Avalon
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Bread, Cabbage and PotatoesHello Naysayers and Contrarians!
Has anyone heard of Elsie Widdowson? I guess she's pretty famous, but I only learned of her today. I've been googling stuff  and found out that she experimented on herself back I believe during Worl War II, by eating only Bread Cabbage and Potatoes- claiming these three foods would supply complete nutrition for our Human selves. This was all rationing food related back then.
I find this very interesting and just may try it myself  maybe Regardless, she lived a long 94 years life and an interesting one at that. Very cool 
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timwhoa
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checking into itnever heard of this, I shall google it also and see what comes up?,, oh and Hi everyone
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adwred
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Hi. 
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barb0324
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For what it's worth Ava, I don't think you should try this out on yourself! But of course, do what you must...
And Hi!
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timwhoa
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in desperate times,, people resort to desperate measures, I would not want to experiance war,, if during rations carbs are all my family had to eat,, i suppose we would eat only carbs?
study it?
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ReddyMcMeaty
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My neighbours (70 years old, going strong) have some stories about food rationing...  Not something I would want to experience, I'm sad that anyone has to.
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adwred
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Yes, I think the forced calorie restriction of rationing is the only thing that could keep someone living a long life when eating only cabbage, potatoes and bread. There is zero form of quality protein in that diet. You'd have to eat just enough calories to spare your muscle but absolutely no more than you need to stay alive, basically.
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Avalon
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I'll post more in my journal, maybe, but thought I'd share.
Okay, Frist, Barb, you're so cute and you probably should worry 
And Second, this morning I bought Bread, Cabbage and potatoes. Now the bread is my fav bread. It's Rubschlager 100% RYE Pumpernickle. Check out the Ingredients:
Whole Rye meal, water, salt, yeast and calium propionate.
That's it. I don't know how to get around the propionate, but well, pretty cool. Except everything is more expensive right now.
I've chosen to keep KerryGold butter. And added a raw yolk. Here's Breakfast:
One small poatato, two cabbage leaves boiled in water with a little less than a teaspoon of Marmite. The Marmite makes it a bit bitter and I have no idea why I added it  I think I like it though. Also put a touch of soy on the yolk.
I feel completely stuffed. Not sure how lunch will be made, but will try and keep the same ingredients perhaps minus the butter- maybe Mayo instead???
Best wishes,
Avalon 
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adwred
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If you're going to eat bread, X, you should make it yourself. Calcium propionate is a nasty additive with lots of documented side effects. Here's the factsheet from fedupwithfoodadditives.info (the Failsafe website).
http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/factsheets/Fact282.htm
| Quote: | The use of calcium propionate (282) as a preservative in bread became widespread in Australia in the early 1990s. This preservative is rarely used in Europe or New Zealand, used increasingly in the UK, and is common in Australia and the US. Consumers are often confused by a label claiming “now with extra calcium”. Calcium propionate is used for the propionate, not the calcium. Calcium is added to bread in other forms.
Calcium propionate and the other propionates (280-283) occur naturally in many foods and dairy products like Swiss cheese. In small amounts they are not harmful but, as with other additives, the effects are dose related. Very few people will be affected by two slices of preserved bread but effects are cumulative, so can build up slowly over days or weeks, varying with the dose. This makes identification of the cause of symptoms extremely difficult. Like all additives, this preservative was not tested before approval for its effects on children's behaviour and learning ability.
How does it affect people?
Reactions can be anything from the usual range of food intolerance symptoms: migraine and headaches; gastro-intestinal symptoms including stomach aches, irritable bowel, diarrhoea, urinary urgency, bedwetting; eczema and other itchy skin rashes; nasal congestion (stuffy or runny nose); depression, unexplained tiredness, impairment of memory and concentration, speech delay; tachycardia (fast heart beat); growing pains, loud voice (no volume control); irritability, restlessness, inattention, difficulty settling to sleep, night waking and night terrors.
Propionates are one of the most difficult additives to avoid because their use is widespread and they are in a healthy food that is generally eaten every day. In less than one generation, many Australians have gone from eating none of this preservative to eating it every day of their lives.
Isn't it important to keep our bread fresh?
Contrary to what the food industry would like you to believe, this additive is not to keep your bread fresh. Calcium propionate (282) is added to inhibit the growth of mould. There is no mould on a freshly baked loaf of bread, so why use a mould inhibitor? Bakers who keep their work benches and slicer blades clean and mould-free, by wiping with vinegar every day, do not need this additive. However, bakers in large factories prefer the less time-consuming method of "fogging" their equipment with a chemical spray. Putting hot loaves in plastic bags makes the problem worse. Preservative 282 allows for sloppy hygiene. It is for the convenience of the manufacturer not the consumer.
How will I know if I am affected?
Very few people realise they or their children are affected by this additive, because if you eat it every day, your problems will seem to come and go without any obvious cause. Some people notice a difference within days if they switch to preservative free bread. This is sometimes a sign that other additives and some natural food chemicals could be a problem too. Babies can be affected through breastmilk. |
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Avalon
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Thanx Red. Damn! I have whole wheat flour, but wanted it easy this morning. But, good to know. I agree, I should make it myself, fresh, like the Hunza
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adwred
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Do you have a bread machine? They're very convenient, even if you just use it to make the dough and then shape the loaf by hand in whatever way you'd like (braided, boule, rolls, etc.).
I love making bread. It's so therapeutic and a total sensory experience. I would say it's one of my very favourite things to 'cook', but unfortunately I can't do it anymore! 
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Avalon
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You know what I love about 'all of this'? Yesterday, I had never heard of Elsie Widdowson. Not too long ago I'd never hear of Stefansson or, lordy, The Bear...
I'm reading this article on this Important Woman and whether you agree with her, or not, she sure lived, I tell ya!
From an Obituary Article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20000616/ai_n14303624
| Quote: | As part of her introduction to the course, she found herself spending time in the hospital kitchens. It was there that she became aware of a young doctor who made daily visits to the kitchens as part of some investigation he was doing. She discovered that he was interested in the chemical consequences of cooking, in this instance, meat. But when Widdowson knew more about this and his other work on fruit and vegetables she realised that, on the basis of her own PhD research, his analyses of the carbohydrates in fruit were incorrect and she told him so. Dr R.A. McCance ("Mac"), the young doctor in question, was clearly taken by her censure and quickly arranged with the Medical Research Council for her to work with him in his small laboratory. This was the start of a great partnership which ended only with Professor McCance's death in 1993.
It was Widdowson who realised that there was a pressing need to collect information on the composition of foods generally and she took no time at all in persuading McCance that they should do it: after all, they already had information on meats and a range of vegetables and fruit.
Thus it was that the work which Elsie Widdowson reckoned would be their lasting memorial was initiated. The first edition of The Chemical Composition of Foods was published by the Medical Research Council in 1940. McCance and Widdowson's Composition of Foods, now about to reach its sixth edition, is acknowledged as the foremost nutritional vade-mecum.
With the Second World War then in progress, there was a pressing need to ensure that the British people were fed as adequately as they could be despite the travails and disruption to food supplies. Widdowson and McCance had already begun their "experimental study of rationing". This research and the diets they investigated were promoted by the then Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, and have since been recognised to have been the basis of the healthiest diet the population has ever had. It was famously tested on cycle rides and mountain climbs in the Lake District by a young and subsequently very distinguished small group of scientist friends (including one Nobel Laureate-to-be). |
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Nicola
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Whole meal or grain in general is not healthy; if any bread at all then white bread with lots of fat (and then not more than a mouth full!). Like in France; white bread as a part of a meal and more like a help...
Just because it is brown, whole, green or bio does not mean "health". It's up to you but money is what makes so much  to 
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Avalon
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White bread? All I've ever heard was that white bread is evil! More to question I guess
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Nicola
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If you want gas and fermenting...if you want suger to feed animals (in your system)...
I would not mix up all those things in one meal. Then again it is your digestion but our food industry will try and get you hooked on "whole", "bio", "vegetable"... because they can make good money that way. The same goes for supplements, medicine, doctors.
By the way, can you eat things like that in the morning? That would send me to bed! You mentioned the same again at midday; that would kill me. Do you do any sport? What about IF?
Nicky
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Avalon
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Good Morning Nicky!
Yes, I ate that at each meal yesterday. And I was pretty unsure of what my weight might be this morning considering the carbs involved. I'm down a pound  I'll be repeating the same meals today, maybe with an added yolk or too or not.
Best wishes,
Avalon
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adwred
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Omigosh! Isn't it so coincidental that Dr. Eades has just put out a post on this very war-time diet, made up mostly of cabbage, potatoes and bread?
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=933
Bolding mine:
| Quote: | ANCEL KEYS STUDY
In 1944 Ancel Keys, Ph.D., decided to undertake a long-term study of starvation. It was apparent that WWII was going to be over soon and that much of Europe was starving. Although word of the mass starvation in concentration camps was just starting to filter out into the world, it was well known the Europeans, especially Eastern European, were not getting enough food. Keys wanted to do a study of starvation to see what really happened during the process so that at war’s end the victors would have a better idea of how to deal with the starving masses they were sure to encounter.
Key’s recruited 36 young male volunteers from the cadre of the conscientious objectors. These were healthy, normal weight men, most of whom were working for the Civilian Public Service (CPS), an entity created to provide jobs of national importance for conscientious objectors. The men responded to brochures and bulletins distributed in the various CPS barracks showing a photo of three French toddlers staring at empty bowls over the question: WILL YOU STARVE SO THAT THEY WILL BE BETTER FED?
The subjects came to the University of Minnesota where they were housed in the cavernous area underneath the football stadium for the course of the study. They were basically kept under lock and key for the study so that Keys and his colleagues could ensure compliance. At the start of the experiment the men were fed sumptuously for the first 12 weeks.
A full-time cook, two assistants and a dietitian monitored the food intake to the smallest fraction. According to The Great Starvation Experiment**, an excellent book about this famous study, during this lead-in phase the men ate well. A typical days food would include
a typical lunch… [that] consisted of fricasseed lamb with gravy, peas, and a carrot and raisin salad. For dinner…the men ate roast beef with gravy, whipped potatoes, tomato salad, and ice cream for dessert.
Although the three meals per day the men received added up to around 3,200 calories, which they were told approximated the normal American diet, the men said that they had never eaten better in their lives.
On day one of the starvation portion of the study, February 12, 1945, the rations were cut substantially.
The group shifted overnight from the three relatively generous meals of the control period to only two Spartan meals per day, a breakfast at 8:30 AM and supper at 5:00 PM.
The meals were designed to approximate the food available in European famine areas, with a heavy emphasis on potatoes, cabbage, and whole wheat bread. Meat was provided in quantities so small that most men would swear in later years that none was included at all.
One of the three dinners included the following:
SUPPER #2
185 grams of bean-and pea soup (made with 5 grams dried peas, 16 grams of dried beans, and 15 grams fresh ham)
255 grams macaroni and cheese (made with 130 grams wet macaroni, 12 grams lard, 108 grams skim milk, 2 grams flour, and 35 grams American cheese)
40 grams rutabagas
100 grams steamed potatoes
100 grams lettuce salad (80 grams lettuce, 10 grams vinegar, 10 grams sugar)
The relatively bulky 255 grams of macaroni made that particular meal an anticipated favorite among the volunteers. The wet macaroni served was roughly the amount required to fill a coffee mug about three-quarters full.
Over the twenty-four week starvation part of the study, the subjects not only lost a considerable percentage of their body weights, but suffered a number of problems as well. As the time wore on the men thought ceaselessly about food, they became lethargic, they were cold all the time, they became depressed, they developed bleeding disorders, their ankles became edematous, and some developed more serious psychological disorders. |
Click the link to see the before and after pictures and read more about how the 'psychological disorders' caused one patient to cut off his own fingers.
Also, Eades compares this study to a low-carb one using a diet with the same number of calories but a completely different macronutrient profile and yielding some very very different results.
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Avalon
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I've been staring at my knife set hmmm... fingers
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woof_woof
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Avalon since you are the mad scientist here try this and report back
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives...0/the_russian_astronauts_diet.php
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Avalon
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I'm on it!
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Avalon
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Starch 'fuel of human evolution'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm
| Quote: | | Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet, genetic work suggests. |
heh heh
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