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.

I'd forgotten about the Tenuate Dospan (used to go to a 'private doctor' who basically sold the stuff), and Apisate - prescribed by my GP. I was a whole 10.5 stone at the time. Massive.

Love that ad!

Wonder if that's where Nick Park got some of his inspiration for 'A matter of Loaf and Death' in which the 'bake o lite' lady eats too many cakes and gets too heavy for the balloon?

That's a Wallace and Gromit episode I meant to say

St Ivel Gold spread 🤢

Cottage cheese seemed only to be eaten by dieters.
Hard boiled eggs.
I loved the very thin crispbread, I used to have it with butter. I still look for it 🙈

Was the crispbread Vita wheat?

I thought that about the Wallace thing, Sunshine. There was some other bread roll thing...disgusting. Don't think that was Nimble or Slimcea though.

My mum was on a constant "diet" slimcia bread (crumb) chocolate laxatives and dutch crisp bread was her diet of choice she was giddy when slimfast came out we had tubs everywhere

Vita wheat doesn't ring a bell, I'm convinced my one was foreign.

I actually really like cottage cheese because I like the tanginess of it. I only really like Cheshire, Lancashire, or Caerphilly hard cheeses.

Weren't those crispbread called cracottes?
Special K was marketed as a slimmers' food, wasn't it, though I'm sure it's got entry of calories especially when you count in the milk on it too (because all milk was full fat sterilised in those days!)
I remember skimmed milk first becoming available in the supermarket (my father had to have it because of his heart).

nimble not slimcia i dont know if slimcia is a "thing" or not!

I remember packets of slimming biscuits biscuits. Two custard creams to eat instead of lunch.

I wish they still prescribed speed tbh. My house would be clean and I would be thin 😂

She would buy Slimcea bread with the jingle 'show them you're a Slimcea girl'

Ah right maybe my mum had both

Ayds and Limmit biscuits

Or maybe Finn Crisp?

Energen rolls. The box they came in tasted better. And probably had as much nutritional value.

My friend's Mum used to have energen rolls.They had the texture of crumpled cellophane.

My mum used to eat this bread called milk roll, I think it was. Plus cigarettes and cups of tea.

I remember everyone eating mints that turned out to contain laxatives. Cabbage soup diet, grapefruit diet. Dexatrim pills. And a lot of people basically doing the starvation diet.

Just googled Finn Crisp, certainly looks like they could be the ones and still available!

Was the crisp bread this? Crackerbread, 10 calories a slice. You can still get it, my mum lived off it with cottage cheese on her diets in the 80s

My mother was addicted to Vita Wheat. Unfortunately she would have them in addition to a meal, spread thickly with butter. I don't know if they still exist.

Cottage cheese was the way to go for me. It's quite hard to get now.

I remember Ayds and I was a fan. I think they fell out of favour when the Aids crisis took hold. More 80s than 70s though?

My roommate in Uni lost loads of weight on the onion soup diet.

Does anyone remember Slimming Magazine ? You could eat anything as long as you did not exceed 1000 calories per day. I was offered a position as a consultant! I didn't take it up as already working full time.

Many women in the 60s and 70s controlled their weight with fags. My mother gave up for a while and her weight shot up to a horrifying 10 stone.

She went back to the fags pretty sharpish.

Omg Cracker read! We had those too. They were a bit chewy yes?

Cottage cheese readily available in all supermarkets ageing disgracefully

Do you remember Energen rolls? They had a crust, but nothing much inside; they were awful.