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Listen to this siteWhen the Queen was crowned in 1953, food rationing was still in force, supermarkets were unheard of, and fish and chips were our undisputed national dish. How things have changed. But is our diet more healthy now than it was then?
We'll let Sam Montel, our online nutritionist, guide us through the past 50 years of food…
When the Queen came to the throne in 1952, Britain was a country struggling with the aftermath of the Second World War. Sugar, butter, cheese, margarine, cooking fat, bacon, meat and tea were all still rationed. And many other foods were also in short supply.
The austerity of the early 1950s gave way to rising incomes in the later 1950s and 1960s and the nation’s eating habits began to change.
The 1970s saw the high point of the post-war belief in the power of science and technology to improve the quality of life. The search was on in this decade for convenience foods that would reduce work in the kitchen.
The 1980s was a time when some gradual changes in society began to be really felt. Crucial to the shift in eating habits was the growth in the number of women who worked outside the home, and particularly the increase of the number of women with young children who went out to work.
The 1990s saw the trends of the 1980s come to fruition. Supermarkets and other stores, and takeaways and fast food restaurants, were increasingly taking the job of preparing food away from the individual household. In 1980, the average meal took one hour to prepare. By 1999, it took 20 minutes.
It seems likely that the first decade of the 21st century will build on the eating trends of the 1990s, with the variety of ready-prepared meals and snack foods increasing yet further.
Much of what we eat is a part of our culture and it's strongly influenced by the types of foods we can grow locally. So meat and dairy products, bread and potatoes continue to be important even if, for some of us, they now tend to be in the form of hamburgers and frozen chips rather than the traditional roast beef and boiled potatoes.
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