Was grandma really healthier?

Should we really be eating just like our grandmother did — or were some of her habits unhealthy?

One of my fondest memories of my grandma was her roasting a leg of lamb – the mouth-watering smell! And popcorn – she loved her popcorn. Flashback to when your own grandmother or perhaps your great-grandmother was rustling up the evening meal 50 or 70 years ago — to a time when cooking was a completely different affair.

She’d shell peas by hand, boil rather than steam the broccoli, and make all sauces from scratch. Meat and three veg were standard fare most nights, and meals like stir-fries were almost unknown. If gran was running late, she couldn’t microwave the corn, and if she ran out of rice she couldn’t duck down to the local supermarket for a pouch of microwavable rice at 7pm.

Cut to the present, where the food we eat is more readily available and more processed, with huge impacts on our health and longevity. In response, a growing number of health experts, writers and bloggers are encouraging us to eat the way our grandmothers ate. But were all of grandma’s food habits really that much more healthy than ours?

In the January issue of Healthy Food Guide magazine, we share the healthy habits that are worth copying from past generations, and the ones that are best left behind. It’s a fascinating read – pick up your copy today!