Is food better or worse than it used to be?

Sorry about typos my phone is being annoying

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.

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.

Far more variety, far more fresh food, and none of the vegetables we bought from the market because they were cheaper but turned out to be nothing like the beautiful food on display. But to be fairI am not so driven by price as I was when feeding a family.

Oreo

But you need to remember that many of us had Mums who were/are good cooks, I don’t think we ever had overboiled veg or tapioca, just good wholesome home cooking.

My mum cooked everything from scratch, She had a large family to feed and she was excellent at budgeting in order to keep us fed.

She made wonderful cakes and pastries by hand- no mixers then- but she was a terrible cook and would be the first to admit it.

Sometimes the food she put on the table was almost inedible, especially cheap cuts of meat that were nothing but fat.

We ate it because there was nothing else.

I remember my mum keeping a chip pan full of lard on the cooker top and straining the fat through a stocking to remove detritus from making chips. We had chips several times a week, with spam, corned beef, or tongue and tinned peas. Not great.
And everything had awful marg on it, not butter. During the week we would have porridge for breakfast, not bad, but at weekend we had bacon, fried bread done in the bacon fat and fried eggs with black pudding and fried toms. Real artery blockers.
My dad died suddenly of a heart attack before he even retired. Many did back then. Unsurprisingly.

My Mum cooked everything from scratch. She shopped every day as we did not have a fridge or freezer. Many young Mums these days want something quick meaning ready meals and ultra processed food which can be quickly cooked in a microwave or air fryer. In that respect, fast food is not good for us but for those who cook from scratch, labelling gives us the information to make good food choices for nutritious meals.

There’s infinitely more choice, but everyone can be selective. However for many people cost is an issue, and some meat/produce from abroad is cheaper.

I try to buy largely home grown, seasonal vegetables, and won’t ever buy any European ham or pork, because of the factory-farming issue.

I will only buy strawberries during the U.K. growing season, which is a lot longer than it used to be. I go to a different shops (M &S) from my usual supermarket to find UK. apples out of season, and U.K. grown mushrooms year round.

I will however admit to buying packs of ready sliced mango fairly often nowadays. 😋

Our strawberries and raspberries are mostly tasteless. Last time I was in the UK ( the last now ) they tasted wonderful, much nicer and full of flavour. Our mangos are good ,though!

NotSpaghetti

Well farmed salmon is nothing like wild.. that's for sure.
And seasonal soft fruits, Scottish raspberries spring to mind.

Yesterday however I had an apple that tasted like the apples of my childhood. It was the most appley apple I've had for ages - and it was a newer variety. I can't remember what it was but will ask my husband later. It was really delicious. Fragrant, on the slightly tart side... what a delight!

Please ask your husband. Here in Scotland I can't buy a decent tasting apple. Even when I found some Coxes in Morrisons they were not nice.

There is a huge move away from ultra processed food at the moment and I hope it continues. I don’t think it’s just me that’s reading the labels of everything I buy now. And my instagram and Facebook pages are full of easy healthy recipes. It all seems to be filtering through to the supermarkets, too, who are promoting healthier food.

My food is better because I am a decent cook, I can afford to buy organic things and because I can use herbs & spices. My mother never used any but if forced, a tiny tiny pinch of ground white pepper from a jar that was about 50 years old.

My mother was a good cook and never served an over boiled vegetable in her life. She bought the best meat she could afford and cooked it well, we had melon and/or grapes for treats! She made her own pastry and baked. But I enjoy the variety we have today to an extent, not strawberries in winter. We’re lucky we live near a PYO farm, an honesty box for free range eggs and a young couple who sell their own reared venison, buffalo, pork and chickens. Maybe I’m just fortunate that these things are easily accessible but surely big cities also have plenty of organic, non UPF available? We don’t have to stick to the big supermarkets.

Vegetables ‘boiled into submission’ - 😂

Much better food now, much more choice and much fresher than it used to be. People won’t accept anything less now. We used to get rotten potatoes and mouldy fruit when I was young , the refrigeration wasn’t so good. However, it is much more expensive.

foxie48 I think on the whole you are agreeing with me. Your food seems to be mostly seasonal and locally sourced no Chinese chicken nuggets or mass produced foreign pork here. Dreadful childhood food might have more to do with cooking ability than ingredients. I remember my childhood food as plain but delicious.
I think we should be more like the French. Go in any French supermarket and you will find about 90% of the food on offer is french. Even when we were in the EU you would have to look long and hard for UK produce. Why do we not support our farmers like that.
As for buying organic I can't see any benefit in buying green beans or strawberries in February that are grown in Egypt or Israel and flown into this country.

Thankfully the days of vegetables boiled into submission and chewy meat are over.
I think we have become better and more adventurous cooks.
A good greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger are essential.
I’m don’t buy strawberries in winter and I don’t make old school puddings in summer
We eat seasonally.

My food is most definitely much better. I buy fruit and veg seasonally as much as I can, we have a PYO locally that grows soft and various tree fruits and I also grow my own in the summer. I buy my meat from local producers but get given venison, lamb and pheasant in exchange for the use of our grazing. We don't have hens but many of my friends do so we also get free range eggs which tbh are completely different to shop bought ones. It's one of the many benefits that I love of living rurally. Food in my childhood was generally pretty dreadful as well as predictable, I knew what day of the week it was by what the family was eating! However, everything was cooked from scratch, no ready meals and nothing stuffed with additives so definitely more healthy than some of the rubbish people consume these days. An occasional snack was a bag of Smith's crisps with a little packet of salt and we only had wine on the table at Christmas.

(Re forcing )

Unless it's celery or rhubarb lixy

We try to eat with the seasons in mind and grow our own soft fruit. I would prefer to pay a fair price for well-produced food rather than cheap forced food.

I think we are very fortunate to have such a choice of foods and cooking styles.
Whatever we eat it is important I think to treat food with respect and to waste as little as possible.

Well farmed salmon is nothing like wild.. that's for sure.
And seasonal soft fruits, Scottish raspberries spring to mind.

Yesterday however I had an apple that tasted like the apples of my childhood. It was the most appley apple I've had for ages - and it was a newer variety. I can't remember what it was but will ask my husband later. It was really delicious. Fragrant, on the slightly tart side... what a delight!

I think it depends entirely on what you choose to eat. It’s possible to eat organically, grow your own, eat little meat, little sugar etc. it’s just not what most people choose to do, and more unhealthy choices are available.

I think very much that food is we used to know it has been largely replaced with other nefarious things! Take a look along the never ending aisles of cereal or ready meals in supermarkets for example.
One of the joys in life is awaiting all of the seasonal treats, strawberries & plums, squashes, new pots and regional cheeses. I also believe UPFs and addictive sugary flavourings have killed off some folk's taste buds and they just don't taste the joy anymore in unadulterated foods
Give all little kiddies a pot of toms to nurture, a few mixed salad leaves to grow and get 'em excited about real food

But you need to remember that many of us had Mums who were/are good cooks, I don’t think we ever had overboiled veg or tapioca, just good wholesome home cooking.