How much has food changed in the last 50 years?!
Question:
How much has food changed in the last 50 years?
did people eat salad and worry about there weight. did they eat cheeseburgers. did they eat bacon sandwhiches.
Answers:
younger to now theres alot more flavor
ways of cooking microwaves,indoor grills etc.
and theres alot more foods coming in from around the world
I thought food years ago was bland now theres alot
more choices.cheeses burgers were comon
at diners from years ago and blts.
During the war the only worry people had about weight was if they were too thin - try getting fat on a ration of 1 egg a week, 2oz cheese (Cheddar all year and Danish blue for a treat at Christmas), sugar came off ration after the war but went back on again. I was a teenager when rationing finished - the War ended when I was 7! I tried my first "real" spaghetti at a small newly-opened Italian restaurant in Bristol when I was about 18.
Marguerite Patten wrote a lot of books about managing without onions, eggs, meat, etc. Try your local library - I know there is a publishers remainder being sold at the moment.
Fifty years ago, I don't remember eating a Hamburger but we did eat plenty of salads in season. Our vegetables tasted like vegetables are supposed to. That is because they were fresh and had not travelled all around the world before reaching our plates.
Apart from preserved foods bought during World War II i.e., eggs, food did not come pre-packed.
How anyone can bear to eat the Junk that is served up in boxes ~~ just to be popped into the Microwave, I can't begin to fathom out. It is truely revolting and does not even taste, anything like the real thing.
It is just as easy and quick, to cook a family meal of meat and fresh vegetables, as it is to serve a families worth of pre-packed food, and the beauty of it is, all of the family get to eat at the same time and the food is served all at the same temperature.
When you had eaten a meal, you were satisfied until the next meal, so there was seldom need for snacking in between meals.
Fifty years ago sweets were on ration. For most people, chips were only eaten with fish
In my opinion, food fifty years ago, was tastier and more nourishing.
As a boy we would never have eaten rice, except in puddings. Pasta was non existent except for a tin of Watties spaghetti in tomato sauce
Chili was unknown, but curry wasn't.
Fish and chicken were rare unless we had been fishing.
We grew our own vegetables.
We didn't worry about fat or our weight, burgers hadn't been invented but we ate plenty of Cheddar cheese and mince.
No bacon sandwiches, but bacon and eggs for breakfast at least once a week.
Every thing was cooked in Lard (fat)
Just a thought. Did you know that bread after WW2 was made from home grown wheat & therefore grey? "White" bread (made from good imported wheat) became available C1955 but cost an extra 1d a loaf. Most of us waited a couple of years until it was all white! ( No pun intended).
Did you also know that the weight & price of a loaf was legally specified until it was "off the ration"?
Sorry to bore some of you dudes with this stuff, but there's not many of us left old enough to remember & young enough to be online...
The focus, in the UK at least, was on a square meal which contained a balance of inputs including salads and vegetables.
Personally I think the introduction of garlic opened up the British eyes to cooking and we monstered on from staple meat and veg food onto more exotic and now global cooking.
In my childhood of the 1940s and 50s, nearly all of our food was rationed. The idea of going on a diet simply was not an option since most people were preoccupied with having more food than was actually available.
Schools dinners back in the 50s were nothing like they are today. I remember huge piles of raw chopped vegetables, masses of boiled spuds and rice but very little meat. Chips simply did not happen ever in school.
The bacon sandwich was unheard of. This seems to have originated in Scotland and gradually moved south. It was certainly not part of the average London diet in my youth.
The range and choice today is vast by comparison with the past. Popular foods of the 1950s were such as fish n chips. Now it's much more Chicken Tikka Masala.
One thing which really has changed and very much for the better on the food front is the quality and variety of food when eating out. London really does have some of the world's finest restaurants. This was not so back in the 1950s and 60s and even right into the 80s.
More of us go abroad and have tasted quality foods and want them back home. No need to go to Spain just pop into the nearest Tapas Bar.
People didn't seem to worry as much as they do about their weight, you did have people wanting to lose weight (women normally) but there certainly wasn't the obssession there is today and it wasn't so fashionable to look skinny. Twiggy was in the public eye at the time and some women wanted to look like her but I don't remember hearing about women strarving themselves to achieve it, (although many probably did) or indeed the health issues behind it. Athough of course Twiggy maintains she didn't diet to achieve this and I tend to believe her, as she looks wonderful for her age now and so healthy.
People ate unhealthily sometimes but eating your veg and fruit in most homes was just the norm too. I hated green veg, but I had to eat it, I'm not fussy on it still, although I do try and eat my five a day, I'm glad now I did eat it as a child because I do think it can have long terms advantages in later life. I also think that after rationing during the war people in the 60's especially were just glad to be able to buy the healthy food whenever they wanted, although in some cases this may have caused people to overindulge too.
The way we live has changed drastically, more mums work and maybe don't have the time to make homecooked healthy meals as they used to, everything is at such a faster pace and people seem to always be on the go so I can see the attraction of the fast food option.
All generations have eaten unhealthily sometimes, when I was a kid we didn't worry about cutting fat off meat, not frying food and we'd think nothing of spreading loads of butter on our bread. I do think there is too much temptation out there these days with the vast array of takeaways burger joints etc, that it is only to easy to plump for the quick and easy options. Eating these things are fine but we all know it should be in moderation. I do think the way we eat now is going to have huge implications on the health of the country in the future and something really has to be done before it spirals out of control completely!
I have to thank my parents for a perfect childhood with the perfect diet.
Now you get a plain burger, with cheese, with or without salad, bacon and cheese, quarter pounder, Big Mac, Whopper, Double Whopper, chicken burger twist or zinger tower. Mushroom topped, with fries or rings. Medium or large, Coke or pepsi, 7up or fanta, milkshakes - strawberry, vanilla banana or chocolate. Flurry or doughnut, apple pie.
And the choice at pizza hut makes my mind hurt!!!
Yes food has changed after all they would not have had all these choices before colour television was invented.
I'm sure people didn't worry about their weight so much, because they were eating fresh and healthy food all the time.
Its the junk food that we are eating nowadays that is causing people to be overweight.
There was also a different way of life 50 years now. Now we are all in rush, with jobs, children and homes to look after, so sometimes its easier to have fast food, but thats no excuse not to eat fresh, healthy food!
There was also rationing in those days, so people were used to making good healthy meals with the rations they got. They made good use of the food they could obtain, as there was not much of it available.
Now there is also a lot more food available from lots of different countries, which gives us a good chance to vary our diet.
They walked everywhere, shopped every day for fresh ingredients and walked home with it, housework was a physical full-time job, think of washdays! Also the men did not shy from walking 5 miles to work, doing a day's physical slog and walking 5 miles home. Children played outside, and ran to their hearts content. And did not get driven everywhere, they had to walk!
They had bread and dripping, and fish and chips. Foreign food was unknown, exotic indredients and fruit unavailable to anyone but the well-off.
We have more variety now, it's a disgrace that people are unable or too lazy to cook. Though when a single person gets home after a long day, the thought of chopping and peeling is off-putting!
You cannot get fat through food, it's what you do to it, plus the activity in your life.
In the UK there are far more foods and ethnic dishes available than 50 years ago.
Fruit was mainly seasonal and as food was generally dearer in proportion to wages you ate what you were given as most people didnt have freezers and there wasnt lots of food to snack on between meals.
Food had no additives was less fatty and less added salt and preservatives. Housewives were more active with housework as there were less aids and men had more manual jobs. Children played out more - not everyone had a tv and it wasnt 24 hr, no computrs etc. WE were all more active and interacted more as a family. therefore food and activities meant less obesity.
