[Clubber]

I've also read that the food pyramid was apt for the time since meat and whatnot was so expensive. They were trying to get enough calories in people.

The food pyramid has its origins not in recommendations for a balanced diet but in food shortages. The USDA released the Basic 7 food guide in 1943 to help U.S. citizens cope with food rationing during World War II.

https://www.britannica.com/science/food-pyramid

[acdha]

That was a huge shift indeed - when my grandmother took “Home Economics” it was all about having enough safely-cooked calories for manual laborers (Illinois where she grew up ran to farm and factory workers) and nobody could afford anything like the amount of meat or dairy we now eat. My grandfather used to eat beef a few times per year, when the cousins who had dairy cattle culled the herd.