A Historical Account of Americans' Poor Dietary Choices

Considering that we all supposedly learn behaviors from our families while we grow up, is it any wonder that Americans eat as poorly as they do?

From "The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald, c 1945:

“With all of the natural resources in the way of food and the ease with which you could grow anything and everything, I never in all of the time I lived on the chicken ranch tasted salad in anyone’s house but my own; nor did I see meat cooked any way but fried or boiled, nor did I ever catch anyone but the Indians eating fish. Sowbelly, fried potatoes, fried bread, macaroni, cabbage or string beans boiled with sowbelly were the fare day in and day out. They grew heads of lettuce the size of cabbages and fed it to the chickens or the pigs, they grew celery as crisp and white as crusted snow and they sold every single stalk. They grew beets like balloons and rutabagas as big as squashes, but they fed them to the cows. They grew Swiss chard three feet high, so they cut off all of the green part and fed it to the pigs and boiled the white stems with sowbelly for hours and hours and hours, until it was a greasy strangled mass which they relished with fried potatoes and boiled macaroni.”

Apparently most of us still aren't eating enough of our greens and this can lead to devastating effects. It has been found that leafy greens contain vitamin K, a nutrient that has gone overlooked and underestimated for some time now. Vitamin K helps keep our bones healthy and prevents osteoporosis.