gwd

I think that if people give up their cars and bike and walk more this
recession obesity won't happen. Can they burn off those cheap empty
calories biking around? It would be too difficult to keep eating good food
but less of it.

At the end the article says:
Drewnowski said it was possible to eat in an affordable and healthy way, partly by relying on the basic foods which saw America through the Depression of the 1930s.

"The answer lies in affordable but nutrient-rich foods such as ground beef, beans, milk, nuts, cheese, carrots, potatoes, canned tomatoes, soups, and rice," he said, calling it "a diet for a new Depression."

Any people here who had it bad in the depression? My dad used to talk about standing in "Bread lines" as a boy but I'm not sure if he meant just bread or this cheap healthy food Drewnowski is talking about. A friend's mother told me of gleaning from fields and eating things like nothing but turnips for days on end. Doesn't sound healthy to me.

https://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090109/...ancial_obesity

rotharpunc

if thins got that bad healthy food wouldn't be the place I would cut back.

wahoonc

He has a strong theory, backed by substantial facts. Unfortunately the over processed foods are the cheapest. We make a consious effort to eat the most minimally processed things we can. I have long contended the closer to the source it is the better it is for you. Another strike is that the poor quite often don't have access to proper grocery stores, they are at the mercy of the corner stop and robs who don't stock fresh fruits and vegetables due to the cost and the short shelf life. It is a viscous circle that is hard to break, but education and availability are the key. Too many people don't want to eat the basics and take the time to prepare them in a healthy manner. We eat a lot of fresh greens in our part of the country, unfortunately most people prepare them by boiling them to death and adding fat back

Aaron

gerv 

A recession might not have this effect.

If you're out of work, you have time to actually cook food. If you don't cook food, you generally end up with either horrible processed, factory food or ultra rich fattening foods. When you cook food, you have time to pay attention to the ingredients. So armed with a little knowledge, you can avoid the processed food trap.

The only problem is that you might tend to go for lower quality ingredients.

On the other hand, if you are out of work, you have time to start a garden or hunt down bargains or barter deals for good quality food.

You have the opportunity to be resourceful.... hopefully.

Roody

To save money, I've been eating more frozen vegs. and even canned ones. Preparation method makes a big difference in flavor if you use cheaper ingredients. I roast, stew or saute vegs. Instead of boiling or steaming them. And I make easy sauces to add flavor, or use herbs and spices.

Roody

Or literally go hunting for good meat, and foraging for vegetables. Hunting isn't my cup of tea, but I know a guy who takes about 8 deer a year, and that is most of the meat for his family for the cost of a little ammo and the hunting licenses.

wheel

Ever sense I came back from my tour I have not really changed my habits all that much.

Scheherezade 

I use this thing for vegetables.



You can put in fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables, it doesn't really matter. It can steam cook vegetables in the microwave without any extra water (so you don't lose all those nutrients in boiling).

Platy

Last year we started a little victory garden in the back yard. It's been delightful. Winter gardens are possible where I live, if you put in some hoop frames over the vegetable beds and cover them with plastic in freezing weather. It's mostly roots and greens in the winter, but the broccolis and cauliflowers have now started producing. We have one prolific bell pepper plant that just won't quit. I do miss the squash and the summer tomatoes. The only tomatoes from the garden now are some that we picked green before Christmas - and they're just now getting ripe.

We have six kinds of lettuces and they are all very good. The spinaches and collards like cold weather, they'll survive light freezes just fine. The great thing about carrots and turnips is that even if the tops freeze they'll still recover because they have all that autumn sunlight stored away in their roots. Parsley is robust & prolific in all seasons. It's not just for decoration, it's half a main course if you make it into tabouli.

Meal planning is a little different here. First we check the garden to see what's for dinner, then we go to the pantry or freezer to pick out something to go with the fresh stuff. This has an impact on how we shop for groceries, too.

Like everyone else, we've felt the pinch of grocery prices. One thing we've done is to get a pressure cooker. It does a great job with dried beans, peas & grains of all kinds. (Hmm, except split peas.) Those are absolutely the cheapest form of food and best of all they're very easy to haul home on a bike. Pressure cooking tenderizes lean, tough cuts of meat which are also less expensive. It does a spectacular job on collards, makes them velvety and smooth. (I have to disagree with Aaron on this - it is *not* possible to overcook collards.)

Every living arrangement has pluses and minuses. When we were living in a condo it was more convenient in many ways but gardening was not practical there. Where we are now in an inner suburb, vegetables are practical but animals are out of the question. People in different situations can make different adaptations, I guess.

Artkansas 

My diet has been changing. I'm trying to include more legumes. I started with lentils, but since my teeth aren't very good, grinding them and swallowing is a tedious process. I'm looking for another recipe. I've gotten a pressure cooker, but haven't figured out how to use it yet. So I'm looking for some simple recipes for beans etc. I plan to use it on chicken as well, do the Colonel one better.

My best success has been with a food processor and salads. Throw in some grapes, collard greens(not cooked), lettuce and half an apple and you get a pretty juicy and tasty salad that's almost like a relish. Sometimes I add peppers, tomatos, kale etc. I wasn't too impressed with kale though.

cyclokitty 

When I was an impoverished student I lived near Chinatown and managed to eat really well buying inexpensive greens, rice, and fish. The bonus was the grandmothers who showed me how to steam fish in a $1 bamboo steamer (I still make fish this way) while waiting in cashier's line up. Oranges were often 12 for $1, apples and pears were barely a nickel each, and I rarely ate the same veggies twice in a week the selection was huge (but I did love the baby bok choi at 12¢ a pound best). And this was in the early 90s. I was in Chinatown recently and the prices had maybe doubled in the mean time and that is still incredibly affordable.

+1 for collards. My favourite! I love sautéing thinly sliced collards with onion, ginger and garlic. Terrific with brown basmati rice. Definitely hard to over cook.

gerv 

This breeds envy. Hopefully we'll start seeing more of this in 2009.

I've maintained a garden on and off for many, many years. Unfortunately, I am a horrible weeder and much of the produce that should appear later in the summer simply does not. Or produces poorly.

However, one thing my gardens are pretty good at is the sustainability issue. I almost never bring in anything like manure or peat to build up the soil. My fertilizers all come from the compost heap that I maintain. I have been composting for 30 years, whether I have a garden or not, mainly because it's a very efficient means of dealing with kitchen leftovers. But it also ensures that the topsoil does not degrade.

Anyway, hats off!

gerv 

I've visited the Chinatown markets in downtown Hamilton and agree that these are a great way to get good food. Just by shopping at one of these, you are guaranteed to eat more veggies...

Platy

Some random thoughts on depression style cooking, mostly inspired by watching how parents & grandparents did it:

Collards montecristo: add a smoked ham hock and pressure cook for an hour. (Might work for kale, too.)

Since you can't seem to buy only one smoked ham hock these days, use the other two to make navy bean soup.

For variety, root vegetables and peppers can be wrapped in aluminum foil and roasted with olive oil and seasonings. You can also skewer bell peppers on a fork and roast them over a gas flame like marshmallows.

Black pepper is a vastly underestimated spice. It has a combination of two flavors - a sweet fragrant undertone along with a separate sharp hot overtone. The sweet fragrant flavor is what disappears when the pepper gets old.

You don't have to pre-soak dried beans if you pressure cook them, but that's what cuts down on the digestive gases they generate. Adding a little beer, wine or similar alcohol to the presoak water cuts it down even more.

Carrot greens are entirely edible. So are cabbage cores which were sliced thin, salted lightly and given as treats to kids in the depression. Also, mulberries, redbud blossoms, and wild mustard flowers, if you know how to recognize them. But not anything wild that looks like a carrot, unless you really know what you're doing.

If you buy produce at the store, the number one cost cutting strategy is to eat it before it goes bad.

Turnips and rutabagas have a slightly bitter flavor that most people don't like all that much. Cooking them with an equal amount of potatoes lessens the bitterness more than you would expect. You can also cook turnips like mashed potatoes - add a little sugar or Splenda to convert the turnipy bitterness into a complex, pleasant flavor.

Turnips are kinda iconic in the South as the last-ditch survival food. Even if they take everything else, the marauding zombie hordes will let you keep your turnips.

My main tool for cooking with fresh produce is the chef knife, and its constant companion the sharpening steel.

Google "How to use a chef knife"

Real depression food is corn meal fried up in bacon grease, fried baloney, turtle meat, fresh road kill, bacon from river bottom hogs, anything at all you catch in the nearest pond. Don't go there if you can help it, unless you want stories to tell...and I heard plenty of those when I was a kid...

Roody

Good points.

We don't have a Chinatown, but there are several Oriental markets. They do have inexpensive produce--especially greens, ginger and mushrooms. Also good deals on condiments like soy saue, hot sauces and vinegars. In fact, all the ethnic markets have good prices on food. Around here we have a lot of Middle Eastern and Hispanic (mostly Mexican) people, so I shop at their markets a lot. The ethnic markets tend to be in the city, so it's easy to get to them by bike or bus.

Artkansas 

Hmmmm. I'm out of luck there. My grandmother had a cook, and my mom loved the frozen section of Publix.

And for depression food, you forgot squirrel. My ex said it was a common meal at her home when she was growing up. Of course she also said with all the diseases now, she wouldn't touch it.

cyclokitty 

Convenience food is sometimes all a person grew up with and knows as an adult. I've had friends whose suppers were a spoon of canned pasta and sauce, a handful of oven fries, and another spoonful of canned corn. There parents had no clue how to cook and possibly didn't have the curiosity or the energy to learn. I grew up with kids who didn't eat breakfast (or couldn't if mom left early to work or had to sleep after working the night shift) and lunch was a bag of chips and a coke. I was fortunate that my mom took the time and energy to feed us healthy, tasty, nutritious food, and insisted that we have breakfast and bring our lunches to school. When we grew up these friends had a hard time experimenting with foods that didn't come from a tin can. I remember inviting one high school friend over and feeding her stir fried chicken and baby bok choi and she thought it was the most exotic thing she'd ever eaten. She was shocked to learn it took no time to prepare and cook and cost less per serving compared to tinned stew and oven fries. But she wouldn't think of heading to Chinatown (even though we lived a few streets away) and picking out the ingredients. I offered to go with her but really it was such a lifestyle stretch for her and her family it was pretty much impossible. The same went for Indian food, Portuguese food, Vietnamese food, and Polish food. It was all too spicy, too much vegetables, too strange and the stress of going into an unknown store and choose unfamiliar ingredients was too much.

gwd

I was just showing a friend how to do collards and since I couldn't buy just one ham hock, I did the beans thing too.

I didn't call it depression food, I called it "White Trash" food. I learned it at home by the way so I was referring to my kin folk. Some comments from the un-informed: "What! you got all those beans from two cups of dried? Thats a lot better deal than from the can." "I always wondered what people do with those collard greens." "Hey this stuff's good, I'm gonna make it for next week's potluck." Mom did a lot with her old pressure cooker. There used to be a fancy itallian brand pressure cooker on the market with an oval lid that fits inside the pot so the pressure makes the lid tighter.

Around here collards are pretty hardy out into the winter. In some of the poorer neighborhoods its a very common backyard vegetable. Even in some yards without gardens you see a row of collards out by the fence.

wahoonc

I have a lentil recipe you would probably like. My mom used to make mejedra (lebanese style) with rice and lamb. I know she did it in the pressure cooker. I use pressure cooker for cooking whole chicken off the bone in 30 minutes, roasts, dried beans and some canning. I have a several different ones in different sizes. The two that get the most use are the 1l and the 4l ones.

Aaron

Artkansas 

Please post it so everyone can enjoy it.

wahoonc

Waiting on mom to email me the recipe...I am away from home and don't have it with me

Aaron

Roody

Lentils will cook in about 30 or 40 minutes even without a pressure cooker. Just simmer them in salted water. If you cook them too long, they'll break down into a puree, similar in texture to split pea soup. But it's all good!

Speaking of split peas--mmm--a sweet and earthy flavor. They also cook in salted water in 30 to 40 minutes. A little ham is good but not required. Another choice is French style peas--a dash of thyme, and a "crouton" or piece of buttered toast floating in the bowl.

cyclokitty 

I'm always amazed at how quick black-eyed peas cook. I don't even bother soaking them over night, Just add 4 cups of water to one cup of rinsed peas and simmer for an hour. Add the peas to a pan with sauteed onions, garlic and ginger and a tablespoon of Patak's curry paste and 30 minutes later supper is served!

wahoonc

I can get them cooked and on the table in under 30 minutes with a pressure cooker I think my favorite all time dinner is a big bowl of beans, usually red kidney beans or field peas (similar to the black eyes) and a big slap of fresh from the over corn bread, with butter and black strap molasses

Aaron

oldfool

If I could have only one cook pot it would be my 4 quart pressure cooker. It makes the beans with ham bone, the brown rice, steams the vegetables and I even cook my sourdough bread in it (20minutes). It has been used to steam the tamales and for canning. It can be used to pressure deep fry: but I don't recommend it as it requires great care and is messy. It can be used to distill spirits I have been told. I have several but the main one I've had since 1958. The only pans we use more are the cast iron ones.

We haven't used it for three days now and that was for corned beef and cabbage. We used to call it the poor mans microwave back when microwave's were expensive.