What We Eat Today vs What Our Grandparents Ate – The Silent Shift

We often hear our elders say, “Humaare time ka khaana alag tha.”
At first it sounds like nostalgia, but what if there is a truth hidden behind those simple words — a truth so big that it silently shapes our health, our soil, and even the future of food?

This isn’t just a comparison between two generations.
It is a story of how food changed, slowly… silently… and how that changed us.

🌾 A Plate Then vs A Plate Now — What Really Changed?

Imagine your grandparents at your age.

Morning started with freshly made roti from whole wheat, home-churned white butter or desi ghee, a glass of fresh milk, or a humble breakfast like poha, daliya, or seasonal fruits. Vegetables came from fields nearby, often without chemical sprays. Spices were hand-pounded and oils were extracted slowly using wood-pressed (kolhu) methods.

Today, breakfast is often bread, packaged cereals, ready mixes, flavored milk or instant snacks.
Vegetables travel hundreds of kilometers, polished to look fresh. Wheat is hybridized for yield, polished and refined before reaching us. Ghee comes in shiny packets — but the cow, the churn, the process? We rarely know.

Check Deshimaati's A2 Bilona Cow Ghee

Their food grew.
Our food is manufactured.

🧪 The Food Chain Shift — From Natural to Industrial

Our grandparents ate food…

• grown in living soil
• harvested in season
• cooked fresh at home
• eaten with gratitude

We eat food…

• grown faster using chemicals
• harvested early and ripened artificially
• polished, processed, packaged
• eaten in a hurry while scrolling phone

The change didn’t happen overnight. It came with convenience, modern farming, higher yields, and urban lifestyles. Progress is good — but every progress has a price.

The price we are paying?
Lifestyle disorders, weak digestion, low immunity, fatigue, anxiety, and constant reliance on supplements.

Our elders rarely needed a nutritionist.
We need apps to remind us to drink water.

Something is off — and we all feel it.

🍃 Nutrients Lost — Not in Food, but in the Way We Produce It

Earlier, soil was fed with cow dung, compost, and natural cycles of life. It was alive, rich with microbes, earthworms, and organic matter. Food absorbed that life, and that life became part of us.

Today, soil is often treated like a factory machine — more urea means more yield. But more produce doesn’t mean more nutrition. Research shows that modern crops contain significantly lower levels of minerals and micronutrients compared to 30-50 years ago.

We now eat calories, but lack nutrition.
We feel full, but not fulfilled.

🪔 Traditional Foods Were Not Just Food — They Were Wisdom

Our grandparents had simple logic:

• Eat seasonal fruits (no mangoes in December)
• Use cold/wood-pressed oils
• Consume ghee without fear
• Hand-ground spices, stone chakki atta
• Fermented foods for gut health (curd, pickle, kanji)
• Sun-dry vegetables and papad in summer
• Turmeric milk for immunity, not tablets

Their kitchen was the pharmacy.
Today, pharmacy is becoming our kitchen.

🧘 Why Were They Healthier Even Without Gyms?

Because food was not merely fuel — it was medicine.

• They ate slow
• Chewed properly
• Walked daily
• Slept early
• No screens while eating
• Eating was a family ritual, not a task

Health was a lifestyle, not an appointment.

🔥 The Wake-Up Moment

This is not to blame modern life — we cannot go back fully.
But we can bring back the essence.

We can choose:

• Food grown with care
• Oil extracted without heat
• Ghee made traditionally (bilona)
• Unpolished grains and millets
• Fresh, seasonal, local produce
• Less packet, more kitchen

Small changes. Big impact. Silent healing.

Because the truth is simple:

What we eat today shapes who we become tomorrow.
And what we grow today shapes the future of generations.

Our grandparents lived close to the soil.
Maybe it’s time we return — not backward, but back to roots.

For reference, read the article A century of change in how we eat of American Heart Association

🌿 The DeshiMaati Thought

At DeshiMaati, we believe food is more than taste —
it is a connection between soil, farmer, body, and life.

This silent shift can be reversed —
with awareness,
with responsible choices,
with food that heals instead of harms.

You don’t need to change everything today.
Just start with one change — maybe replacing refined oil with wood-pressed oil,
or bringing pure desi ghee back to your plate,
or choosing organic whole grains over polished ones.

One small step…
towards a healthier plate, a healthier soil, and a healthier you.