What Would Grandma Do? How to Eat and Heal More Like Your Grandparents Did

In a world of sophistication and fast paced lifestyles, with terms like superfoods fixedly incorporated into our vocabularies, we are a far cry from the time of our grandparents.  In our constant pursuit to improve ourselves and our living standards, towards an ever more healthful and world conscious existence, it is possible to lose sight of where exactly it was we came from.

Making simple efforts to reconnect with our pasts may demonstrate that much of the inspiration for change we seek is already embedded in our histories. Perhaps taking a leaf from your grandmother’s book demonstrates the beauty in the simplicity of the past, and may fuel the repertoire you’d like to have yourself someday as a grandparent.

The following steps are just a few simple pointers to help you embrace the simplicity from the good old days to make your life a bit easier today.

1. Home-Cooking: Incorporate little pieces of Grandma’s style into your everyday routine.

In our world of fast moving, early starts, dining out, and pre-packed food, often making even the most basic staples of your diet yourself seems like an unnecessary task.

However, little efforts make the largest of impacts during the week when attempting to get back to basics, and very soon, new habits will soon become second nature. Designate a few hours per week to create simple staples within your own kitchen. Perhaps allocate one day in your week during which you will invest extra attention into food prepping.

Home-cooked meals don’t have to be made from scratch for every sitting. Carve a middle ground for yourself by making small shortcuts in advance. Peel your potatoes granny-style as you watch television the night before you plan to cook with them. Make bigger batches of soups, or a big pot of steel cut oats on a Sunday morning, which you can reheat in smaller portions.

Make your own bread. The knead, wait, repeat process of bread seem overly tedious when a loaf can simply be bought offhand, but so comforting is a slice of homemade bread.

Begin simply and maybe try a few quick bread recipes with little or no required rise time. Here are some simple recipes to get you started.

2. Use what you have at hand, and get back to your (proverbial) roots

Maybe making food like ye’ old days and tending to your own vegetable patch is out of the question, but emulating some of the vegetable choices is an easy way to benefit both your health and the planet.

Whilst these days we may have imported foods at our disposal, vegetables that are locally foreign or out of season are likely to have been imported or genetically modified. Our grandparents may have not have been limited by their own will in their choice of veggies, but many of their staples should not necessarily be overlooked solely in favor of produce that is fashionable today.

Considering that we are still in the midst of the colder months, some past winter back-garden favorites to look out for include:

Turnips and Parsnips are both sources of Vitamin C, whilst parsnips are particularly high in dietary fiber, and are a source of B vitamins and folic acid.

Greens like cabbage are a source of Vitamin K, which is necessary for healthy bones, protects the brain, and may reduce risks of Alzheimer’s disease, and may reduce cholesterol.

Leeks, cousin to other root veggies like onions and garlic, are another source of Vitamins A and K, and also offer cardiovascular Support, which may work to lower blood pressure.

3. Comfort: Often the best remedy is the home remedy

Pharmaceutical drugs fall into the category of the pre-packed lifestyle we lead. So often we move at such a quick place that we don’t have time to pay attention to what we put in our bodies.

Looking into how previous generations used plants for medicinal purposes provides a mindful way to monitor not only what enters our bodies, but also at just how illness might be expelled. Taking inspiration from our own grandparents, who in retrospect were the longest living generation until their time, some of the following ingredients have been used for countless years in traditional home remedies, to ward off colds, flus, and other ailments:

Elderberries:  With more Vitamin C per serving than an orange, elderberries have been consumed for hundreds of years the world over. The tiny, blue berries revered for promoting positive immunity, brain functioning, and blood circulation, and may be recognizable to some as the dilutable cordial kept upon their grandmother’s kitchen counter.

Garlic: Also with a reputation of being a boost to the immune system, garlic, like elderberries, has worldwide been employed medicinally for countless generations. Garlic has high Vitamin C and B6 contents, and may help to fight off infection, as well as act as a cancer preventative. Why not cook up a warming batch of garlic soup for when you’re feeling under the weather?

Ginger: An excellent source of B vitamins, Ginger has the power to relieve nausea and stomach cramps. With juice bars and wheatgrass shots, root ginger has never been so commonly used. If all else fails, Grandma’s advice may have been to peel a raw root, bite, and chew. Plain and simple.

4. Adapt what you learn from the past to suit the present

Follow some of these pointers to do so:

• Start simple. Begin with veganising traditional recipes. Beef stew for example, starring this article’s favorite roots, can be made vegan with ease.

• There are other ways to prepare rhubarb than dousing it in sugar and baking it in a pie or as a crumble (although, both are generally welcomed). Get creative with traditional ingredients, maybe by making reduced or no sugar jams, or blending it into smoothies.

• In many senses, we’re already on track to returning to the old in the best possible way .Each time it seems to come down to the fact that simple really is best. Gone should be the days of saving, re-using, and re-saving frying lard, replaced with healthy fats and nut oils of various kinds.

Perhaps your grandmother wasn’t a vegan. So, maybe she didn’t buy organic produce. Hell, maybe she didn’t adhere to anything in this article, but had her own traditions from which you may draw inspiration. Only in combining the old with the new do we achieve progress. With mindfulness and an appreciation of past practices, we have never been better equipped to bring ‘back in the day’ back into our present day with just a few alterations.

Image source: Publi.es / Creative Commons