I wasn't there at the time, but I've heard that the first Thanksgiving dinner was made up of turkey, deer, bear, berries, corn, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. Oh wait, that last one was at my Thanksgiving dinner, not the Indian/Pilgrim dinner that became famous. Besides being healthier than me, they also dressed funny.
I love pumpkin pie and do not give a hoot about a diet when it comes to eating one. I love cream puffs made with real whipped cream too, but know that will kill me. Did they have cream puffs in the good ole days? The puff was invented in a castle sometime before my great grandfather was born, so you do the math. Cream comes from cows and I'm not sure about goats, but maybe..... Okay, so they had some really fattening foods, especially in the King's kitchen, but what about the cowboys and those sort of people? Who cares? I didn't live back then and thank God every day for it! If you think learning about the history of eating is going to help you lose weight, than you are already in big trouble, but maybe it is possible to learn a little something helpful if you are not going to get all serious on me. Now make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and get comfortable. It's time to learn about history.
Benjamin Franklin thanked gout one day for helping him stay healthy. He did this more than once, and loved to write about silly things like this. That's why he's still popular hundreds of years later. Anyway, gout is the thing that happens to your body and your feet swell up like you swallowed a watermelon and it slid down your leg. Shoes won't fit and skin gets so tight, and all this is what Ben thanked. He was strange. But he had a good point.
He said the gout let him know that he had been eating too good lately and sitting around too much. In other words, he was getting fat and lazy. The gout was a sure sign to get out and walk every day, so Ben would take his daily constitutional as they called it those days. Today we say we're going for a walk. Cowboys never went for a walk. They ran. Chase that horse, chase that cow, chase that Indian. Do you wonder what kept cowboys healthy? While it is easy to see that Ben Franklin was fat and lazy, it is also easy to understand that there were no fat cowboys. But was it the exercise or eating habits?
Since we started this thing with Ben Franklin, let's finish it that way too. I have three quotes from the most quoted human in history, Ben himself. Each tells it's own little story about history and diet. Each has a nugget of truth and a pinch of hope. Each brings us to a place we can only imagine, but one of the great minds of all time said this.
"In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires."
Since the improvement of cookery? Was he kidding? They used cast iron pots and clay ovens back then. You had to build a fire to cook anything at all! In this day and age of microwave popcorn and frozen foods delivered to your door, do you think good ole Ben would have been even fatter? You think on that while I go to the next Ben Franklin quote.
"Kill no more pigeons than you can eat."
Pigeons? Eat pigeons? Were they cannibals? We feed pigeons as wild pets nowadays. But doesn't that tell you a little something about the diet he was already on? We are not talking about Butterball turkey, or Amish chicken, or Polish ham. We are talking about eating a pigeon. How much weight would we lose today if pigeons were on our diet instead of Count Chocula cereal and Reese's cups?
"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself a slave to it."
I think this is the quote we need to write in very large letters and put on our refrigerator doors. Ben Franklin is still known for his wisdom.
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