Why is it that in my mum's day (the 40s and 50s) when they had no fridges...?

Question

Noone ever got food poisoning and now we've got all mod cons, we're all dropping like flies? Is it all the weird things they put in food which actually make them more susceptible to bacteria?

Answer 1

Back then, food was eaten within the day, then the leftovers disposed of. Nothing held for weeks on end.

We tend to think that refrigeration keeps foods fresh indefinitely, but it doesn't. Even cooked meals need to be reheated every 4-7 days (depending upon what it is), in order to assure that the bacteria has been killed.

There may also be a difference in the storage containers. Some seal out bacterias better than others. Plasticware vs. stainless steele vs. aluminum foil vs. plastic wrap vs. glass vs. wood vs. styrofoam vs paper and on & on. Each have their attributes of pluss' and minus'.

And Ice Boxes have been used as refrigeration devices in homes since the turn of the 20th century. In the city, ice trucks/wagons would go by with square chunks of ice that people would buy and place in their icebox. Eventually, it would melt, then they would buy another block. The ice was often cut from iceflows up in the mountains and brought down to towns by horseback or train.

Those iceboxes are antiques and highly collectible today.

Answer 2

Well, there's two parts to this--first, we did have fridges then or at least food cooling devices. There was an insulated, sealed box in the kitchen and the iceman came around 2 or 3 times a week. We would buy 10, 25 or 50 pounds of ice at a time and he would place it in the box where it would keep stuff from going bad sort of like a picnic cooler. There was a drip pan underneath to catch the ice water while it melted. Many times it was one kid's chore to empty the pan and god help you if you forgot or tried to move it when it was too full--instant Titanic all over your feet.

And to be sure, people did get poisoned and croak then as well.

Second, because we had such a lame system, people didn't take any chances with food. Remember, we didn't have major weekly shops like one does today. Food was bought that day if it was perishable. Milk didn't come in gallon jugs. If food was bought in bulk, it didn't need to be kept cold.

We also relied a lot on dried, pickled, salted stuff that didn't need to be refrigerated. The cook planned meals very carefully so that there would be enough but not any left over. If by chance there was, after 2 days, it got thrown out even if it seemed ok.

People were very afraid of food poisoning: today, you may have your stomach pumped, get IV fluids and/ or be given strong antibiotics to kill listeria or e coli or whatever. That wasn't available then. You got food poisoning, you very well could die. Supposedly, my grandmother's great aunt died after eating some bad oysters. She couldn't smell very well and ignored her husband's admonishtions.

So--they were more paranoid and less concerned with stocking up than we are...


EDIT: the person who talked about the spinach pickers never washing their hands raises a good point. The harvesters were much closer to the consumer in time and space. Food was wasn't shipped a zillion miles.
We also knew our hired hands or they were family. The reason spinach and other crops get contaminated with e coli and Hepatitis A is that the worker have such terrible conditions, there isn't any provision made for bathrooms. It's either too long out of your day (time is money) to walk a mile to the outhouse or there isn't one. So, they take a crap in the field and the next rain spreads it nicely and uniformly over the plants. Mmmm, strawberry shortcake ala migrant feces. My favourite.


Sorry this is so long.

Answer 3

Most houses had a larder with a marble cold shelf and good ventilation with fly screens.
The food was not kept so long and bought so much in advance either.

Most people bought the food for the day on the day other items were tined and preserved in vinegar and such.

There was not the variety of food that e have to day or the amount of processed meals and fruit and veg was less abundant .

Most people used the local shops such as the corner shop and the local butcher, baker and green grocer. The milk man brought your milk and dairy produce daily

Everything was done more or less on a day to day basis.

Not sure it would work in this day and age if we did not have the technology as the population has expanded so much.

Answer 4

In the 40s and 50s, most people in the US had fridges. Those few who didn't usully had ice boxes. 100 years ago people didn't have fridges and few had ice boxes. The average life span was around 50 years of age, instead of more than 80 as it is today. Food poisoning was common back then, though not always correctly diagnosed.

Answer 5

Not true. People did get food poisoning back then. But they were also smarter than people are today in that they bought ingredients on the same day they used them and they didn't make more than they could eat. There was less of a chance of food going bad. Today we're so used to having preservatives in food that I think we've relaxed our fears of food poisoning more and therefore make ourselves more susceptible.

Answer 6

Hey in the '40's in the US some of us had an ice box. I heard that in Ireland in the '60's some had no fridges. But you're right, food poisoning did not seem as common then. Botulism from home canned food was more common, however.

Answer 7

I think in those days people used to buy their fresh foods on a daily basis and planned what they were going to eat that day or the night before, and just had a larder store for all the essential items that they needed. I also think that food leftovers were made into the next days meals and they didnt waste anything like we do in this day and age, we are too easy in chucking things out!!

Answer 8

We didn't have a fridge in the 50s you shoped daily and had a larder i cant remember being ill with a tummy bug or any thing like that, milk was stored in a bucket of cold water i think our stomachs must have been stronger then and our immune systems better .

Answer 9

i think that food additives are to blame. They use steroids to make cattle grow faster and bigger. This was not the case back in the 40's and 50's. They ate better food and if you notice they were not obese back then either. The food additives and steroids and the pesticides we use on our food is finally having a negative effect on the population. We are what we eat therefore we are a bunch of fattened up cows and poisoned vegetarians. Right???

Answer 10

WWF recently reported that 100% of food they tested was contaminated with man made pollutants that included carcinogens, so its a big problem they tested so called organic food as part of this and didn't get a less contaminated result so all an organic product does is charge you more for a product that is less healthy grown than a non organically produced product with controls on what is used to protect it and controls before it is sold