pies. My sister was addicted to them.

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coffeemagic_11-11@reddit

I mean everything is a chemical, even water. Have you ever googled ingredients to a banana or a lemon? People think Diet Coke is bad but you would probably need over 30 a day to make it actually be bad for you. The not so secret is, everything in moderation. There is a huge world of fear mongering around the foods we consume.

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