Interesting story in the news today

I have never eaten avocado, lasagne or KFC!

Maybe it’s because the over 60s have more sense and are not interested in faddy foods!.


Dr Carrie Ruxton

Lies, damned lies and statistics?

Elegran I was just about to make the same point as you (tried, have not tried) when I scrolled up and saw your analysis.

There is one thing this list does show is that the millenials who wrote up this survey for the Daily Mirror, really do not understand statistics. Otherwise they would have stuck to 25 foods over 60s haven't eaten (roughly where the 50/50 divide is). Going beyond that just illustrates their statistical incomprehension.

By the way, we are given the name of the company that did the survey, but we aren't told why they did the survey. If we knew who had commissioned it and why, or how they selected those in the sample, we would have a much better 'feel' for this survey.

Sample size is immaterial, it is the sampling frame that matters.

I've tried most of these foods. I have porridge, blueberries with linseed most mornings. I love, aubergine, asparagus. I follow mainly a plant-based diet (I've never liked meat) and rarely have 'traditional' food. I often make kale 'crisps' and have loads of spinach in my fridge. I'd eat avocados every day if they weren't so fattening. Every Christmas we decide what theme this year. It's only since my children are adults and married that they ask for more traditional food!

We regularly ea all but the first 3.
I especially like couscous - in summer (wish it was here) I make a salad with it, with various additions of other "obscure" foods.

I smile at the statement that the list is of "Top 50 'unusual' foods over-60s haven't tried - and some of them are staples for millennials"

Most of them are not in fact unusual. Then there is the definition of what is a "staple". Usually defined as one of the main ingredients in a diet - so is it OK to have as a main ingredient a food which is either :-

1) absolutely essential to the nutrition of the population where it is produced (so you could be driving up the price, or depriving them of it completely)

or 2) very expensive (so to eat a lot of it you must one of the country's top earners.

Nice work if you can get it, but not essential to the sustenance of first-world life.

The Chilean Blueberry Committee?

That really is a horribly patronising article. I wonder how many millennials have eaten tripe, pigs trotters, brawn, turnips, tapioca etc. They were things my grandfather ate regularly!

Only the top four items on the list remain untried by me, but as for the rest - they're all regulars in my fridge or store cupboard. To be honest I'm more than a little sceptical about this list - my grandmother used to eat many of these foods!

Farming people regard the big orange swedes as animal food. Early English visitors to Scotland were amazed at the Scots eating, oats and barley for the same reason.

Further afield, various peculiar bits of animal carcasses are seen in some cultures as delicacies, but foodies here would be horrified to find them on their plate.

Do the people who eat quinoa and cous cous know that it is basically wheat. Porridge is oats and then there is rice and potatoes. There you have the main staples that humans live on nowadays.
A lot of obesity is caused by eating wheat especially combined with yeast and their health would improve if they gave it up for a while and tried rye or buckwheat.

We over 60s are obviously a mystery to the under 60s. Can they do maths? Don't they know there was a war and a rationing after the war. How on earth did they think we managed without porridge. Since then we got to know Italian and Indian food and different ways of cooking and produced meals for a family out of almost nothing.

Don’t they know that what they think of are super foods are super for the bank balances of the firms that produce them and that carrots would be healthier.

My dad grew up in the country. When humans began eating sweetcorn he was horrified. He said it was chicken food!

It's just obnoxious, London centric, lazy, so called 'journalists' having a cynical little smirk at the ignorant oi polloi i.e. us and trying to show clever and on it they are. If you're at all into food all the items on the list will be familiar. Whether they are pleasant (matcha tea...hmm) is a different thing but a matter of choice not ignorance.

This is non story , must be short on news to put in the paper. There are a greater variety of foods available now than when we were growing up, so my GC love stuff like sushi and hummus which were unheard of when I was a child. I have eaten most of the foods on that list btw.

I doubt if many younger people have tasted all these items, still less eaten them. Trendy young media types working for the newspaper, who drew up this list may have, but there is a significant proportion of that age group who live on fast food, remember all that fuss last week when a lot of KFC.s closed down for a few days. Will this group in the population really be familiar with wheatgrass, chia seeds and matcha?

I admit the top 5 are not on my supermarket shopping list, but looking at the other 50. 16 of the items I remember from childhood and I have tasted them all more than once. Another 12 I have been buying since the 1970s and there are 2 I will never ever taste, and it is nothing to do with age. I loathe milk and anything milk like, so I will never ever order or drink a latte, Americano every time for me, nor will I ever want to try a milk alternative. I would rather live without it.

Most of the list we have all eaten. Some on the list are not pleasant to taste, some people like green tea however some of us find it horrid, would prefer pearl barley to couscous or quinoa, barley is more versatile even as a delicious pudding with cardamom to flavour. In Africa when you had your avocado tree you even could make a dessert from it. I think certain researchers must chose the most vacant people they can find. Does anyone else remember the researchers offering slices of fresh pineapple to people who denied eating or even knowing what it was. A few weeks ago The Metro had some research that said children did not know the difference between an apple and a mango, tried the same list out in two grandchildren, yes they did know them all. What a load of tosh. Being adventurous does not just apply to cars, holidays, clothes or often age, something to do with inclination too.

Eaten nearly all regularly. Except avocado on toast - why spoil a good avocado???
Matcha, chia and spirulina smack of "trendy", and quite frankly, I can't be bothered with them - as for cronuts, i like neither doughnut nor croissant particularly. I can't see myself enjoying the mixture!What about Wheatgrass which was the food of the year recently?
Salmon? Wasn't tinned salmon a staple after the war? Fresh salmon is recent.
Yes, I do have a good diet, yes we eat at least "8-a-day", yes, I cook almost everything from scratch. Why do they assume that us oldies [and wiser IMHO] are stuck-in-the-mud just because we don't live in London and are over 13?

Oh yes, and we eat salmon once or twice a week (we don’t eat meat).

Hubby and I have Spirulina. It’s ideal for those of us getting older. There is good evidence that it reinforces the immune system, some evidence that it helps fight cancer. It is high in Iron and the vitamin K group.

Yes, only two on that list I haven’t ‘tried’ but lots of unusual foods I have eaten which don’t appear on the list at all.

Saw a TV programme where they tested "superfoods" and most of them were no better for you than cheaper substitutes.E.g.,pearl barley was just as good as quinoa and I've always used pearl barley in my stews/casseroles.My mom and gran loved salmon,I can't eat fish due to allergy.I love blueberries-my gran used to gather and eat them as a child in South Wales.Porridge was always our winter breakfast.
I think food is like sex-each new generation thinks they discovered it!

Am I the only one to have read fairly recently that these new seed crazes are doing more harm than good by increasing prices in the places where they’re grown, where they’re staple food stuffs, all for the sake of creating and then satisfying first world fads. Quinoa was specified, also I think chia seeds.

Apart from those top few odd items, the rest of the food is just part of a normal diet surely. In my family it's still usually me introducing anything new to the family meals. My sons are no more adventurous than I am. I did come across different things when I was working but that was more due to working with people from around the world.
Is this another dig at older people.

Not tried . . . . . . . . Have tried

Matcha 90.60% . . . . . . . . . 9.4%
Spirulina 85.00% . . . . . . . . . 15%
A cronut 76.80% . . . . . . . . . 23.2%
Wheatgrass 76.40% . . . . . . . . 23.6%
Chia seeds 73.60% . . . . . . . . 26.4%
Goji berries 67.10% . . . . . . . 32.9%
Flax seeds 62.90% . . . . . . . . 37.1%
Octopus 54.20% . . . . . . . . . 45.8%
Quinoa 52.80% . . . . . . . . . 47.2%
Avocado on toast 52.30% . . . . . 47.7%
Dairy-free milk like oat or almond milk 46.60% . 53.4%
Sauerkraut 39.10% . . . . . . , , . 61.9%
A vegan burger/sausage 38.50% . . . 61.5%
Celeriac 36.00% . . . . . . . . . . 64%
Papaya 34.60% . . . . . . . . . . . 65.4%
Parsnip crisps 34.10% . . . . . . . . 65.9%
Coconut oil 32.50% . . . . . . . . , 67.5%
Sourdough bread 29.80% . . . . . . 70.2
Houmous 28.20% . . . . . . . . . . 71.8
Granola 26.30% . . . . . . . . . . . 73.7%
Green tea 25.30% . . . . . . . . . . 74.7%
Tacos 22.60% . . . . . . . . . . . . 77.4%
Any avocado 22.50% . . . . . . . . . 77.5%
Couscous 21.60% . . . . . . . . . . . 78.4
Kale 18.00% . . . . . . . . . . . . 72%
Smoothies 15.30% . . . . . . . . . . 84.7%
Aubergine 15.20% . . . . . . . . . . 84.8%
Olives 14.40% . . . . . . . . . . . . 85.6%
Duck 13.70% . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.3%
A latte coffee 13.10% . . . . . . . . . 86.9%
Passion fruit 11.70% . . . . . . . . . . 88.3%
Asparagus 10.70% . . . . . . . . . . . 89.3%
Pomegranate 8.90% . . . . . . . . . . 91.1%
Lentils 8.80% . . . . . . . . . . . . 91.2%
Courgette 8.20% . . . . . . . . . . . 91.8%
Mango 7.30% . . . . . . . . .92.7%
Coriander 6.50% . . . . . . 93.7%
Kidney beans 5.70% . . . . .94.3%
Spinach 5.60% . . . . . . . 94.4%
Kiwi fruit 5.30% . . . . . . .94.7%
Blueberries 4.70% . . . . . . 95.3%
Curry 4.70% . . . . . . . . 95.3%
Salmon 4.00% . . . . . . . 96%
Garlic 3.80% . . . . . . . . 96.2%
Walnuts 2.30% . . . . . . . .97.7%
Almonds 2.10% . . . . . . . . 97.9%
Croissant 2.00% . . . . . . . 98%
Broccoli 1.80% . . . . . . . . 98.2%
Beetroot 1.50% . . . . . . . . 98.5%
Porridge 1.30% . . . . . . . 98.7%

What rubbish, I haven't tried the top 4, wouldn't try Cronuts as I'm Diabetic. I'm adventurous where food is concerned but don't follow the "fads"