Ooh BBC Breakfast News

[photognut]

I can't help think of the 1973 movie Soylent Green. The year is 2022 our planet is industrialised, polluted, over populated, poverty stricken with a depleted food supply that is failing to fulfil the demand. The majority of the population lives on processed food, which includes "Soylent Green" a high energy food, made out of ...................

 

[NoCrbs4Me]

I can't help think of the 1973 movie Soylent Green. The year is 2022 our planet is industrialised, polluted, over populated, poverty stricken with a depleted food supply that is failing to fulfil the demand. The majority of the population lives on processed food, which includes "Soylent Green" a high energy food, made out of ...................

In the book soylent was made of soy and lentils. Nightmarish stuff.

 

[SunnyExpat]

I guess you're thinking of 'Make Room, Make Room'.

I think the producers of the film imagined most people would think the soylent green in the film made from people who went in for euthanasia would be more nightmarish than a soya and lentil mix, but then again, the closing impact of the film was the fact the public appeared to be ok not only will the idea, but with eating it too.

 

[photognut]

Yes, Make Room, Make Room was the basis for the movie. I always find the relationship with science fact and science fiction a fascinating study. http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/15/world-may-not-have-enough-food-to-eat-by-2050-report.html

@SunnyExpat "public appeared to be ok not only will the idea, but with eating it too." When you have a population reliant on being fed and no longer self sufficient in harvesting and cooking their own produce, good luck to the Doctor that has switched onto the fact that food is medicine.... they will come up against far more than insulin resistance

 

[tim2000s]

And of course you can now buy Soylent...

 

[Pinkorchid]

I've read estimates that manual labourers (medieval and Victorian) probably required around 4,000 calories a day to fuel their labour and maintain body heat in unheated workshops or outside labour.

With metabolisms working at that rate, day in, day out, carbs would have been burned up very quickly - and would have been the only way to get enough calories.

I agree that people have eaten carbs in recent generations. But without all the exercise, and with recent increases in processed foods, sugar, etc, the situation is very different from even 40 years ago.

- added to which, we are the result of several hundred years of dietary changes. Sugar and fruit have become increasingly common. Highly processed bread has become the norm.

If you feed any species poor food over several generations you see progressive declines in health, immunity and a rise in cancer and degenerative disease. They have done this with cats and rats.

Me? I think the problems started with the introduction of farming, thousands of years ago, increased with sugar becoming widely available, with industrialisation and processed foods just adding to it.

My grandparents were already eating badly. Bread, fruit, sugar. They were coasting on the legacy of their ancestors - and they still got T2 on both sides of the family!

Lucky me. I am just the generation when it completely fell apart, and my every dietary choice is damage control for their legacy.

Yes my grandparents on both sides of my family and my parents would have had a diet high in bread fruit root vegetables pastry and a lot of sugar stuff in cakes and puddings yet none of them developed T2.The women all who on my mothers side were overweight including her all lived into their mid to late 80's with relatively minor health issues yet me who have always eaten healthily never had a sweet tooth very rarely eat processed or takeaway foods and have never been overweight I am the one who is prediabetic

 

[Scardoc]

Our grandparents didn't have cars... And limited TV etc and even with the puds and flour etc with their physical activity didn't have too worry about the types of food etc...

Nowadays.. I see grandparents sending kids home where I live with absolute junk food. The parents and grandparents live one road away from each other. The children get sent home to their parents with literally bags of crisps, cakes, chocolate and cans of fanta or dr pepper etc... Then at home the mother doesn't know how to cook and they get brought up on ready meals or takeaways.

Sure this is a bad example - but it is real. I know of weightwatcher groups having to give lessons on cooking to younger persons as they just don't know how to cook...

Its ok to blame the eatwell plate ... But thats from the NHS and people generally don't even get to hear about the eatwell plate until they are ill.. And their eating habits are really poor well before having to see the Nhs eatwell plate..

In addition...........the eatwell plate is blamed entirely without people taking into account all of the other guidelines out there such as exercise, alcohol intake etc, It's one slice of a much larger pie (ahem).

What is also never factored in is our knowledge these days. 50-60 years ago smoking was fashionable. The Brits have evolved with a culture of going down the pub. You can see the screw slowly turning where cigarettes and alcohol are concerned. It may take longer for exercise and convenience food to catch up.

 

[Mongolia]

I'm interested to see what Jamie Oliver's new programme 'Sugar Rush' has to say too. Sure it won't go any further into carbs but it could be a starting point to educate the masses!