The Poor shall Inherit the Girth.
Anyone of a certain age will recall that the chocolate bar Milky Way used to be advertised as ‘The sweet you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite’, with the emphasis on can. This carried clout with kids of my generation; if this statement was broadcast on TV, then it had to be true – right, mum? Therefore, it’s okay to guzzle one before teatime, yeah? It was also a canny tagline by the manufacturers because eating between meals was so frowned upon at the time that a chocolate bar sold as a sweet that wouldn’t interfere with the compulsory cleaning of the plate might just be a smart way round the unwritten rules of the nation’s children’s diet. This diet wasn’t dictated by Department of Health guidelines, but by parents who had endured 1950s austerity mealtimes in which nothing went to waste, however unappetising and inedible; their own parents had passed down the belief that to waste any item of food was criminal, a belief born of living through the Great Depression, when regular meals could often be something of a luxury. Handed down from one generation to the next, this regime was imposed with unswerving righteousness and, to be fair, the best of intentions. Inherited memories of emaciated and malnourished urchins encouraged the post-war parents to build their children’s strength with everything that was perceived good for them, largely containing ingredients that had been grown when digging for victory. And, of course, they had to be boiled.
This thinking also extended to school dinners; in order to make the far-from desirable recipe of cabbage, beetroot, spam fritters, lumpy mash and hard peas remotely tolerable, the prize at the end of this gastronomic obstacle course was a pudding bathed in custard, awarded to everyone who managed to grin and swallow their way through the first course, and washed down with that most basic of table wines – water. It’s no wonder the corner-shop did a roaring trade in penny sweets both on the way to and on the way back from school. Such cheap confectionary was within the budget of most kids (even those who helped themselves when the newsagent fatally turned his back) and wasn’t considered substantial enough to damage appetites for the next meal. The main accusation levelled at sweets was that they rotted your teeth if taken to excess, so most parents tolerated them as long as they were consumed in moderation. A proper chocolate bar boasting a big brand name or even a packet of crisps were a little pricier and therefore had an air of ‘treat’ about them, something one could look forward to perhaps once a week, though not much more often than that. They even used to print the actual price of the item on the wrapper then, as if to emphasise the gulf between it and the more accessible penny varieties stocking the shelves.
Eating-time adhering to a strict daily timetable seems almost reminiscent of an East European Communist state in retrospect, like some grand master-plan engineered to raise a race of strapping young folk who would eventually parade the results of their diet on a sport’s field, clad in vest and pants and moving in unison as if choreographed by Busby Berkley. But there were no focus groups or think-tanks to devise this diet; it grew organically from the parents and with the unspoken approval of the powers-that-be. Government rarely interfered, for most of its senior members had themselves grown-up lean and hungry in the 1930s and were secure in the knowledge that their constituents were ensuring their offspring never left the dinner table without having cleaned their plates first. Depending on which part of the country one hailed from, the routine consisted of breakfast, dinner, tea and supper (South of the midlands, dinner was lunch and tea was dinner); and this was enforced with rigid discipline.
I remember there being around three or four ‘fat kids’ at each of the five schools I attended in the seventies and early eighties, the ones who were inevitably the last to be picked for the teams during a football match in the games lesson; I was usually the penultimate player to be picked, though that was mainly due to my specs as opposed to any deficiencies in my ability on the pitch. I was just as average, weight-wise, as most of my classmates at the time. And these overweight exceptions to the general rule tended to suffer from genetic obesity if anything, for one could always tell which headscarf-clad figures at the school gates come home-time were their mothers; they were invariably fat as well. It ran in the family rather than being solely a product of diet; you had a feeling they would always be built that way. Besides, other than the corner-shop, there were very little outlets for piling on pounds. Wimpey Bars were present, but most towns had no more than a couple at the most; they were a novelty. I only ever remember visiting one once as a child, and the cost of a pineapple milkshake to accompany the burger – 27p!!! – was enough to put my mother off treating me and my brother in such a lavish fashion ever again.
The sudden colonisation of the country by the burger-bar, something that seemed to happen from the second half of the 1980s onwards, is regularly blamed as the biggest cause of rising child obesity, and there’s no denying the proliferation of such fast-food quick-fix solutions to the headache of being a weekend dad haven’t helped. But the collapse of the old system when it comes to a daily dietary regime probably has more to answer for than the cure-all option of a Big Mac & Fries – specifically, the gradual abolition of the not-eating-between meals rule. At what point did huge bags containing half-a-dozen packets of crisps become an obligatory addition to the family shopping-list? Ditto huge bags containing two-dozen miniature Mars Bars? Possibly when Pound Shops appeared and made one-time luxuries available as regular snacks to fill the gap between mealtimes. Many of today’s parents had their childhood eating habits governed by the old order, yet unlike their own parents, have decided not to impose it on the next generation, instead turning their kitchen cupboards into an all-you-can-eat buffet. They no doubt blame McDonald’s or blame the electronic gadgets that keep their kids indoors even when the weather is ideal for playing-out. But they should really look a little closer to home. I am not a parent, but I am an uncle, and I’ve observed the effects of this slackness on my eight-year-old niece over the past eighteen months.
I myself had a couple of years during puberty when I morphed into a ‘Row-land’ character on account of my parents buying a sandwich shop and routinely dishing-out various sweet ‘n’ savoury treats for free on a daily basis; had this situation not arisen, the chances are I would never have experienced what is now a commonplace childhood metamorphosis. This unprecedented suspension of the dictum of not eating between meals did enough damage to me, yet within a decade it appeared to have disappeared from the majority of households across the country; and it can never be reinstated. To deprive kids in the 21st century of their between-meal snacks would probably constitute child abuse.
One-hundred years ago it was possible to tell who was rich and who was poor because the well-fed wealthy were usually on the rosy-cheeked, chubby side and those less fortunate were more often than not wan-faced and stick-thin. Now the situation is reversed. Food that is deemed good for you today – sugar-free, organic and deprived of artificial colouring – is expensive and therefore only within the budget of the relatively affluent, whereas food that is deemed bad for you – loaded with sugar, salt and all those other tasty ingredients that clog-up arteries – are all that the poor can afford, or all they are allowed to afford. Those who emanate from the more poverty-stricken corners of the UK are now usually identifiable by the width of their waists. The poor have inherited the girth.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:11 pm -
The first time I ever went to the USA in about 1990 I was bemused to find that when I bought a Mars Bar, it turned out to be a Milky Way.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:18 pm -
It used to be – 20/25 years ago – that you took 20-30p to a shop and purchased a bar of chocolate to consume. Now if you venture into a Tesco Express, Sainsbury’s “local” (formerly good old Wm Jacksons in these parts) etc you have the choice of a bar of chocolate for somewhere in the region of 65/70p or a multi-pack or bag of similar on offer for about £1. So most people buy more for, gram for gram, less and end up consuming 2 to 3 times more than they would have done back in the day.
Ditto crisps – a bag of Walkers or Monster Munch are anything between 55p & 80p, and invariably a ‘big bag’ of Doritto’s, “Kettle Chips”, Walker’s ‘Sensations’ or a 6-bag multi-pack for circa £1-£1.20.Subsidised gluttony? I suspect so….
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September 23, 2014 at 2:37 pm -
Spot on. We didn’t see many fat people during the depression years and when wartime food rationing limited consumption and ensured a reasonably healthy diet. I think today’s obesity is yet one more sign of a general decline in self-discipline, along with child abuse, marriage breakdown, road rage etc etc, and not forgetting dishonesty extending even to our MPs.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:58 pm -
September 24, 2014 at 3:00 pm -
“I think today’s ……. general decline in self-discipline, …… and not forgetting dishonesty extending even to our MPs.”
I very much doubt that (the majority of) MPs have only recently become dishonest.
However, it’s only relatively recently that their expenses have been computerised; and, the aggregated files saveable on a discrete medium.
It was via this mechanism, plus crowdsourced internet investigations, that we learnt of the sheer extent and greed of expenses-fiddling by so many MPs.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:41 pm -
I think many working middle aged people are also too tired to exercise. I remember starting work in th 70s at it was 9 till 5 with an hour for lunch. Now is more like 8.30 till 5.30 with half an hour for lunch if your lucky. After battling through the traffic people get home 6:30 – 7 and then get tea and you are knackered. Also with wages being depressed the first thing that goes is the gym membership. We like to vilify obese people, but really those who are not obese should just be glad they are thin. Also I think many obese people comfort eat cause of the stress they are under, and they get no sympathy, yet if a thin person is having mental problems and becomes anorexic that’s terrible!
Having said all that bad food does get peddled by fast food restaurants and supermarkets. When I was young we didn’t have McDonald’s only wimpey and I never got taken there!
We as a country work too many hours and retire to old—- it causes problems-
September 23, 2014 at 3:52 pm -
I’d suggest that Exercise, with a capital “E” was something that relatively few people in the 1970s and before ever did.
People might have had work which involved more exercise (including housework), transport which involved more exercise and pastimes which involved more exercise but few did “Exercise” purely for the sake of it or to get fitter or lose weight.
Gyms were rare and their use confined mainly to dedicated sports people and body-builders. Before the jogging craze began no average person ran recreationally.
People might have gone cycling or for a walk but it was more for the experience and a “breath of fresh air” rather than as part of a fitness regime. The idea of riding an exercise bicycle or using a running machine would have seemed pointless to most people.So I’d say that longer working hours (and longer commuting times) might give people in 2014 less time to do dedicated Exercise than they might otherwise choose to do but in the past most people if they had more time, and many didn’t, chose not to use it for Exercise anyway.
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September 23, 2014 at 4:13 pm -
I think it’s probably safe to say that swimming was probably the only popular exercise when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s. Of course, for kids that was in the form of noisily “mucking about” – throwing ourselves into the pool, thrashing about in water-based tag, and so on – rather than lane-swimming. I still swim three times a week, holding my own in the fast lane (1,800 metres last night!), but it’s marked how few kids you see in the pool, even during school holidays. It’s also notable that the ones that are there are invariably and pretty obviously under direct supervision, eitehr by a parent or a swimming teacher, and even the latter cases usually have an actual parent hovering by the pool. This contrasts with “my day,” when even from the age of seven or eight we (and usually a gaggle of mates) were dropped off at the pool and left to our own devices, and picked up 1½-2 hours later.
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September 23, 2014 at 9:58 pm -
i love swimming , but find the local pools very restricted in what times you can swim as a male. Lots of women only, mum and toddlers sessions. Such a shame.
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September 25, 2014 at 3:33 pm -
I think that sort of thing is very much a postcode lottery. The pool where I swim doesn’t have any women only sessions, although the next nearest one in the same borough (and run by the same management company) has a 90 min one on Saturday evening.
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September 23, 2014 at 10:09 pm -
I well remember in the early 80’s having the run of the local leisure centre for 2-3 hours while my Dad played football before heading over the road for a beer with his mates – I’d have been 9 or so. Usually spent an hour watching the footie, an hour swimming, and an hour watching snooker, badminton, or whatever was ever else was going on whilst eating a bag of aniseed balls that maximised the change from the pound I was given to get into the pool – took the sting out of chlorine soaked eyes!
I took my two boys to the pool a few weeks back and the change I got from a tenner wouldn’t have got us an aniseed ball each. Getting out of the pool 45 minutes later (lips turning blue after being in the shallow end doing nothing more than lolling about playing sharks) I sat on a wall at the side of the pool so I was in a position to intervene if the messing about got out of hand – still in my cozzie you understand. I was told by a well insulated instructor torturing some poor kid with a joyless ‘private lesson’ that children were not allowed in the pool unaccompanied – that I could have got to any part of the pool outside of a 6′ radius of this guy seemed to be beside the point. -
September 24, 2014 at 2:09 pm -
“when even from the age of seven or eight we (and usually a gaggle of mates) were dropped off at the pool ”
Well you can forget that, these days. At that sort of age, EVERY child has to be accompanied by an adult (and each adult can look after only ONE child in some pools, TWO at the most). Due to Elf n’Safety, of course. Then there’s all the paedo’s to worry about – I mean they’re everywhere now, but especially, obviously, in swimming pools. Not to mention the mad axe-murderer.
Better, all said, to just plonk the little darlings down in front of the idiot-box. Which I guess is what happens.
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September 23, 2014 at 4:34 pm -
Working hours.
The lunch hours I remember well.
Bt think now, when people work, VERY few are tossing buckets of glowing steel about, or digging coal with pick and hammer. They are all sitting at computers, and waiting for the machine to do it.
What annoyed me in Britain and here, working as my second job, and between application and acceptances for jobs, holidays from Uni etc, was that, in a factory, those doing the hard work lifting the pallets, hammering the rivets, or cleaning out the pigs, were the ones that got 8 to 12 hour shifts, and one break of 10 minutes and one of 20. When the arseholes sitting at their computers all day got two of 15 and one of an hour with a mere SEVEN to EIGHT hour shift! To ADD to that, in your 20 minute break, you go to the firm canteen, normally a five minute treck any way, and the queue is FULL of office bastards! (Morning shift. Late shift and night shift the canteen is closed, because it is only the office scum that need feeding.) By the time you get back to your work place, you have about 2 point 8 minutes to eat your pie, or whatever.
THEN your doctor sais “You should not eat so fast, ’tis unhealthy!” FUCK OFF!!!
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September 23, 2014 at 9:55 pm -
Unfortunately the low paid always get stitched up. You see this in many large employers and the civil services. If low paid joe or Joanna is working properly the get dealt with very quickly , but those higher up the food chain get an easier time. I work in the civil service ( I have also worked in factories and in insurance sector) and one of our low paid guys got a brain tumour and felt the full force of HR, mangers emailing other staff to see how he was doing his job , looking for any excuse to axe him. They finally got rid of him and he died a month later. Others up the greasy ladder got dealt with much more softly.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:50 pm -
“Overall intake of calories, fat and saturated fat has decreased since the 1970s. This trend is accompanied by a decrease in sugar and salt intake, and an increase in fibre and fruit and vegetable intake.” – British Heart Foundation (from their pdf report here).
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September 23, 2014 at 3:49 pm -
It wouldn’t be the first time the Experts have lead us up the wrong path
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September 23, 2014 at 4:35 pm -
Official figures show that obesity has risen while consumption of calories in all areas has fallen for the last 40 years. It’s not about what we are eating, it’s that we’re not doing the same level of exercise as in the past.
http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/the-fat-lie-the-real-cause-of-the-rise-in-obesity
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September 23, 2014 at 6:37 pm -
A substantial part of the calories you eat go to keep you warm. Since the 1970s we have all gained central heating and double glazing.
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September 23, 2014 at 7:05 pm -
That’s an interesting observation, often not discussed.
Perhaps the impending energy rationing by the inept government will have a similar effect as food rationing during WW2.
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September 23, 2014 at 8:05 pm -
Agreed, though I’d say that the decrease in the amount of physical labour has also played a part. One man with a JCB can dig a trench that would have taken a work team with picks and shovels in the 50’s.
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September 23, 2014 at 2:56 pm -
I completely agree Petunia.
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September 23, 2014 at 3:43 pm -
& it’s all driven, remorselessly, by our masters’ propaganda machine in the corner.
I still carry fond memories of the little bag of salt in the plain crisps
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September 23, 2014 at 3:47 pm -
Heresy
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September 23, 2014 at 4:32 pm -
Got to be done, Sah.
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September 24, 2014 at 3:06 pm -
Ah, the little (twisted) blue bag of salt in the plain crisps.
In the era before mandatory sell-by dates printed on every consumable item, the free-running-ness of the ‘bag’ of sodium chloride was a superb indication that the snack would still be edible.
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September 23, 2014 at 3:49 pm -
Let’s also not forget that in the days before 24h kids TV channels, computers and games consoles, children were far more likely to be playing outside when not in school. Riding bikes, running about and kicking balls around, burning off those excess calories.
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September 24, 2014 at 3:11 pm -
Climbing trees and then learning that falling down hurts; playing conkers without a set of PPE more-suited to a bomb disposal operative; and, looking both ways before crossing railway lines.
The true university of life.
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September 23, 2014 at 3:54 pm -
“their own parents had passed down the belief that to waste any item of food was criminal” (1st para)
About 12 years ago, I worked for a small company that was owned and staffed predominantly by Muslims. One time we went out for a group social meal and they (management) took us to a small restaurant in London somewhere. It was a plastic-table-cloth, slightly scruffy, cafe type place frequented almost entirely by locals, which I vastly prefer to the usual overpriced Saturday night curry house often chosen by the majority of the populace.
It was there I learnt that in their culture, the throwing away of left overs after a meal is a sin [against God]. It’s avoided by one person taking responsibility for ordering the food. With that responsibility comes the duty to consume anything left over, and therefore as a guest, heaping ones plate and then leaving half is utterly disrespectful (I was told this beforehand, and nobody present committed that faux pas).
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September 23, 2014 at 4:02 pm -
in order to make the far-from desirable recipe of cabbage, beetroot, spam fritters, lumpy mash and hard peas remotely tolerable, the prize at the end of this gastronomic obstacle course was a pudding bathed in custard, awarded to everyone who managed to grin and swallow their way through the first course, and washed down with that most basic of table wines – water
Haha, that’s very evocative, as is the whole article. You should write your memoirs!I remember a big difference in the quality of food between primary in the 70s (good and varied) to secondary in the 80s (dire and monotonous). Perhaps poor school dinners (or poor diet generally) leave children hungry for nutritious food and they eat junk to compensate. Assuming they get a chance at a school meal. Daniel Pelka apparently didn’t. Microwaves, freezers and ready meals may also be relevant. If children don’t see parents cooking a proper meal, they won’t know how.
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September 23, 2014 at 4:10 pm -
I remember the rise of instant this and that slowly creeping as my childhood progressed; by the late 70s, ‘proper’ mash only saw the light of day on a Sunday; the rest of the week, it was the produce promoted by those bloody hysterical robots!
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September 23, 2014 at 5:18 pm -
I’m sure I ate some completely ‘artificial’ meals in the 70’s. Spam and Instant Mash, followed by Angel Delight, washed down with a glass of pop.
Never did me any harm…..twitch!
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September 23, 2014 at 4:33 pm -
On my first day at primary school, I steadfastly refused to eat the dinner. The next day, the same happened. I was dragged to the headmistresses office. Sister Mary Austin was Not Amusieed. My brother – in the year above me – was brought in to try to persuade me. I still refused. On the third day, they called my mother in. Aware that for the first few years of my life I had survived almost entirely on a diet of Weetabix, she also knew that there were a lot of food that I didn’t just not like, but would make me physically sick (a fair few still do). She suggested for the time being that I could bring a packed lunch to school. This was literally unheard of, but grudgingly accepted, I suspect as a hoped-for interim measure only. I then spent the next few years having salmon paste sandwiches for lunch, except on the hated days when for whatever reason only chicken or – worse – beef paste was available.
When at the age of 9 I started at middle school, however, I had the school dinner from the start. I don’t actual recall any discuss – and certainly not argument – about this. As it was, there was still a lot of food that I would not eat, although on most days there was usually someone who was happy to eat what I didn’t want, and sometimes was even prepared to swap for something I did.
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September 23, 2014 at 4:06 pm -
Well Uncle Petunia I think my nom de Guerre qualifies me to venture opinion and you are spot on as to post war Britain which was such a dull place that a chocolate bar was an icon and purchasing it represented a gesture of faith that life beyond the grey world that you describe might exist ….But now??? Rich or Poor one have choice beyond anything imaginable in 1950s/1960s Britain –and there to be indulged — in my case too fully (but hugely enjoyably)—and in most cases adequately. But one needs education to know about food —-and confidence and experience —and something of an ambition to live well (if not healthily in my case) —not unlike literature or pretty much anything else in life. — and there I think we might part company…… not on the general distinction you draw between money and girth but the reasons for it. It is I think poverty of ambition rather than monetary poverty that lies at the heart of this and many other similar issues —not through any inherent and inevitable failing of a feckless underclass (though some might fall into such a category) but through the values that are relentlessly and unremittingly pressed upon the underclass –not just advertising or the MSM generally but in their schooling which seeks to produce an obedient and controlled proletariat workforce that can be manipulated predominantly through reward according to their position in Society (Huxley’s Brave New World model) rather than fear (Orwell’s 1984 model). Oh and in case you think I am about to incite the working class to rise up coz they have only their chains to loose nothing could be further from the truth though I might incite anyone to think about what they want and why and to strive for it and to really question what they are told they must have.
Now I am off to LIDL the poor man’s supermarket for some fresh figs (available in season), a fresh mango (available all year round even in the LIDL in rural Sussex for the cost pretty much of a copy of the Sun Newspaper), some Italian cheese and German Rye Bread—-costing less in all than a small bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken —-and coz I am who I am I shall no doubt pick up a bottle of Valpolicella Ripasso (that costs rather less two pints of beer) —-and what about a box of those Belgian chocolates they stock that are not that much more expensive than a small bar of Cadbury’s weight for weight?-
September 23, 2014 at 7:15 pm -
If there were a Like button I would press it with gusto, Fat Steve. Wonderfully observant, nicely self-aware, and beautifully written.
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September 23, 2014 at 7:32 pm -
Lidl is much underestimated.
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September 23, 2014 at 10:37 pm -
Lysistrata You are a sweetheart for writing as you did!!!!
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September 23, 2014 at 4:11 pm -
The rise of the Food Manufacturer also has a part in it. Back in the day, a meal had to be cooked at home by the housewife, from ingredients bought that day (or at any rate not much more than a couple of days ago) from the local butcher, fishmonger and greengrocer. It was healthier (provided the nutrients were not cooked out of it entirely by it’s being boiled slowly to death) because it was fresher, generally. Now we have the Microwave Meal (colloquially known as the ‘ping meal’, I gather), that repository of e-numbers, trans-fats and additives, in which any taste or nutrition is present purely by accident – and which is deliberately priced for and sold to the time-poor and the cash-poor. There is also a vibrant industry selling all the nutrients you need as ‘food supplements’. Then there are all the TV chefs, showing off impossible dishes that are so far beyond the normal routines and budgets of most that they become food pornography (I exempt the blessed Saint Delia from this charge).
The only answer is proper education, at home and school. Tell ’em what they need and why. Show ’em how a few tasty and nutritious meals can be made quickly and easily using good, cheap, seasonal ingredients. Show ’em that food can be satisfying and fun, and Good For You too.
Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much. Worked for genearations.
Though quite how we loosen the grip of the Food Manufacturer on the diet of the nation, I’m less sure….
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September 23, 2014 at 4:44 pm -
Back in 1990, when TV documentaries were good, there was an excellent BBC2 series about TV advertising called Washes Whiter. It was all the better because the talking heads were almost entirely limited to people actually in advertising (past and “present”), with a smattering of commercial TV executives and a token academic or two, and absolutely no C-list celebs going, “I remember that advert, it were great!” In the programme on adevrtising to women, it was noted that when the first cake mix came out, it absolutely bombed, because simply adding water to it was seen as “cheating” in a way that no self-respecting housewife would accept. It was only when the dehydrated egg in the mix was replaced with a instruction to add a fresh egg that the product actually sold.
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September 23, 2014 at 5:22 pm -
Parental poverty and product scarcity in the 1950s and 60s ensured my weight stayed modest, working hard and sporting interests in the 70s and 80s did the same – then came the 90s and the scales were all heading uphill. Senior job, decent money, very mobile, lots of travel and hotels with profligate business-feeding and drinking, gave up the sport due to lack of time, lots of social events meant eating out three evenings a week, so the weight slowly piled on to the point where visual similarity to a barrel was evident.
Lifestyle change in the early 2000s knocked off a few stones but the real saviour, perversely, was the Smoking Ban. Since 2007, I have not spent a penny in any pub or restaurant, so neither have I collected all that bonus weight they so generously allocate as a bi-product. All meals are now cooked at home from fresh ingredients or by similarly home-bound and culinary friends. I still eat good quantities (including all fats etc.) and still drink in moderation, but it’s a revelation – fitter, healthier and, according to my mirror, even a tad easier on the eye (although the last facet remains unconfirmed by t’other gender).
In truth, it’s all about balance. Get the balance of input and output wrong and the weight will reflect that – that’s what happened to me and it’s how I changed it, with some final help from HM Government passing ridiculously illiberal laws. Getting that simple message across to the marketeer-targeted masses remains a challenge.
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September 23, 2014 at 10:03 pm -
Good on you keeping the weight off. I’m middle aged and haven’t and paid the price , I’m currently laid up with a Dvt. Don’t worry I’m not a workshy scrounger, back to work shortly . Started working in 1977 and only been unemployed for 2 months to date.
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September 23, 2014 at 6:18 pm -
I was never one for the tuck shop – which was a pity for aged about fourteen the school’s rations proved sufficiently meagre that of the late evening I, on occasions, resorted to eating my toothpaste to secure sufficient nourishment – ah, the privileges of a boarding school. Neither did I much care for school milk: in winter it was frozen, but in summer, too warm; the fat boy always drank everyone else’s – abolishing School Milk, a worthy but pointless exercise in health care, was the only good thing Thatcher ever did.
Personally, I always find that a ‘Chinese’ is the only food that you can eat without ruining your appetite.
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September 23, 2014 at 7:00 pm -
XX I, on occasions, resorted to eating my toothpaste to secure sufficient nourishment XX
TOOTHPASTE!?
You wuz LUCKY!
All we ‘ad, was harf a chewed sarnie, grabbed from the side o’ th’ M6, between 15 of us! Then we ‘at to go sweeping the motorway, on our ‘ands and Knees, BOTH lanes! THROUGH broken glass. And it wuz Alw’s up t’ill. We ‘at to get up ‘alf an hour before we went to bed, at crack o’ dawn, and we wuz ‘APPY!
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September 23, 2014 at 7:01 pm -
Apologies to Monty Pythons…..
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September 25, 2014 at 3:38 pm -
Or rather At Last the 1948 Show….
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September 24, 2014 at 3:17 pm -
“Neither did I much care for school milk: in winter it was frozen, but in summer, too warm….”
My recollection of primary school milk (in those miniature 1-gill bottles, was that during winter, they were put an the central-heating pipes to ‘warm’, and became unpalatable. At least ambient milk during the other seasons was bearable.
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September 23, 2014 at 7:48 pm -
“huge bags containing half-a-dozen packets of crisps” became the thing when Walkers found they could get away with huge bags containing half-a-dozen crisps.
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September 23, 2014 at 7:53 pm -
Regrettably if we got rid of all the junk food, there wouldn’t be enough good food left to go around…
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September 23, 2014 at 8:44 pm -
Uncle Petunia? Colour me confused……………..
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September 23, 2014 at 9:00 pm -
In my humble opinion it’s actually down to addiction – sugar addiction. This is not simply caused through the usual culprits but is also driven through carbohydrates that convert to sugar when consumed inc bread, pasta and postatoes.
Nothing specifically wrong .. it is simply that each sugar load creates the desire for the next. The pancreas gives up producing appropriate insulin and that is why we put on weight.
The more likely you are to eat carbs – the more likely you are to put on excess weight .. and as someone alluded to above the sedentary lifestyle we lead means we need a lot less of these carbs than we consume. The more weight you put on – the less likely you are to exercise and the cycle continues ever downwards.
I know – I am a victim but I have narrowly escaped diabetes – 12 years ago I was sweating like a pig in bed and waking to consume large volumes of water…. I evaded it by the skin of my teeth.
If you sweat profusely in bed, try not eating any food after 5.00pm .. it’s hard but worth the effort. Once you have stopped sweating overnight … try a good carbed meal .. you’ll be straight back there.-
September 24, 2014 at 10:46 am -
That’s the Italians shagged then. They must ALL be diabetics according to your theory.
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September 25, 2014 at 2:55 pm -
That’s not what I said – is it ?
Some people have a propensity to put weight on – carbs are a significant factor. Being diabetic is merely the finale to a pancreas under pressure.
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September 23, 2014 at 10:30 pm -
The only time I put on weight was when I stopped smoking for three months, never having been overweight I was horrified. I decided that I would rather smoke! Took me three months to take it off, that was ten years ago and I am still smoking and my weight is fine. I remember too my 50s childhood, I can only remember one fat kid at school and we were all told it was his glands. We were very active children then and all through my teens as we mostly made our own entertainment, not much choice and no junk food either. After my brief experience I don’t know how anyone can carry excess weight I felt awful.
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September 23, 2014 at 11:34 pm -
This brings back memories, especially the school meals. I remember the water served in those big metal jugs. the treacle sponge and custard, and, of course, the boiled veg. The poor kids were indeed small and thin. The tubby kids were few.
As to the cause – I wouldn’t put it down to poverty in a financial sense. Fresh vegetables, rices, pulses, pasta, and dairy produce are all cheap enough. But there’s a poverty of spirit about, a breakdown of family, kids who are no longer taught cooking but PlayStation at home and “food technology” at school. And into that vacuum strides all the advertising and sugar-filled foods that are on offer in today’s less austere times. -
September 24, 2014 at 2:01 pm -
“Food that is deemed good for you today – sugar-free, organic and deprived of artificial colouring – is expensive”
What, like fresh fruit and veg?
I don’t think it is quite that simple.
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September 24, 2014 at 2:12 pm -
It crossed my mind that if VAT was levied on “Ready Meals” and so influence “The Market” there might be more affordable fresh meat available. I instinctively knew something was wrong in the market-place when I noticed that I seemed to be able to buy a ready meal cheaper than the combined ingredients (subject to the picture on the package relating to what was inside), and that the beef joints now had security tags on it, as if they were akin to a valuable piece of merchandise in a jewellers.
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September 24, 2014 at 3:23 pm -
Not 100% pertinent, but good for a smile for those who’ve not read it before:-
There is a saying in China that in Guangzhou, “they will eat everything that swims except the submarine, everything that flies except the airplane, and everything with four legs except the table.”
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October 1, 2014 at 2:26 pm -
Joe,
In Hong Kong, it was, “If its back faces the sun, you can eat it!”
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