The 70s and diet - what were we eating?

[Alicay]

Watched a programme about The Cure last night. There was footage of the group from '81 (I think) and they were all like pipe cleaners - that really slight, skinny look. Not an inch on them. Growing up I can remember the majority (of young people at least) having that kind of physique. Also, recently saw Gregory's Girl and was struck by the school scenes - kids all like whippets. Now im fat and in my fifties I'm trying to remember what I/people ate. think for me it was cornflakes with sugar for breakfast, orange juice then modest packed lunch (I never got crisps, but some kids got a packet of walkers) or a disgusting school dinner of meat pie and veg that I barely touched) dinner was always vegetable soup then say pasta (fancy, but Italian roots) then stewed fruit. I'd be raging hungry on that diet now. Thinking about it maybe food was just less appealing/quantities smaller? Is it all just down to the extra snacks we have now?
Any 70's/earlier people remember better than me?

Yes there was a lot of processed food then. People seem to have forgotten when Bejams opened and they were chock full of superwhip, vienetta and crispy pancakes.

I agree that there was a lot of processed food available. However, it wasn't cheap like it is now, it was actually expensive - you were paying for the convenience, so we never had that growing up. Although my Mum once bought a Vesta Beef Curry for Two, as a treat. She spun it out with plenty of mince and it fed 6 of us.

I loved Vienneta! Luxury 😊

As I child I was never given snacks. I remember a glass of lemonade or a packet of crisps or a chocolate biscuit was a huge treat.
Breakfast was a handful of Cocopops
Lunch was school dinners which was frequently mince and potato based
Then nothing until dinner which was again mince and potato based. Friday was fish and chips. We never went to restaurants except for very special occasions.
I remember also having a cup of tea and maybe a Nice biscuit after dinner but that was it.

Food was very much functional and served at specific mealtimes. Absolutely nothing in between. Fruit if you were really hungry.

Also far more exercise.we had no car so shopping was bought and carried home.

oh i remember the sugar sandwiches!
luxury, i think it was special multi coloured sugar as well
and occasional cycle to the sweet shop for 10 p sweets.
i remember when we first had findus crispy pancakes, that became a regular and was the only ready meal, apart from fish fingers

we didnt all have freezers, or if we did, they were tiny,

There was processed food but it must have been expensive as we didn't have a lot of it. We had things like mince and vegetables, liver and onions ot like someone said before, 2 fish fingers and peas, nothing else! We weren't allowed to eat in the stretch and eating out was a very rare street, no nipping into Costa in those days. Plus, although my family did have a car it wasn't in daily use and we walked a mile each way to school and then were out in the evenings running round with our friends. It made us independent as well as slim!

I didn’t have any convenience food, I remember going to my friend’s house when I was 11 (1980) and she made us boil in the bag fish. My friend told me it was a new thing out and so convenient and quick etc. I remember thinking it’s taking bloody ages and seems a lot of faffing to me. After that we went back to our lemon curd on toast.

We didn’t have cakes or biscuits or puddings at home. Just yoghurt and fruit. No snacking. Sweets were occasional treats. Portions were much smaller and involved less processed food for most people. My mother was a terrible cook but meals were quite simple. Mince, sausages, eggs, . Pretty plain food in general.

I also remember it was take it or leave it. Nooone gave a shit if you didn't like what was offered. Someone would eat it and you wouldn't be offered an alternative. Food 'needs' certainly not pandered to.

No pasta, pizza or takeaways.

Lots of meat/fish and two veg and stewed fruit for pudding, with custard. Apples, plums and rhubarb. Come to think of it we had a lot of pies.

My school lunch for five years was a cheese, ham or shrimp paste sandwich and an apple. I remember being very hungry on the way home from school and the pork chops, boiled potatoes and cabbage or Carrots was not very appetising.

We rarely had cakes but my mother would bake once a week on a Saturday. All gone by Sunday. My grandparents would sometimes bring a shop bought cake but there was 10 kids so a small slice each!

I love this thread. I was born in 1978, a lot of this feels very familiar. Definitely smaller portions, I was 7 and half stone until my 20s.

That's the biggest change, I think. At home, at friends' houses, at school, you ate what was put down to you. No choice.

We didn't have a car in the 70s and this was less unusual than it is now (outside London). It was also rare for households to have more than one car - I remember being hugely impressed by a schoolfriend's mum having her own car, and that was in the mid-80s.

Oh gosh yes this! In the 90s, my mum
horrified at the thought of walking down the street eating a pastry. Not the ‘done thing’

Unscientifically, I was watching a Youtube clip about the 1976 summer drought, the film clip included lots of street scenes with shoppers. The number of people in the film I categorised as chubby were around 10%, the number of people who were obsese (a round shape) about 2%.

I was a teen at the time and also wondering why we were thinner. Here are my thoughts.

1. We didn't eat in the streets, it was still considered uncouth to eat and walk and you would get disapproving looks from the grown-ups. Our eating was structured around the 3-4 mealtimes a day (the 4th being a tea type snack coming in from school). Just to emphasise how little people ate on the streets was indicated by the size of the litter bins at the time, these were small and more intended for cigarette packets.

1. There was less opportunity to buy and eat food on the go outside of meal times. Filling stations just sold petrol and possibly some travel sweets (invariably barley sugar or mints). Supermarkets didn't sell sandwiches or ready to eat snacks, there were no food items at the till. I can't really remember supermarkets selling many sweets. Other than Wimpy there were no fast food shops, just cafes. Classing the Wimpy as fast food is a misnomer as they were table service only and not a take-away for the reason given above. Fish and chip shops were only open at meal times and they didn't ask "open or wrapped", it was always wrapped.

1. School lunches were substantial and cooked on site. You may not have liked them (I never had a problem with them) but in the '70's there was no choice of meal and you ate what you were given. Meals were portioned out and our expectation of what was a reasonable size was far less than now. You sat down to eat your lunch using a knife and fork and the pace of eating was set by the dinner ladies (invariably ladies), it was 15-20 minutes after the main course before the pudding was served. Lunch took 30-40 minutes, slower eating. The only drink available was water.

Sitting down to eat, a more conscious and slower eating pace, smaller portions with fewer snacks and lower calorie drinks kept people a normal weight.

Also I think there was more meal planning, I remember my parents did one big shop each week and that was it. There were no top up shops or running out of things that I noticed, although we did have a milkman.

I'm 66.. l also watched The Cure.
One of my all time favourite groups.
So grew up with them.
I was a teenager in the 70s.. myself and friends were all very slim as were my siblings.
Remember we were not sat at home on devices.. we were out all the time.. going swimming.. to the youth clubs dancing or walking to town and back.
For breakfast I'd have a slice of toast.
Lunch would be a sandwich or salad in the summer.
My Mum baked so we would have a bun of some sort.
But our tea.. would be a roast chicken and vegetables.. or cottage pie and vegetables... or home made steak pie and vegetables.
We didn't have pasta/ curries etc.
We we very much more active.
I was a big biker and rode all over Europe.
We went to discos dancing.
We walked to school.

absolutely the same with my dm
as well as smoking outside

Definitely out of the house as much as possible. There were 10 kids in a small 3 bed semi so no room for everyone in at the same time

Individual pots of fruit yogurt were available, but as I recall even the sweetened yogurt was sour and not very nice in comparison with the stuff you get today. I have memories of glaring into a tub of nasty orange gloop that never seemed to get any emptier and steeling myself to swallow another spoonful.

Supermousses from the frozen food shop were a revelation, and possibly only a single mouthful in size.

I come from a family of very skinny people - we always used to say “we can eat anything and we never put on weight.” But actually looking back, we didn’t eat all that much and that was probably why we’re skinny.No snack bars, but we were allowed a Mars Bar for pudding occasionally. Mum used to think they were healthy.

Our tea was things like braising steak and potatoes. Mince and potatoes. We always had a Sunday roast, usually chicken. I famously did not like vegetables so never had any until I was about 30. I did like fruit though, so that’s how I probably didn’t get scurvy.

We also ate a shed load of crisps though. So not all junk-free in our house.

We ate less, we moved more.

I was born in 64. Throughout the 70s we played outside, all the time, we rode bikes, roller skated, swam, went to Brownies/Guides. Having to stay in and 'not being allowed out to play', was the dreaded punishment when we misbehaved.

I had Ricicles for breakfast, a third of a bottle of milk mid morning, a school lunch and an evening meal. Once a week on a Friday we had a packet of crisps and a glass of pop, that was the day the Corona van came round. We walked or rode our bikes to school, the bike shed was heaving. We got 5p to spend on penny sweets every Saturday.

In the 80s, I rode my bike to work, loads of us did. We met our pals in town every Saturday and again walked everywhere, we also went to weekly Jazzercise.

I get times have changed, some of it certainly for the better. But snacking and portion sizes have greatly increased - you would not have seen the baby food aisle crammed full of 'baby wotsits' in 1974. Wains can't manage the journey home from school (or a short trip out somewhere) these days without a snack, people seem almost scared to let their kids feel a bit hungry.

I think firstly we walked more, one car family so you had to get yourself on foot most of the time. We also ate a lot of meat and two veg type meals but portions were smaller end of, meat portions in particular are bigger. We also only ate out only on very rare occasions - birthday perhaps or at the services, even a drink out was infrequent. We begged for McDonald's which fell on deaf ears because mum preferred to eat with knives and forks!