THE 1970’s DIET - sun ch5 9pm

[Blondeshavemorefun]

A social experiment with Josie Gibson

who eats and drinks and exercises in the way they did in 1970’s

what can we learn from their diet

Rice pudding or semolina at school was served with cooked raisins or jam.

This plus we only had pudding once a week if that and it would be on a Sunday. Portions were much smaller - plates were tiny in comparison to the ones we have now

no takeaways except the very very occasional fish & chips, meals out were only on special occasions.

We had pudding every single day at school and most days at home (angel delight, yoghurt, home baked).

My school was over a mile away. We’d walk there and back. The nursery class was half a day so my mum with me at school and nursery class brother would have been doing 6 miles a day minimum. Pre school children walked no buggies for 3 or 4 yr olds.

My mother never forgave the NHS for taking away her Durophet. Her entire identity was being teeny tiny.

My grandmother, an excellent cook, refused to use garlic in her cooking. I think it was still deemed to be a french import and people could tell when others had been eating it (we are mostly garlic nose blind now). She was quite wealthy and would buy canapés from Marks & Spencer for her day time events which involved copious champagne cocktails.
My mother would use taGLiatelle (note the G) potatoes and rice interchangeably. So a little pile of pasta on the side of the plate, alongside the vegetables and meat.
She'd read that salt was bad so didn't use ANY. She didn't buy biscuits.
She did, however, do quite fancy dinner parties and I would eat the desserts for Sunday breakfasts 😋
My grandmother (born 1910) had one fat friend. Her "glands" were always used as the excuse.
That's the only fat person we knew.

I went to the wrong school! 😁

I remember pudding at senior school bug that was in the 80s (and they were generally bloody awful)

i do remember giant curly wurlys and wagon wheels

The blandest thing on the menu

Interested in watching this

My mother would use taGLiatelle (note the G)

Oh god! Are we not supposed to pronounce the G?

No you aren't! gl in Italian is pronounced like ly in English. But only if followed by the letter "i".

I have set this to record so I can fast forward through the adverts

Just in after being out for the day so will start watching now

Eating out was definitely a rare treat. The first time I remember going any where other than a sit down fish and chips on holiday was when dad got a big promotion. I was 15 or 16 we went to a show in the west end and Topo Gigio an Italian restaurant .

I love fried eggs on toast

With wee bit salt n runny yolk😋

Oh yes. Def need a runny yolk

£3.85 for one loaf of white bread 🙀🙀🙀

The liver looks rank 😂

I was born in 1963, so I was a child/teenager in the 70s.

My home diet was pretty dire, home cooked most of the time, but cooked very plainly, vegetables boiled to within an inch of their lives, meat with no seasonings except bisto or an oxo cube. Liver once a week, boiled fish once a week, mince as a cottage pie or mince and onion pie, leftover roast meat as a very bland curry or cold with a salad, sausage and mash, egg and chips. Never had chicken.

We had a roast on Sunday, overcooked beef, nice roasties and yorkshires though. The oven only really went on once a week on Sundays for the roast, so a sponge cake or some buns would be made then as well, to last the whole week.

Maybe twice a year we'd get fish and chips. Now and again we'd have fish fingers, or Findus crispy pancakes, which I loved. Puddings were non existent except an apple pie on sunday, which was spoiled by putting cloves in it.

I think people were thinner in the 70s because very often the food was just fuel, it wasn't nice to eat, there wasn't much incentive to overeat.

Edited to add I loved the school dinners, ate every scrap, even the ones other kids grumped about. So I think my home food was particularly bad

I was at secondary school 1972-1979 & loathed the school dinners we had there:
spam fritters
curried eggs
rock hard pigs’ liver in gravy
spam fritters (at least twice a week)
Eventually, when I was in the 4th year (yr10), Mum relented & let me take packed lunches: 1 round white bread sandwich, with the same filling for days on end, usually pâté. 1 apple (we had an apple tree in the garden), 1 Penguin, Tupperware beaker of weak fruit squash.
I preferred our evening dinners at home:
spaghetti bolognaise
sweet & sour pork chops
mince & mashed potatoes
jacket potatoes
casseroles like cow au vin & boeuf bourguignon
Mum also made a nice Black Forest gâteau, although the sponge was made with Betty Crocker’s devils food cake mix.

In 70s other kids had Wagon Wheels say on school trips, we had Jacob’s Club bars. We had pink wafer biscuits at an elderly neighbours house and sandwich paste in sandwiches at parties. Angel delight was for friends houses not ours.

My mum did cook Italian food (spag Bol) and my nana liked very hot curries when they ate out, French bread and croissants was when we visited France. Stepdad liked Chinese restaurants and their food.

Our school dinners in the 70s were lovely. Cheese and potato pie with baked beans.
Meat and potato pie (lovely pastry!)
beef stew with dumplings.
Fish, chips, and mushy peas on Friday.
And the puddings were great! My favourite was syrup sponge and custard.

I loved school dinners. i couldn't understand why other people complained about them.. they had mothers who could cook!

@MissyB1I would have loved those school dinners!