Moreover, if you ask me what these people ate, I can tell you what I ate and what I saw my family, people in my school and work (we were provided food both at school and at work), ate: low carbs, high animal protein and fat, and minimal processed foods.
Fruits and veggies were only seasonal. Heck, I had to wait for summer to eat ice cream! It was not made unless it was summer and only for the short duration of summer!
Oil was not known till I was about 16-17 years old, so we cooked in butter, lard, and duck fat. Lots of pork, duck, and fatty fish every day, organs, including blood sausages (still consumed in a variety of forms), liver-stuffed meat, etc., bacon that was raw and uncured, eaten every day. Salami sausages for breakfast with a slice of rye bread that had a thick layer of either pork lard or butter on it, served with radishes/green onions/peppers/tomatoes, all in season only. For lunch and dinner, usually meat, often no side dish at all. Most side dishes would have been potato, some rice and beans, and seldomly, egg noodles, if any side dishes at all.
Every meal came with cheese, milk, kefir, or yogurt, and everyone drank that--young and old.
In my country, we ate mostly pork, but in other countries, beef was the main staple, depending on the country.
Sweets were once a month max and never made at home! They were only given for special occasions--and not even a wedding cake! I don’t ever recall eating cake on any of my birthdays! I remember lots of toys and clothing but not sweets on my birthdays, and mine is at the height of fruits ripening! Still, eating fruits was about once a week--usually weekends when the fresh produce farms were open. Adults drank wine and beer--typical European culture in this respect.
We ate no "salad" or cereal. The concept of these didn't reach me until I got to the US. In France, where I lived (part of my family is French) as an adult, they ate salad at the end of the dinner after the protein, and vegetables were never served with the meat/fish, but always separately, and all veggies were optional! And, while the French certainly eat baguette today, in the ‘70s it was not served with the main meals! It was only served in the morning with cold cuts and, sometimes, a croissant with coffee. Usually, no other grain or pastry at any other meal, in that earlier era.
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