Late 60s - mid 70s 'diet foods'

[SunshineAvenue]

Just had cottage cheese on Melba toast with grapes for lunch which always reminds me of my mum who was (I now realise) often on a diet.

It's a real early 70s 'diet' lunch in my eyes as is grapefruit and black coffee for breakfast.

What foods/meals do you associate with diets from this era? Do you/did you like them.

This isn't a diets are bad/no food is 'diet' thread but more of a nostalgic look back.

Nimble bread - basically a slice of fresh air
Marvel dried skimmed milk.
Some kind of weird crispbread that felt and tasted like foam! Again basically like eating fresh air.

Nimble
Ryvita
Grapefruit

Oh yes! Nimble bread with it's round slices and marvel powdered milk in a tin (two of my Nan's favourites who was never on a diet bizarrely)

I once ate nothing but melon for a week, I did this to get from 24 inch waist to 22. Utter madness. I now do SW and have just had a full English brunch,

Don’t do crazy diets it will make you susceptible to viruses.

Not doing crazy diets, just reminiscing

10 calorie soups.

I don't recall 10 calorie soups. Cup-a-soups but they were much higher calories iirc.

Celery! That's another

I help out an older lady from time to time. She told me that when she wanted to lose weight after having her babies, the doctor prescribed her Purple Hearts, which she thought were great because "they gave you loads of energy" and she lost weight very quickly on them. She thinks it is ridiculous that doctors are no longer allowed to prescribe amphetamine..

Anyone remember fudge cubes? Think they were called Ayds.

My mum would live off grapefruit, Marvel and cigarettes. She would buy Slimcea bread with the jingle 'show them you're a Slimcea girl'

Cabbage soup diet? You could eat as much of it as you wanted, but nothing else.

And then there was the Cambridge Diet, with special drinks and bars.

Apparently the Cambridge diet is back - I have a colleague doing it!

Purple hearts! Blimey

Don't know the fudge cubes.

Yes to slimcea bread, was that the round bread not Nimble?

Cabbage soup diet made a big of a come back at the turn of the century didn't it?

A 'classic' 70s salad of rubbery lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and radishes?

What were dieters eating for dinner?

Ryvita with a scrape of Stork, urgh!

Some kind of weird crispbread that felt and tasted like foam!

Are you thinking of puff cracknells? I've never come across anyone else who remembers them.

My mum used to take something called Tenuate Dospan, which I think was some kind of stimulant, prescribed by the GP!

Was the F Plan diet in that era?

The F was for fibre.

Oh yes I remember Ayds, the fudge cubes. Mmmm delicious, I could eat a whole box.

Cheese was very slimming because it was savoury. Also steak and a salad.

I also went on a version of the Purple Hearts diet, no need for a prescription because mum dispensed medication for her rural GP so there were often lots of pills around - Appistate I think they were called, but also antibiotics and various strong painkillers. Amazing diet I have to say.

Remember the F plan diet and the Cambridge diet.

Remember the obsession with Jane Fonda's workout videos.

There was a crispbread which was thinner than Ryvita - it was like a sheet of brown paper, can't remember its name, but my Mum used to send me to school with that for lunch (she thought I was fat, I wasn't), with a very light scraping of peanut butter on it, and some sliced cucumber. Sometimes it'd be fish paste instead of peanut butter, which was slightly less claggy, but not much.

I remember doing a diet which comprised eating nothing all day, and then having boiled cauliflower with a packet (powder) cheese sauce mix, made with skimmed milk, poured over it. After a while, I got bored with cauliflower, and swapped it for broccoli, or even brussels sprouts. I may have lost weight eating just that, but my size remained the same due to the amount of gas in my system!

I remember those thinner than ryvita crispbreads, so gross! Love ryvita though.

Think the Fplan was 80s?

Exam cheese because it was less calories than cheddar.

Fags as a food group obviously.

Oh yeah, the really thin crispbread. I remember it now but not the name.

I think Cabbage Soup, F plan and Cambridge diets were 1980s.

Omg I remember the fudge cubes, I think they were called Ayds, you’re right.

And Nimble bread, the ad had that song “she flies like a bird in the sky” and someone in a hot air ballon lifting off, as they were so light! Found a 1995 one where they used some of the old ad

m.youtube.com/watch?v=JZktlPluNig

Exam cheese?! Edam

Omg at all these women prescribed speed!

Here’s the original ad

m.youtube.com/watch?v=NopAq6tUHVk