To have come back from Lanzarote feeling geuinely shocked at how fat the British tourists were?

[Illgetmycoat]

I'm not talking slightly plump, I mean seriously, morbidly obese. A whole different race to the German, French and Spanish tourists.

What is going on? When did our country become like this? Whenever you heard a british accent, it would be accompanied by a 3ft wide backside. And whole families, too, all swollen to gargantuan size, with the poor kids unable to put their feet together because of the rolls of fat on their legs.

How has this happened? What the heck are the Brits feeding their children to get them so large? How can you feed an eight year old you love so much food that they become morbidly obese?

It can't just be blamed on poverty, because it's not cheap going to Lanzarote.

I was shocked.

ethelb - if you truly researched paleo you'd see that butter is 'allowed'

However, I get the feeling that you'll argue anything with me, so I'll just leave it.

if butter is allowed, then why are you banging on about how awful it is?

we grew up in the 70's eating potatoes and bread daily. And were thin as whippets. This is why I get confused.

ethelb, please read closely. I don't think I've said 'fuck me! Butter is the devil' but I have said 'chucking butter on [food]'. You don't need to chuck butter on everything because 'it's full of calcium and vitamins'

but you do seem to have a bit of an aversion to butter.

Plus, why would it be allowed on paelo? Milk that had been preserved wouldn't have been available to people when they were hunter gatherers.

freetoanyhome - I think that in the 70s supermarket, or otherwise, bread didn't have as much weird stuff in it as today. I think it's the stabilisers and preservatives that add to today's 'refined and produced' foodstuffs that are bodies can't cope with.

It's like when you see a really old McDonald's chip on the floor of a car that you know has been there forever...but it hasn't decayed, so what's it doing to your body?

ethelb - yes, I personally, am opposed to butter. I just don't like it or think it's necessary - I wouldn't butter a sandwich. I prefer olive oil.

I don't know the answer to your question. I don't seek to advertise or convert people to paleo. Apparently raw milk (and thus milk to make butter) is ok, but I don't know why. I don't care to know why because I don't like butter anyway, so it makes no difference.

*our

"Maybe because a normal kids diet over here consists of: beans, fish and chips, more chips, sausage, mash, more chips, pizza. This is the usual school dinner fare and once kids get used to it it's hard to wean them off it. It's like pub grub for kids and generally considered acceptable food for them. "

Really - the first time I ate fish/chips was on my graduation day and that was over 20 years ago? I'm British. Fist time I'd had fish and wished I had it earlier.

I was very happy to get dh onto his school dinners precisely because he had fish for the first time (that he'd eat). But they didn't serve it with chips.

Depends on the family and depends on the school

I am surprised that all the health eating taught in schools has not had more of an impact.
My owns kids got heartily sick of all the references to it.
Perhaps that is why, which some posters have alluded to, it seeme like it is the teenagers that are starting to pile on the pounds. Once they leave primary school, there is not so much healthy eating taught at secondary?
Cant say I have noticed it much where I live, but areas are different to each other.

Another point I would like to make is, if I have eaten more fat than normal, I then start getting hunger pains and want more fatty food. And on and on.

But once I am back to the veg and healthy stuff, it is a lot longer before I get any hunger pains.

Eating fat seems to make me at least want more fat.

I think its way easier to be slim if you are poor.Most people in my area are as its rare to have a car.Also jobs are manual so you are excercising constantly.Most mums I see are size 8-10 or below due to this.

"I just don't like it or think it's necessary"

I don't like parsnips. Are they unnecessary as well? .

I love olive oil, but prefer butter on my bread for sandwiches unless the filling is a moist one like tuna mayonnaise.

How do you manage to get the oil on the bread without saturating it?

Parents should make the effort to cook properly in the week and then have a splurge maybe at the weekend. I really don't think a lot of younger parents try to cook. Iceland (the shop)and McDs and the like, have a lot to answer for. I read about a Mom who bought her kids happy meals everyday because it wasn't worth cooking for the same money!

Steady on,don't slag off butter! It is a miraculous invention to be worshipped.
If we still lived like cavemen, dating would involve getting clubbed over the head and dragged back to a cave.
And eating vegetables would be chewing a raw turnip.
Some new fangled things are marvellous.

Bunbaker - I don't really eat bread (I don't have the patience to make it myself and supermarket stuff has, on average, 0.5g of salt in one slice as well as other hidden ingredients), but when I did used to, it was actually out of laziness that I wouldn't butter it, so it just became habit to not bother.

I realise you put a smiley face, but there's obviously a difference between butter and parsnips! But, on a lighter note, I hate parsnips! A sweet vegetable is too much for my little brain to deal with! Like savoury popcorn - what?!

Not totally sure about semantics, but fire was available in the paleolithic era!

Why don't you get a breadmaker? They are brilliant. The only downside is that you will eat loads more bread.

I just don't particularly care for bread! I don't miss eating it and I don't just cravings, so I just don't eat it. You don't actually need bread.

Diets are pointles.You shoild eat whatever you fancy but just normal ssized portions.There is really no need to cut anything out.

The thing is Thunder, what you are saying makes sense to me, in that it is surely better to eat unprocessed foods, and whole grains eg brown rice, just as it is better to bake your own cakes than buy them from Morrisons, because you know exactly what is in them.
I just don't see why that needs to be called anything. It's not rocket science that eating natural, whole, unmucked about with foodstuff is better than eating loads of sugar salt and chemicals.
And yes, I totally smothered the chicken I did on Sunday with butter. It was lemon butter chicken. Lush it was.

Bunbaker, if you didn't actually bake I would be really disappointed.

IfNotNowThenWhen - oh, I agree! It's just what you wrote was a bit of a mouthful when people ask why I'm crazy for salmon fillets. Giving it a shorthand is for ease, well, at least for me it is.

Lemon chicken! Hurray - antioxidants and lean meat!

"Bunbaker, if you didn't actually bake I would be really disappointed."

Do not be disappointed
Since I got a new food mixer complete with dough hook for my birthday the breadmaker has been made redundant. Having consumed too many good things over Christmas I haven't baked for a couple of weeks, but I am feeling the urge again.

ps. None of us is overweight.