Pauper when & where?

Pauper in a small town outside of Scranton, during the Depression: My great-grandmother kept geese & chickens, grew cabbages & tomatoes, bought fruit from a huckster's cart. Baked her own bread & boiled her own pierogies. Canned her own tomato sauce. Made her own pickles. My grandmother was given an orange to eat at Christmas, stuffed into the toe of her stocking, as a Christmas gift, & thought this was a big deal because she rarely got them. For ice cream, they had to go down to a special place, an ice cream parlor, and this rarely happened. (No good freezer facilities at home -- an icebox with a block of ice melting in it.) Not a great diet, but much to be said for it. But there were women at home all day to do all the labor involved in the growing & cooking.

Pauper in the same small town outside of Scranton, during the 1990s: One branch of my family just never had any luck in the world. The members rarely finished high school. Got pregnant early, usually by the wrong men. Had hard jobs, lots of children. I went to visit on numerous occasions & always saw lots of stacked pizza boxes. (Excellent pizza to be had in the area, but still.) Big 2-liter store brand soda bottles. No fruit. One can of green beans, the only veggie around, other than the onions on the pizza. Lots of microwaveable food, and I don't mean oatmeal -- I mean, like Hot Pockets for breakfast every morning.

So, I want to know when the "pauper" saying was thought up, because that could make great big difference.

The quote is attributed to Adelle Davis, (1904-1974 ) an American Nutritionist and writer.

The 'pauper' in this case I believe is taken from Medieval times, to go with the King and Prince.

While using more modern definitions of Pauper, or even King or Prince can make this statement very different from what may have been the original meaning, the standing definition of this statement refers to the amount of food being consumed rather than quality of it.

I always eat breakfast and usually lunch but most of my calories throughout my entire weight loss are mainly consumed between 6-10. It's when I like to eat.

I think the king/prince/pauper (quantity) analogy applies very well for folks who are working very hard in the hours of late morning through mid to late afternoon. "Day laborer" hard work, not sitting in front of a monitor hard work.

Most of us, (un)fortunately don't work this way anymore, and so it doesn't necessarily work so well in the modern world.

If you have a very sedentary job and/or are unable to be very active, you may have to choose a pauper/pauper/pauper approach.

Or, if the bulk of your work is late afternoon, you might need a pauper/king/ prince approach.

I used to use that approach in the past and was able to eat everything and never did diet. Of course, I was more active than I'm now. The problem is that since I gave birth I've been eating like the King and all His Court.

My grandmother, who went through the depression actually does have chickens and collects their eggs and they use them for meat. They also have a rather large garden as well since she lives on 8 acres of land. They grow just about everything and then can or freeze it all. Can Beets, makes her own pickles, tomato sauce, peaches, pears etc. Freezes corn, pees and other veggies. I remember one summer when I was little I spent two weeks at her house and got to help her separate the peas from the pods that is a tedious job. To this day she still does all this and she is going to be 88 in December, though she does get help from my aunt. And now my Step Mom while she didn't grow up in the depression and doesn't have as big of a garden does some canning of her own as well.

I agree that today's Pauper is much different then yesterday's Pauper.

I actually do intentionally shift my calories early in the day. Breakfast is my largest meal. Instead of lunch, I have a pre-lunch some time after 10:30 AM but before 12:00 and a post-lunch some time between 1:30 and 3:30. Then my last "meal", which is very small around 6:00 - 7:00.