Just Like Grandma Makes…
The past week in the world has really flipped us all upside down and made us really think about what it is we value, aside from catching up with our mates, and heading out to work everyday. While the current situation is pretty bleak, there are certainly some positives that can come out of the lockdown. For us Millennials and Gen Z'ers, we can’t complain, we really have had a great life so far. No wars or real hardships that we can remember, and an abundance of work and money, creating that attitude of ‘we can get/do whatever we want’.
We could go on all day about the good and bad, the crisis at hand and what we think about it, but let’s peel it back to the basics - food. All of a sudden, we are having to eat every single meal at home, and even going to the supermarket is a bit of a mission. We don’t even have the luxury of UberEats anymore!
So what lessons can we learn from our grandmothers who knew only this? We have reverted back to a similar, slower paced lifestyle that they experienced, so lets take a moment to look at what they ate, and what kind of lifestyle they had.
Our grandmothers didn’t eat gluten-free cookies, almond milk lattes, or sugar free chocolate, they just ate what they knew to be FOOD. No frills, no health star ratings or labels, no ‘organic’ certified or GMO free vegetables, just what was available.
“Let’s bring back the basics and do a few things ‘just like grandma used to’. ”
Health experts these days keep harping on about the saying, “Don’t eat anything that your grandmother wouldn’t recognise.” As in, don’t eat food with ingredients you can’t even pronounce, and don’t make the drive-thru more familiar than your driveway.
But I thought it would be interesting to speak to my own grandmothers, as they to me are my health role models. They are both close to 80 years old and I swear they do not look a day older than my earliest memories of them. I am extremely lucky to still have all four grandparents alive and well – so I wanted to find out from them exactly what they were doing and eating at my age, to get to the stage they are now in such great shape.
Both my Nana, Betty, and my Grandma Audrey, grew up in New Zealand and moved around the country but by the time they were my age were both well and truly married, settled and had made a family. Now although this is not the stage of life that I am in, in terms of eating, drinking and lifestyle there are definitely a few things we could be doing that may potentially tack on a few healthy years to our lives.
Homemade food
…and by homemade, I don’t mean heated up in the microwave. No, Nana and her sisters would take turns each week churning fresh butter, separating milk, making fresh ice-cream, brewing their own stock and sauces, and preserving fruit and veggies for chutneys and jams. In fact, when I finally asked her what they would even need to buy, she really had to think. They would have takeaways maybe once every couple of weeks from the Fish’n’Chips man down the road, and the rest of the food was cooked and eaten with the family at home. Which brings me to my next point.
Eating Seasonally
Not only was all their food homemade and fresh, free from shelf-life preservatives and plastic packaging, but everything had to be eaten seasonally, because that’s how it was grown. Tomatoes were only ready in the summer, kumara and potatoes were only dug up a few times a year and each fruit tree had their time to shine during the year. There were no bananas from Ecuador and pineapples from Hawaii flown in, they ate what was available and right for the season. Root veggies and citrus fruits in winter, fresh tomatoes and stone fruits in the summer.
It’s not what we eat, it’s how we eat it
The classic drinking slogan can be applied here with so much truth behind it. Everyone ate everything. Gluten, dairy, sugar and all. “It’s not what we are eating, it’s how we are eating.” Nana just shook her head when I asked if any of her friends had intolerances to anything. “Heck No!”, we didn’t even know what it meant to be allergic to a food. There was no fear of fat, salt, sugar or carbs. No-one ventured too far down one diet path by cutting out an entire food group, and so no one developed an intolerance from eating too much of one food. Nothing was off limits (I know, imagine that!) but everything was eaten in MODERATION. No calorie counting and cutting, protein-loading or end-of-detox binge eating.
Just Eat Real Food
You think you are being hip and on-trend when you buy organic lettuce from the Farmers Market or free-range eggs for 50c more. Well, your Grandma started that without even knowing it. Nothing in her day had to be labelled ‘organic’, ‘spray-free’, ‘free-range’, or ‘grass-fed’ because it just WAS. Most people grew their own meals (both veg and meat) and if they couldn’t then they would trot down the road for a few extra potatoes from the local grocer (whose farm was in the same town anyway).
Remember to take your pills!
Supplements were unheard of. The only thing Nana and her sister were made to drink was a yeast powder with sultanas and raisins to aid digestion and good bacteria in the gut, and Epsom salts for the liver and detoxification. They weren’t even really sure what it was for, they just drank it because their mother told them to.
Exercise for a purpose, or for fun
Going to the gym, or throwing around big hunks of metal was not even thought about, especially for girls. My grandmothers both played netball with their mates, biked everywhere they could (because they didn’t have their own car) and practiced co-ordination in a marching band. And yes, they had great bods, none of our family can fit into Nana’s wedding dress these days!
Bring back ration books!
I know we don’t really need to ration anything these days, but it would be such a genius idea to take on to battle obesity and diabetes. During the war, flour, sugar and butter were all rationed because of imports and exports, so each family was given coupons to ensure no one bought too much of one item. Could this be the new prescription from the doctor’s office? Or at the supermarket to ensure everyone gets their fair share?
Slow it all down
This is something we all need to remember once we revert back to normal life, out in the world. We don’t need to be busy all the time, and it is OK to have a whole weekend at home catching up on chores, watching movies and creating delicious meals. Sometimes you need a little de-stress reset before you go back to work on a Monday morning. That goes for food as well, slow food usually means healthy food.
So now that you have a little more time on your hands, start creating these good habits to continue on for life, and let’s all be a little more like our grandmas.