5 Surprising Facts About The Amish You've Never Heard Before

I'm currently reading Nature & The Environment in Amish Life, and boy has it opened my eyes! My neighbors on both sides are Amish, and while they are great friends of mine, they still keep things close to the overalls.

In the book, they conducted a comparison between non-Amish households in the same area and the four main Amish affiliations in the Holmes County community: Old Order, New Order, Andy Weaver, and Swartzentruber.

Amish laundryPhoto byRichelleg

These are the authors' five startling discoveries regarding the food and diet of the Amish.

1. It's surprising how often Amish people order pizza

The book indicates that Amish people order pizza and other home-delivered meals roughly twice as frequently as non-Amish people do. But this differs greatly throughout the various communities. Approximately ten times as many Old Order Amish affiliation orders are delivered as Swartzentruber Amish, who follow stricter traditions. When your only mode of transportation is a costly taxi or a buggy, ordering takeout can be particularly handy.

2. Amish people "can" a lot

It's hardly shocking to learn that the Amish are heavy canners. However, they also include items that you might not consider classic canned products, such as pineapple and meat. Amish people normally buy their fruits from stores and cultivate as many veggies as they can on their farms. Meats such as trail bologna, venison, poultry, hamburgers, and meatballs they are not afraid to can.

Amish cellarPhoto byRichelleg

Overall, Amish people are at least six times more capable than English people in the food preservation department. That didn't surprise me.

3. The Swartzentruber Compared to other Amish gardens are seven times larger.

This shows that the Swartzentruber Amish, who are the "plainest" group in the poll, are more self-sufficient and able to grow most of their own food. Naturally, the Swartzentruber Amish are able to do more than twice as much as other Amish because of their enormous gardens, like a thousand quarts of fruit, veggies, and meat per year. That's amazing!

4. Amish people do consume junk food

Contrary to popular belief, Amish do not farm, raise, or hunt everything they eat. Like the English, they purchase pre-packaged items from stores like Wal-Mart or cheap food stores. They also bring junk food, such as soft drinks, cupcakes, and potato chips home.

Amish country store parkingPhoto byRichelleg

The authors mention an Old Order mother who is worried about manufactured foods showing up in the lunchboxes of Amish schoolchildren: "They live cheaply, but they eat unhealthy—pastries, pop, cheap cookies, Ho-Ho's, packaged sausage."

5. Amish from Swartzentruber consumes A LOT of eggs.

On average, each member of the Swartzentruber family surveyed consumed over 12 eggs every week. English Amish consumed even less, at about 4, while other Amish consumed less than half that, at about 5 or 6 per person each week. I'm not sure what this says about their cholesterol levels, but if you visit a Swartzentruber farm, you should notice a lot of chickens running around.

Bonus Fact: Of the more than 150 Amish families the authors polled, zero were vegetarians.

Their environment and living conditions have a big impact on what they eat. Many people in Lancaster are Starbucks regulars because they enjoy their coffee so much. There are teenagers in their 14s and 15s who drink a lot of coffee. They also love their soda!

They appear to change with their surroundings in a similar manner to the rest of us. Although Amish people are more likely to have gardens, many of them are getting smaller and smaller.

BuggyPhoto byRichelleg

Citations:

https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12022/nature-and-environment-amish-life

Emley, B. (2014, March 31). 16 Things You Didn’t Know About Amish People. Matador Network. https://matadornetwork.com/life/16-things-didnt-know-amish-people/