To not understand why the 70s were so much healthier considering the crap we ate?

[Destinysdaughter]

I'm currently reading the thread about what was considered normal in the past, cooking with dripping, jam sandwiches etc and am curious as to why obesity was so rare in comparison to now where it's virtually an epidemic?

Quote from Dave Allen from his 1979 Christmas special where he talks about how the way ppl view food is changing. And how people worry about cholestorol and fat.

" I honestly believe that in years to come we will actually have health warnings on food"

Also, there is a lot more sugar in coke etc now. Can't remember exact amounts but there was a study done and it compared the sugar content, almost twice the amount now.

Also, there is a lot more sugar in coke etc now. Can't remember exact amounts but there was a study done and it compared the sugar content, almost twice the amount now.

Coke and fizzy drinks were an expensive treat. Having said that, we had a soda stream so could make our own which was probably just as high in sugar.

Marynary we can only comment on our own experiences/observations though. Happens all the time on mn.

I think that people are likely to have a wider view on what happens nowadays though due to the media and the fact that they are adults. Most people on here were children or not even born in the 70s and therefore unlikely to know how everybody lived at that time especially as people have a tendency to view the past with rose-tinted spectacles.

Get what you're saying but people still tend to post rather subjectively.

Coke and fizzy drinks were an expensive treat
Thats true. What really irks me is that the local supermarket you can easily get 3 huge bottles of coke for less than a litre of milk. but thats another discussion I guess . . .

Oops should read ' . . . local supermarket today . . .'
Not sure how expensive milk was in the 70's? I'm guessing cheaper than today?

Also, there is a lot more sugar in coke etc now. Can't remember exact amounts but there was a study done and it compared the sugar content, almost twice the amount now

I highly doubt there is twice as much sugar in Coke as there was in the 1970's. For one thing they don't vastly change the recipe like that, and more importantly, the trend has been for reducing sugar in everything for many years (and salt, and additives etc). AND the cost of sugar has been rising for years and Coca-Cola are not in the business of making their products much more expensive to make for absolutely no reason.

So I call bull hockey on that one.

I am a child of the 70s:

1. no take aways, ready meals, eating out was for birthdays.
2. portion sizes, a packet of jelly/angel delight served all 5 of us, and now it would serve 2
3. people took their home made packed lunches to work, or else ate in the work canteen and then not again at night
4. sweets - we took our 10 p pocket money to the corner shop and bought a comic and packet of sweets, that was it for the week.
5. fizzy drinks/fruit juice/ etc - non of that. Occasionally a bottle of fizzy as a treat eg for birthdays. Every day drinks were water, weak squash and milk

6.no TV. - kids hour and that was it, so you went and played. No video games and screens

1. veyr few snacks. We had something when we came in from school, maybe a slice of cake, but that was it, we never had a morning snack (maybe grabbed an apple if hungry) and never snacked through the rest of the day. Adults didn't sit and eat bars of choc and crisps etc in the evening either.
2. far fewer cars, so lot sof walking a biking.

The increase is due to the use of high fructose corn syrup. This stuff started being pumped into food in the early 1970's. There was a series on BBC2 a few years ago called the "the men who made us fat", one of ten episodes was about this stuff (the series is worth a view). IIRC this stuff is effectively a waste product, farmers starting lobbying the US govt to use it as a food additive and so it was. It isn't banned in the EU it's just labelled as glucose-fructose. It's cheaper than sugar and there have been a number of studies done that suggest it has contributed to the overall rise in obesity.

Not ten episodes, the episodes!

someone up thread amde a point about car accidents and the number of fatalities reducing.
Rear seat belts didn't exists, and many people didn't have them working int he front either.
My parents were unusual in that they always wore their front seat belts and insisted we did when riding in the front.
My Granny's car was tiny and I always sat in the front. She never wore a seat belt and I couldn't because the front passenger belt was broken.
Pre seat belt laws.

I also very much doubt that food is higher in salt and sugar than it used to be. Manufacturers have been under a lot of pressure to lower these and it is one of the reasons that many things e.g. tomato ketchup now have to go in the fridge whereas they used to be fine in the cupboard for years.

Convenience good is hugely higher in salt and sugar than home made.

I don't remember the 70s being that much healthier than now tbh.

Both my paternal GPs died in that decade, of heart attacks. Both were in their 50s.

My great aunt suffered horribly with gout. My maternal GM was obese and had type 2 diabetes.

My mum was helped to lose weight after the birth of my brother in 1972 by being prescribed amphetamines!

Such halcyon days...

Not sure how expensive milk was in the 70's? I'm guessing cheaper than today?

I don't know the answer to that. I think it's possible it was subsidised in the 1970s. Dairy farmers are struggling now because the milk processing plants and supermarkets have them over a barrel. The farmers should be able to charge the costs of production plus a modest profit on top, enough to live on and put a bit aside for investment in the business/rainy day fund. All too often though, they barely get paid the cost price, and lots of them are going out of business. But back in the 70s there was a Milk Marketing Board which bought all the milk at an agreed price and I think the price to the consumer was controlled as well. All that went west under the Tories in the 80s and early 90s.

The increase is due to the use of high fructose corn syrup. This stuff started being pumped into food in the early 1970's

in the US, yes. Not in the UK.

Convenience good is hugely higher in salt and sugar than home made

Yes, but that was true in the 70's too, and convenience food now has less sugar and salt than it did in the 70's. McDonalds for instance, far far lower is salt, sugar, additives than it used to be. Chicken is 100% breast now instead of reformed meat, beef is traceable to farm. Standards are higher.

Bigger problem now is trans-fats, modified foods and portion sizes.

Convenience good is hugely higher in salt and sugar than home made.

Obviously I meant convenience food now versus convenience food then (people ate plenty of it in the 1970s before you start arguing that everything was homemade. Even potatoes and veg often came out of a tin with salt added).

You still have it the wrong way around then. Convenience food THEN was much higher is salt and sugar than now. Tinned veg now rarely comes packed with salt and sugar the way it used to. Everywhere there are reduced salt versions of sauces, beans, you name it. Reduced sugar versions too.

You have it backwards.

but user, we never ate convenience food in 1970s

Really, it just didn't exist in the same way. Most people ate meat and 2 veg cooked at home, or chips from the chippy. The huge range of ready made foods available today is new.
Big supermarkets didn't exist either, they were smaller, and in our local Sainsburies you queued at the meat counter, then the veg counter, then the cheese counter etc.

so in 1970 there was no, or very few, or not readily available, or not eaten regularly:
pasta as a regular daily food (apart from tinned spaghetti)
pasta sauces
cook in sauces
ready made pizzas
ready made microwaveable meals (no microwaves)
MacDonalds/Burger King etc
ready made treats like samosa, onion bargies, chicken nuggets

pretty much the limit to ready made was
baked beans/tinned spaghetti
tinned chicken/meat pie filling
spam
fish fingers

It is hard for anyone raised post late 1980s to realise how much we eat today wasn't there, or was too expensive

Because now we're living in a cruel end of capitalism hell with social spending slashed, more pollution, social ills and distress. There's more injustice, inequality and endless war. We can either tip into medieval serfdom again or have a socialist revolution. So there. And stick yer trans fats.

fair enough we had tinned veg, and it was higher in salt. But I still think compared to the shear volume of processed food that most people eat today, we ate very little processed stuff.

Yea I have to say we mostly had fresh veg rarely tinned as that was expensive and that was the same for most of my friends too. Dad even grew some.

but user, we never ate convenience food in 1970s

YOU might not have done, but there was a fair bit of it around. We ate a lot of tinned food, frozen food, cheap crap. We rarely had fresh veg, very limited fruit, we had poor quality meat like sausages and rissoles and reformed lamb grills or turkey dinosaurs.
We couldn't afford good meat or veg. There was convenience food and it was uniformly awful.

I was born in the 50's and brought my children up in the 1970's.

When I look back I realise how much energy we expended... as a child I walked to and from school over 2 miles each way and carried a large bag loaded with books. In the evenings we went outside to play - we called round for each other and played till dark. During school holidays we played outside every day and cycled off miles from home. We certainly learned to be self-reliant! All very Famous Five!

Food-wise I cooked from scratch - there simply wasn't the range of pre-prepared foods available. We didn't snack or eat out a lot either.

I don't know if its just good genes but I've stayed very fit and, other than breaking bones riding and ski-ing, am extremely healthy... touch wood! I don't go to the gym I just seem to have retained a natural fitness - perhaps due to early exercise? I have put on weight (menopause) but am still a size 12 - I used to be size 6-8.