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Curious

derry60

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,200
Location
Bridlington Yorkshire
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Rudeness,people being unkind
I am curious about potatoes. Medical doctors say that back in the war and before, diabetes was not very common. Now the stable diet back then were potatoes. They ate meat with the fat on, heart disease was not so common either back then. So why is it common today? Could it be that potato alone was never the culprit, but high sugars, diet foods, cakes, bad things put into our food, artificial stuff, and whatever else the food companies put into our food? Could it be that if we had never of eaten the bad things diet foods sugars, and kept potatoes we would all be fine to eat them? Now we have insulin probs, so potatoes are out for us.
 
I totally agree- when foods were natural it was better but we must also remember that there was less diagnosis, less awareness and people died earlier and probably ( if there was undiagnosed diabetes) had all the complications that we are all aware enough to try to avoid now, like amputation, vision problems etc. But as natural stuff was the only thing causing bg rises - without all the processed food we have now- it maybe did not go so high. I am trying hard to wean myself off a highly processed diet and it’s very difficult- there was usually someone (a woman) at home to prepare all these from scratch meals, but now it’s gotta be done when we get in from our 12 hour shift and masses of prep on our days off. But I will get there.
 

Life then was far more labour intensive.

These days, we get up, have breakfast, then jump into the car to work. We sit at work tapping keyboards all day, then jump into the car to go home, perhaps dropping off a the supermarket for something to eat.

We than have something cooked in an hour, load the dishwasher, and maybe the washer dryer, and watch TV, or use the forum all evening.

Fifty years ago, there would have been a lot more walking involved. Shopping would be carried home, on foot, then washing would be in a tub, with a mangle, then ironed. No easy care fabrics then, and let's not start on housekeeping, from our steam mops for the floors, and super efficient vacuum cleaners.
 
I believe the culprit is complex.
It probably includes the things you mention but also likely to be linked to more exercise, less pollution and more
 
@derry60 Yes I agree with your point of view. I believe that of all the 'high carb white foods' that potatoes are the least worst. Back then the 'double carb' meal (chip butties, pizza and chips, burgers and chips etc ) were rare. For me grain products are the biggest problem.
 
I think you are right - a few potatoes with meat and veg wasn't a problem in those days - it's all the processed food and also the 'low fat, high carb', message, which has escalated obesity. If you go into a supermarket these days a lot of 'healthy' products are very processed indeed. I've found I can tolerate a few new potatoes with something like a tuna salad - however I ate a few crisps the other day - and I mean just a few - woah, bs didn't spike as much as stayed raised for several hours. I think meals were better balanced then, and as Jason Fung has noted, people ate 3 square meals a day, with no grazing/snacking in between. All these things add up.
 
I'm glad to hear that other people can and do eat the odd spud....I can get away with two new small potatoes, two tablespoons of baked sweet potato, and 5 or 6 oven fries with a meal that has plenty of protein and fat in it. But, it's hardly worth measuring out two tablespoons or counting 6 fries! II find that the less I eat them, the less appeal is there and I don't miss them.....I think the potato of today is probably very different with GMO and all that stuff to produce more and more of something....the take away? If you really miss spuds, try them and see if you can tolerate them....we all are different Cheers/L
 
I have been doing family and social history for above 20 years and have accumulated at least 100 death certificates of ancestors and many off-shoots going back to when they were first introduced in about 1837. Possibly more than 100. You would be surprised how many died of heart problems and strokes in the 1800's. A lot. My 2 x great grandfather died in hospital in 1897 of "diabetes" at the age of 71. I imagine Type 2 but it hadn't been "invented" in those days, but was clearly a cause of death. Fascinating stuff.

As for spuds, I dug my heels in when I first started low carb and continued to eat spuds. I still do, including the odd half pack of crisps occasionally. I used my meter to tell me how many and which type. Mashed, stewed and jackets off the menu, but roasted, new boiled and chips still on it. In small portions and always with fat. More than my tolerance level and I spike. With me it is grains (like @zand and @lucylocket61 plus some others on this forum.)
 
Like a lot of others I can tolerate one small potato at a meal and other root veggies as long as I don’t pig out on them. Grains are much more of a problem to me to don’t eat them at all.
 
I have a 'potato' of some sort every evening. I can eat up to 100g of new potatoes or roast. I totally avoid rice as it spikes me.
 
zand said:
Back then the 'double carb' meal (chip butties, pizza and chips, burgers and chips etc ) were rare
Click to expand...
But there were plenty of meals including eg roast potatoes + Yorkshire pudding + maybe parsnips, quite possibly followed by jam roly poly and custard. I also have fond yet horrified memories of Saturday tea with crumpets followed by jam doughnuts. As Bluetit has pointed out, lots of people died in the past of heart disease and strokes, as did everyone in my family. I now think they may well have been pre-diabetic without knowing anything about it. We should not idealise the past, rather make sure our future is better.
 
I think the main culprit when it comes to 'snack' foods has been hydrogenated fats, and the high fructose corn oils, which we never used to have. Also, lets not underplay the effect of having most of the population smoking or breathing in passive smoke. I can remember working in offices where ashtrays were standard, and the women smoked as they worked. Plus the smog from so many coal fires. The causes of death in the past are not straightforward.
 
DCUKMod said:
Life then was far more labour intensive.
Click to expand...
Yes, but on the other hand, exercise was not generally valued and promoted. People frequently resented the efforts imposed on them or regarded them as badges of low status and had no idea exertion could be doing them good. Men who were obliged to do physical hard work all their lives dreamed of the moment they could retire and sit on the settee with their feet up for the rest of their days. Sadly, after the first few weeks they often found this a bit disappointing, and anyway they tended not to last very long to enjoy their inactivity.
 
lucylocket61 said:
Also, lets not underplay the effect of having most of the population smoking or breathing in passive smoke.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I remember as a child having to choose whether to stay inside on the bus or go for an exciting seat on the top deck but pay for it by being suffocated by the cigarette smoke. Much more recently, my daughter, who is only in her early 50s, used to get upset because so many people smoked in the staff room of the school where she worked, she would come home with her clothes stinking of it. Some things have definitely improved.
 
My Mum told me that mothers used to smoke in the maternity ward in hospital with their babies in the cot next to them!
 
Not that long ago either - I was dx diabetic in 97 and, apart from diabetes of course, 2 things that made me give up smoking were
1) the newmums and heavily pregnant mums to be puffing away outside the entrance to the maternity unit and
2) 2 blokes whod both had legs amputated ( one of them had lost 1 leg, the other both legs, sitting in their wheelchairs puffing away out side the main hospital entrance
 

I'm not sure there was the same need or time for recreational exercise, when most men were engaged in manual labour and most women were mopping floors, beating rugs and wrestling with a mangle on wash day.

Back in those days, if men had been working down a pit, or in an steel works, say, their working environments were harsh, hazardous, poluted places where they were often harmed by their workplace and worn out by the time they retired.

In my parents' early lives, the NHS didn't exist, never mind all the treatments and peripheral services we see today to keep us going.

The other night on TV an ITU consultant stated something like, "we really are living in an age where we are able to keep many people alive, long after we have any viable treatment plan for them"
 
Yes so much processed food now. Also years ago peeps didn't eat as much pasta either. Curious though as they did eat white bread, but then bread was better back then
 
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