Is food better or worse than it used to be?

My mother had a repertoire of about ten meals, very carbohydrate-heavy. My father grew most of our fruit and veg. Our meals were nutritious but never changed. Nobody was finicky about food then. Now, in one family, we have vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, carb-free etc.

watermeadow

My mother had a repertoire of about ten meals, very carbohydrate-heavy. My father grew most of our fruit and veg. Our meals were nutritious but never changed. Nobody was finicky about food then. Now, in one family, we have vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, carb-free etc.

We also have gluten free in our family and Kosher, which our family never were, as non practising Jews, but had to be when visited by pursed lips great aunts and uncles.
If someone is coeliac as one if our daughters is, it is an autoimmune disease not a matter of dietary choice.

Sorry about typos my phone is being annoying

Without a doubt worse, stuffed full of cheap stuff to make it appear better thanit is. Animals are bred in ndustrial conditions with no access to grass or the outside and pumped full of antibiotics to protect them form the diseases that go with unnatura conditions, fruit and veg grown in fields and greenhouses dosed with insecicides and herbicides, then processed until it is unrecogniseable. Look at the contents in the average slice loaf. It has chemicals to make it prove faster, denatured roducts to make every loaf identical and then it is steam cooked, the dreaded Chorley Wood process.

Over the last six decades we have gone for uantity not uality and we too as individuals have gone for uantity rathe uality, obesity and all its problems.

I realised this back in the 1970s/80s and began then to buy only organic meat and dairy products where possible. They are more expensive, so I have reduced portion size. But fruit and veg, the best fillers are not expensive unless you go for exotics.

I would like to think that we are more aware of our nutritional needs today.
We can choose to eat healthy whole foods without additives .
Probably 90% of the so called " foods" in our supermarkets didn't exist 50 years ago because they are not real foods at all, just a mix of chemicals added to the cheapest ingredients possible to make them palatable and have us reaching for more at a cheap price.
In my opinion we can pay upfront now for good wholesome real foods and try to stay healthy as we age or pay less for cheaper offerings and probably have poorer health in the longer term but the choice is ours.

Absolute agree with the posts about food provenance. I increasingly like to think of food as medicine, preventative medicine.

keepcalmandcavachon

Absolute agree with the posts about food provenance. I increasingly like to think of food as medicine, preventative medicine.

I agree wholeheartedly

I agree also.
I am a sweet tooth but have stopped using processed sugars, have discovered the joys of buying local honey and not so local Maple syrup. Is not cheap but I don’t use much, just drizzle it over natural yogurt with fruit and have honey in my tea.

Yes, I’ve only just started using maple syrup although the good ones are so expensive. I add it to my chia pudding. I used to have a very limited diet because of IBS but I’ve learned so much from ZOE and other podcasts about what I should be eating and have changed my diet completely. Only trouble is I am finding it very expensive so might buy the ZOE supplement. It is very expensive but probably cheaper than trying to eat my five + a day. I always thought that maple syrup was just ultra processed. I’ve also learned that some things eg apples and carrots are better for you when cooked. Wish I’d had access to so much information when I was younger.

Maple syrup is expensive but you would only probably use a small amount each time. I buy it from Lidl. Have tried more expensive brands but the Lidl one is just just the same but cheaper.

We used to keep poultry and sheep and swap lamb for friends' pork . So now we buy meat, we're still fussy about the quality and provenance ; all British raised. I'd rather eat smaller amounts of high quality meat, than a bigger helping of poor quality but cheaper.

The same for some fruit ; I only buy tasty fresh Scottish strawberries and raspberries, which means we only eat them seasonally. I've no interest in tasteless winter imports.

I grow a lot of vegetables and fruit, and we eat a lot of this home produce fresh and seasonally too; there is nothing like your own baby potatoes, asparagus, runner beans, peas, herbs, strawberries, blue berries,broadbeans picked at their peak, fresh straight from the plant. to the pan or plate. At this end of winter, I still have fresh leeks, kale and herbs in the ground.

We crop so many plums and tomatoes I have to freeze lots ( tomatoes made into sauce then frozen)

I still swap garden produce. now with a generous neighbour who harvests a secret source of wild chanterelles. His wife makes a lot of jam and chutney from our plums ( so I don't have to).

DH has handmade all our breads for the last 50 years; sourdough and yeasts. He also bakes great cakes ( so i don't have to bake. ).

Veg garden has spent winter under a thick mulch of sea weed; new seasons broad beans are 4 leaves high. Potatoes are chitting, just collected a car load of horse manure to compost ; washed the greenhouse and bought new seeds.

New season at the allotment is ready set to go go go

My dad grew loads of fruit and veg in the garden so we always had what was in season.
My job in the summer was to pick raspberries. I used to eat quite a lot while I was picking. Same with peas but I was caught opening the pods once.
Mum used to make delicious pies with all the fruit we had.
I don't think our food was boring.

My other was an absolutely terrible cook so I was one child who actually loved school dinners. I do think we eat more seasonal, locally produced food. The cows that provided milk for our local dairy grazed in the field behind our houses. Dad did grow our vegetables but Mom overcooked things but Dad did cook some lovely hearty stews. We did'nt have a fridge until I was well into my teens so everything was bought and eaten within a couple of days.
Now there is so much over processed food and snacks. A packet of crisps was an absolute luxury to me growing up and Dad used to buy me just 2oz of Dolly fixtures a week. I agree we have much more variety and I love Chinese and Indian food, so tasty. I dont think most of the fruit and vegetables have much taste. Do miss the genuine little Jersey potatoes and a proper Cox apples.

My mother was a great cook of simple food and could make the most boring things delicious. She was also a great baker and almost always had a cake or a traybake tucked away in a tin, even when she was in her 80's. I wouldn't do this myself as I'm overweight and know that I would eat it, but believe that people were probably more frugal and stricter with themselves in the post war period.
I think that we're also so much more conscious of the wide choice of food now, my grandchildren are often asked what they'd like for supper instead of just having a meal put on the table in front of them.
I enjoy cooking but am not at all averse to having a delicious ready meal every now and again, we're having an M&S curry on Valentines day.
I actually love tapioca!

M0nica

Without a doubt worse, stuffed full of cheap stuff to make it appear better thanit is. Animals are bred in ndustrial conditions with no access to grass or the outside and pumped full of antibiotics to protect them form the diseases that go with unnatura conditions, fruit and veg grown in fields and greenhouses dosed with insecicides and herbicides, then processed until it is unrecogniseable. Look at the contents in the average slice loaf. It has chemicals to make it prove faster, denatured roducts to make every loaf identical and then it is steam cooked, the dreaded Chorley Wood process.

Over the last six decades we have gone for uantity not uality and we too as individuals have gone for uantity rathe uality, obesity and all its problems.

I realised this back in the 1970s/80s and began then to buy only organic meat and dairy products where possible. They are more expensive, so I have reduced portion size. But fruit and veg, the best fillers are not expensive unless you go for exotics.

Well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I would rather have less of something good for me than more of something that is manufactured and stuffed with undesirable additives no matter how much cheaper the latter may be

My mum worked full time but produced a home cooked meal for us all every day. Not a bowl of tapioca or overcooked vegetable in sight. Cooking then was a skill in those days just as it is now. Some do it very well and others less so.

Generally speaking I feel the quality of food started declining in the 1970s when we all became so busy, studying and working at the same time, or working and bring up small children, that we stopped buying in small shops and did all our shopping in supermarkets.

No supermarket had the same quality of meat or vegetables as a butcher or greengrocer did. But supermarket food was cheaper and we could do all our shopping in one place.

Then it became fashionable to import out of season fruit and vegetables, as supermarket chains could afford to do so.

Next step: fresh milk was suddenly three or four days old before it reached the shops, and fresh eggs even older - they still are.

So yes, the quality of food has declined.

And then the fact that a lot of people are not cooking from scratch but buying frozen or tinned mass-produced foodstuffs should be taken into considereration.

Now there are no small local shops selling produce from local farms. If you can find "farm produce" or "organically produced" foodstuffs they are more expensive so few of us can actually afford to buy these products often, if at all.

I've not eaten meat for more than forty years. It has become much easier to find meat free food in cafes and restaurants than in the past .

Ultra-processed foods are made as animal foods are now, with cheap fillers and artificial additives so they can claim to be nutritious.
A study found that dogs fed on dried kibble live on average 2 1/2 years less than those on a better diet.

worse, you would think we were italian, its all pastas and pizzas, easy to make i suppose

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Obviously different to where I grew up in the South-West (and still live)

A good roasting cut of Lamb (Leg) has always been the most expensive. Followed by Beef (Sirloin or Rib)

Pork (leg) and Chicken always much much cheaper.
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A week ago a friend introduced me to the App Yuka. It is a free barcode reader which you can download and use on the wrapped food you wish to buy before you put it into your basket. It rates the food from excellent to very poor, and I'm afraid I'm a bit hooked on it now!
Has anyone else used Yuka and, if so, what do you think?

Barbadosbelle I'm showing my age here but the original post was about food I ate in 1940's and 50's when beef and lamb were certainly cheaper and roast chicken was a treat. That was part of what I was saying , food that was cheaper then is now expensive, beef, lamb fresh cod whilst chicken and salmon are now everyday foods.

I think the big change is the massive choice of places to eat out, with a huge growth in pubs selling meals and different types of restaurants than decades ago. Go back to the early eighties in North Shields( birthplace) and eating out was either the fish and chip shop or a Chinese takeaway. Now the town boasts Italian, Indian, Chinese, seafood, American and Mediterranean restaurants, and most of the bigger pubs do meals.