过度关注食物:一个世纪以来我们饮食方式的变化

想想你吃的最后一顿饭. 无论是一盘重新加热的外卖食物, 一个丰饶的新鲜水果或介于两者之间的东西, 对于一个世纪前的大多数人来说，这可能是深不可测的.

在过去的100年里, 美国人的购物方式, 烹饪和思考食物的方式发生了巨大的变化, 受其制造方式发展的驱动, 销售, 购买并食用.

食品历史学家说，这是一个丰饶的时代. 这已经产生了后果.

"The increasing industrialization of the food supply has not been good for health," said Dr. Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.

A detailed accounting of everything that reshaped Americans' health and diet over the past century could fill a library. 但雀巢, a molecular biologist and award-winning author who has written a small library's worth of books on food-related topics, 总结如下:“过去人们在家吃饭，在家做饭. 现在，他们在外面吃饭或吃已经准备好的食物."

Prepared or even processed food isn't necessarily unhealthy – think of pasteurized milk or sliced carrots. But many highly processed foods contain unhealthy amounts of salt, fat and calories, and 研究 has associated increased consumption of ultra-processed foods with a higher risk of heart conditions and numerous other health problems. 2021年美国心脏协会 科学声明 建议人们选择低加工食品而不是超加工食品.

Nestle's simplified definition of ultra-processed food is "food that can't be made at home" because of the processes and additives involved.

这类食物在一个世纪前几乎无人知晓. 但在1924年，冷冻食品工业得以发展的工艺被发明出来. 虽然冷冻水果和蔬菜对健康有益, 冷冻食品并不是唯一开始重塑美国经济的变化.S. 饮食，博士说。. 加州斯托克顿太平洋大学的食品历史学家肯·阿尔巴拉说.

Albala, 写过27本关于食物的书，编辑过更多, 这是在20世纪20年代说的, 人们吃的大部分食物都是新鲜的, 未经加工，本地种植. 但变化即将到来. A few years earlier, in 1916, the first modern supermarket had opened in Memphis, Tennessee.

在超市, Albala说, 购物者可能与当地市场的杂货商有个人联系, who would have fetched the items customers asked for based on what the grocer had chosen to stock. 超市让人们自己挑选商品, which put a premium on branding as manufacturers sought to make their products stand out.

这导致了“令人难以置信的多样性”, because now there's 18 different kinds of ketchup and there's 20 brands of frozen this or that,阿尔巴拉说.

But supermarkets also began distancing people from the source of what they were eating, he said. 在那个时代之前, 一个家庭可能会从小摊上买到农产品, 谁会在当季出售当地的收成. The new system favored mass-grown varieties that were bred for color, durability or other factors.

食物的制作方式也改变了. 在20世纪30年代，工厂生产的切片面包超过了家庭面包师, a decade that also saw the arrival of processed legends such as boxed macaroni with powdered cheese (with sodium phosphate as an emulsifier) and canned pork shoulder (with salt, 糖和硝酸钠作为防腐剂).

But it was World War II that brought radical changes as products and technologies developed to feed soldiers, 比如罐头食品, 进入人们的家中.

“你可以说C口粮是电视晚餐的鼻祖,阿尔巴拉说, 指的是冰冻的, 在20世纪50年代早期开始流行的烤箱餐.

雀巢在战后这么说, processed products started appearing in packages that resembled the original foods that they came from less and less, “非常”强调便利性.

"There was a real concerted effort to make cooking look like drudgery and to take away the idea that cooking was something that was fun and pleasant that you wanted to spend time on,她说.

人们对外出就餐的态度改变了. 在19世纪, 通常只有最富有的家庭才会在餐馆里为了娱乐而吃饭. 连锁餐厅在20世纪20年代开始出现, and the 1950s brought widespread fast food – meals that emphasized speed far above nutrition. Spending on meals eaten away from home eclipsed at-home eating in 2010, according to the U.S. 农业部.

所有这些便利似乎对人们来说都是一种祝福, 传统的女性, 谁必须准备和提供所有这些饭菜. 在20世纪20年代，一个家庭主妇每天可能要花几个小时做饭. 截至2022年，根据 U.S. 劳工统计局, the average American spent an estimated 39 minutes a day on food preparation and cleanup.

Technology and transportation improvements mean someone in Kansas can pick up pineapples from the tropics and farmed salmon from the Atlantic on the same mid-winter grocery trip. 而且它不会像一个世纪前的2022年那样消耗掉他们的钱, 家庭将可支配收入的11%花在食品上, 联邦数据 显示. 据统计，1919年，他们的支出是这个比例的三倍多 历史数据.

食物也比以往任何时候都丰富. 发表于 营养学前沿 in 2022, estimated that available calories grew 18% from 1909 through the following century.

这是好消息. 坏消息是，美国人正在摄入这些卡路里. Albala说 the past century is the first time "when a sizable percentage of the population can actually overeat. 这在历史上从来没有发生过."

它体现在我们的腰围上:超过70%的美国人.S. 成年人超重，根据 疾病控制和预防中心. 虽然饮食习惯强调像新鲜水果和蔬菜这样的食物, 全谷物和植物性蛋白质或瘦肉, 为了心脏健康，建议食用未加工的肉类, 研究 suggests that more than half of what Americans eat on average is ultra-processed.

雀巢公司表示，美国食品的丰富.S. 这意味着企业必须比以往任何时候都更加努力地推销它. So their efforts are frequently focused on making their products "irresistibly delicious" and in larger portions. 她说，经济决定了制造商强调的不是健康，而是利润. “食品公司不是社会服务机构或公共卫生机构."

对于试图保持健康的人来说，与所有这些历史作斗争可能是一场艰苦的战斗. “我没有水晶球，”雀巢说. “但我认为，除非出现重大变化，否则趋势将朝着同一个方向发展."

了解我们是怎么走到这一步的会有所帮助. 但雀巢表示，这需要教育. 这有利于富裕的人，他们可以负担得起更健康的饮食选择. 没有很多钱的人“能吃什么就吃什么”,她说, 在低收入地区, 更健康的食物往往不容易获得.

For people interested in bucking historical trends, Albala suggests a thoughtful approach. "Get as much pleasure as you can out of preparing it and cooking and serving it and sharing it and eating it. 这样的话，我认为你会更加平衡."

While raising his children, Albala emphasized home-cooked meals that were eaten as a family. 他说，有时候这很难. 但是“分享和准备食物是有价值的. 它不仅仅是进食."

But even shopping for basic foods can be a reminder of how much things have changed, he said. A modern shopper picking up an apple might wonder who developed it and whether it was shipped from halfway across the country or from some other country.

"Those are questions that would have perplexed our ancestors a century ago,阿尔巴拉说.