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Advice From 1975

KennyA

KennyA

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Northern Ireland, living in Yorkshire
Type of diabetes
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Diet only
I was reading through a Pears Encyclopaedia from 1975 last night and I found some advice which I thought people here might be interested in. We didn't really have anything other than local seasonal fruit, with the possible exception of (expensive) bananas and (sometimes) oranges: although I don't recall my family ever buying them. 1975 was also well before pasta was discovered in the UK, and when rice was still something served sweetened as a pudding.

"If you are overweight you need to slim, and the question is how? Answer: by will-power. There is no other satisfactory method than to decide to eat less, and to eat as little carbohydrate as possible. For the time being eat as much meat, fruit, green vegetables, and as much fat as you like, but no sugar, starch, sweets, cakes, pastry, or biscuits, and no eating between meals. And cut down on beer and other alcoholic drinks. In case you are tempted to eat "slimming" foods, be aware that there is no such thing. There is nothing you can eat which will cause you to lose weight, in spite of what the advertisement says. "

I understand they usually got someone eminent from a Royal College to write these. What goes around, comes around?
 
When my father in law died, my wife and her mother thought jokingly, they should give me a book that had been in his family since 1935. It is "The universal home doctor". From the look of it, rather tatty now, and the content, i assume it was at the time a very expensive book.
They were wrong to think it funny, i'm actually intrigued by it. Here's a scan of part of the section on diabetes.
 

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ajbod said:
When my father in law died, my wife and her mother thought jokingly, they should give me a book that had been in his family since 1935. It is "The universal home doctor". From the look of it, rather tatty now, and the content, i assume it was at the time a very expensive book.
They were wrong to think it funny, i'm actually intrigued by it. Here's a scan of part of the section on diabetes.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of these. They were often published by, and available from, daily newspapers. Still see them in secondhand bookshops. The earliest I have (not a newspaper publication) is Culpeper's "Ev'ry Man His Own Doctor" from 1859.
 
KennyA said:
1975 was also well before pasta was discovered in the UK
Click to expand...
I am not sure the 70s diet was as limited as you suggest.
I remember eating pasta as a child of the 70s.
I also remember my Dad introducing us to pomegranates from the local green grocers as he had eaten them in Aden when he was in the RAF.
He was also a keen allotmenter and would scour the seed catalogs for something different each year. So we also had artichokes and pumpkins and courgettes before they were common. Albeit only when in season.
Ok so not everyone was as adventurous as my parents but there was a fair amount of choice around,
 
In Response said:
I am not sure the 70s diet was as limited as you suggest.
I remember eating pasta as a child of the 70s.
I also remember my Dad introducing us to pomegranates from the local green grocers as he had eaten them in Aden when he was in the RAF.
He was also a keen allotmenter and would scour the seed catalogs for something different each year. So we also had artichokes and pumpkins and courgettes before they were common. Albeit only when in season.
Ok so not everyone was as adventurous as my parents but there was a fair amount of choice around,
Click to expand...
My attempt at humour was unwise. For us born in the 50s in NI spaghetti came in a tin from Heinz. I am sure in the metropolitan areas things were different.

However, I think I was 15 (around 1971) before I had proper pasta, and that was abroad thanks to having foreign relatives. Certainly by the end of the 70's the "eat more carbs" movement was in full cry and (dried) pasta was a lot more common.
 
KennyA said:
My attempt at humour was unwise. For us born in the 50s in NI spaghetti came in a tin from Heinz. I am sure in the metropolitan areas things were different.

However, I think I was 15 (around 1971) before I had proper pasta, and that was abroad thanks to having foreign relatives. Certainly by the end of the 70's the "eat more carbs" movement was in full cry and (dried) pasta was a lot more common.
Click to expand...
I had my first taste of pizza when I was 17 and had never even heard of it before then. It was at that time that the first McDonald's appeared in our area. Always Mum's home cooking.
 
My first pasta was 1975, Spaghetti Bolognese, i was 13 at the time, stopping with friends of my dad, they were looking to adopt, and i think i was the trial to see if they could cope. I still don't know to this day if i put them off.
 
That encyclopedia excerpt was so interesting! I still vividly remember when low fat was introduced, what a disaster! Eat your fat! Don’t eat carbs…it’s so darn easy.
 
JAT1 said:
I had my first taste of pizza when I was 17 and had never even heard of it before then. It was at that time that the first McDonald's appeared in our area. Always Mum's home cooking.
Click to expand...
I was 8 years old and my Sicilian relatives came over and I tasted my first bolognaise and pizza. First time I ever tasted muscles with lemon, which I still love now I just don't eat the pizza and pasta now :arghh:
 
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