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?

There was no shortage of food for me growing up- we had a pantry full of packets of random things. An average day would be weetabix and full fat milk, a sandwich made of two slices of bread and some peanut butter, a yogurt and a two bar mitkamt. For dinner it might ne some sort of lie with lots of potatoes and some green veg. And always a pudding, usually milky like semolina or custard with prunes. Because there was some sort of belief that children must have milk.

And we walked much more- I only walked about a mile to school but I know people who live where I grew up up and they wouldn't dream of letting their secondary school DC make their own way to school. NOBODY was dropped off or picked up by their parents - it was bus if you were from the villages or walk/bike if you were from town.

Cheap biscuits were the only snack. Watching a film with popcorn and snacks was something people did in the USA.

Just remembered re never eating out, I did go to a wimpy a few times in the early 70's because a friend's mum got luncheon vouchers (she was the only mum who worked) and she took us. It was very exciting.

@NCmybloodyfather
There was a lot of ratatouille and goulash, as I recall.

I'd never heard of those things when I was a child. Occasionally we'd have a tin of Heinz spaghetti bolognaise and my dad had a vesta curry but that was all the foreign food we ate.

@OnlyFrench Yes! Always with a dollop of natural yoghurt.

Family of hippies, and mostly vegetarian...

Yes. I still would never walk down the street eating something. I don't do takeaway coffees, either, for the same reason.

We had very small portions in my house. Two chicken breasts would feed four people. My mother's idea of a glamorous tea was one vol au vent with a spoonful of tinned tuna in it, with a drizzle of parsley sauce. You might get a quarter of a boiled potato with it (not a 'new potato', a standard main crop potato from the sack in the garage, peeled then boiled) and a few peas.

We were always on the go (except when lolling about reading and eating our 'weekend sweets' - a quarter of boiled tooth-cracking sweets from a jar in the sweet shop). We walked everywhere or caught the bus. Food was more expensive and we would never get free access to the biscuit tin. Cakes were home made (shop bought was frowned upon on our house, except, mysteriously, for M&S Madeira cake). If you stopped somewhere for coffee, that's what you'd have - a small cup of coffee, not four gallons of milky stuff with a slice of cake the size of a family car. If you had something to eat with your tea or coffee when out, it was a scone (one pat of butter), a toasted teacake or a doughnut (a rare treat). If we stopped for this when out shopping, that was considered sufficient to do as lunch.

I am very fat - I think I still see all food as a massive treat because I never felt like I had enough of it as a child.

I remember pretty much exactly what we had every week. We had the same thing on each day of the week! Mince, mash and vegetables, Roast chicken dinner, next day cold chicken and mash and vegetables again, spaghetti bolognese (my favourite!) and on Thursdays we went to the fish and chip shop! One day we were quite busy and only had snacky things, like Toast Topper on toast. I remember having Ready Break for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. I think I had crisps every day and some kind of chocolate biscuit, like a Breakaway. Other than the chip shop, we didn't go to other takeaways or eat out. There wasn't a McDonalds in the town until I was 12 or 13.

@NCmybloodyfather yoghurt was very much for posh people- I remember being in awe of the Ski ads on TV and how much you'd achieve if you ate it! Later, Tampax had the same effects.

Wow! We were certainly not posh but my parents were vegetarians and quite arty, so maybe that's why.
There was also a lot of angel delight etc...

Toast butter and Jam for breakfast
Sometimes some orange juice mixed from a packet if we were lucky
Tea

Lunch was white bread cheese and pickle sandwiches
Or tinned soup and bread

Tea was meat and two veg or a casserole or similar

Minimal snacks
Minimal fizzy drinks and sweets

@NCmybloodyfather strangely, we were pretty solidly middle class (private schools, two cars, acceptable part of town etc) but food was the thing that gave away my mother's childhood poverty.

Just read on here that folk think there wasn't much by way of UPFs or other processed food. Not sure that's right. We had meat paste sandwiches on white supermarket bread, Breakaways, those stacks of frozen mousses in little tubs that you had to defrost,Smash, Vesta meals, Angel Delight, oddly gristly frozen burgers, Findus crispy pancakes, Frazzles. There was a lot of stuff about that I wouldn't feed to my children today.

I remember my DM would make all the party food for my birthday parties. Sausage rolls, sort of cheese stick things, sandwiches, cup cakes with pink icing for me and blue for my DB, a big cake and then we’d have jelly and ice cream.

We were not posh at all but had Ski yogurts all the time.

Was it?! We used to have Ski yoghurt fairly regularly - my sister and I would get the black cherry one and my mum would stir in some sugar to sweeten it! We weren’t posh.

Addlestone is definitely doable!

Yay 😃

I was born in 1973 but in Australia. Both my parents were terrific cooks. My dad had a Russian Italian background and made borscht and homemade polenta gnocchi and Polpete soup and homemade everything. My mother had a Scottish background and made mince and tatties and haggis and we lived next door to a Greek family so she learned to make spanakopita and proper taramasalata and calamari.

It has to be said we were all fat. We are all circa Five foot 2 and dumpy.

The thing with yoghurt was that it wasn’t part of the U.K. diet until about the 60s or 70s. It was very common in Scandinavian countries. There was a report that people in Scandinavian countries were healthier and living longer than people in the U.K. It was also noticed that they ate this odd stuff called yoghurt. So in the minds of many people yoghurt was healthy and would make them live longer.

I also would like to stand up against the idea that there were no fussy eaters. My best friend, who we would now recognise as autistic, would eat nothing but cereal for breakfast and, fishfingers, chips and peas for dinner. This was the late 70s early 80s.

Oh there definitely were fussy eaters! My mother in law just turned 80 and she describes being a VERY fussy eater. Her mum had to cook select foods only.
Fussy eating was not tolerated by by own mum but my brother's friend (mid 70s) was really fussy. I remember my mum moaning about him not touching a thing in our house

Oh yy to this! 70s part food was brilliant - and it was always at someone's house after party games like musical bumps and pass the parcel. Parties were very low key compared to the madness of today.

I agree.

I think the crucial thing in terms of weight is how much people ate rather than what they ate.

And in terms of exercise, I think constant movement and walking probably made more of a contribution than a workout session in a gym that we have today.

Child of the sixties here. We had plenty of food, and puddings every day, apple pie and custard, that sort of thing. My mother baked a lot of cakes too.

We were all skinny though as we ran around outdoors most of the time - Lego or whatever was for rainy days - and snacks were not a thing. We would go hours without food between meals.

As others have said, eating on the go was considered common. I was about 45 before I persuaded my mother, on a trip to the coast, that it was acceptable to eat chips sitting on a bench on the promenade. She still felt uneasy as someone she knew might see.

The "fat" boy in my junior school class was the one who did not have visibly sticking out ribs.

Nowadays I see people snacking endlessly, shops piled up with junk food and people seemingly welded to their take away coffees and think we had it so much better.

There was no nice bread and the supermarket didn't have anything aimed at kids except sugary cereals. Portion sizes were smaller, veg was overcooked. Ingredients were limited and loads of people couldn't cook. More manual labour, less driving.

We ate pretty well but I always had seconds (sometimes thirds) for school dinner and then mum did a dinner at home! By 14 I( was already dieting (Ryvita, no sugar in tea or coffee, Limmits slimming biscuits) anyone remember them?Eating Grapefruit....

Stews, lots of stews done in a very dangerous prone to explosion pressure cooker
A huge sack of spuds from the farm was the centre of meal planning ie stews, spud pie etc
Meat mainly mince, sausages occasionally braising steak, roast on Sunday usually chicken
We ate a lot of mash and colcannon
Sweet things usually at weekends so Friday night sweets on Sunday home made cake or apple pie