BETTY’S 1968 FRIDGE
As top health officials warn that we’re all eating too much, we compare the contents of a typical family fridge from 1968 with one today. The results may surprise you...
SUPERSIZED: (l-r) Vanessa and Betty have seen the variety in their fridges change young mum, the sheer variety of different food available today means that the opportunities to eat healthier are actually greater now than a generation ago. “There’s 10 times as many things in fridges today in terms of amount and variety,” she says. “Things like peppers, celery, all those salad items… a wider range of cheese than we ever had. It was just edam or cheddar back then. We didn’t have olives, stuffed peppers or anything like that available.”
Nonetheless she believes people in general were fitter in 1968, not necessarily because of their diet but because of their lifestyles. She says: “There were no supermarkets and most people didn’t have cars. It was just accepted that you’d walk everywhere. I’d walk a couple of miles into Hythe with the pram once a week to do the big shop. When the children were babies, I never bought processed baby food in jars, to wean them I’d have a ‘mouli’ which was like a handheld grater for making purees. I used to cook our meal, say liver with carrots and potatoes, then I’d put the leftovers in the mouli and mince it all up – that was the baby’s food.” Betty’s daughter Vanessa Holborn lives in Twyford, near Reading with husband Simon, 49 and daughters Cassie, 12 and Tula, nine. Both she and Cassie are vegetarian and as a result the contents of her fridge are carefully thought through. “With two vegetarians in the house I always have a lot of yogurts and cheeses in the fridge,” she says. “So there’s plain yogurts as well as flavoured kinds for the kids. Then we’ve got a whole load of different cheeses.”
Another big difference between Vanessa’s 2018 fridge and her mum’s is the amount of fruit and vegetables she keeps in it. “Mum never put veg in the fridge. I always remember her having a massive sack of potatoes in the pantry whereas I have a shelf’s worth of tomatoes, corn, broccoli, celery and so on.”
It’s not entirely virtuous however. Once a week the family will have pizza and Vanessa confesses her “fridge shame” is the amount of halffinished jars inside: “There’s a lot of hideous sugar sauces, things like barbecue, ketchup and chilli sauce.”
Vanessa’s shopping is altogether more sedentary than her mum’s. “I never go to greengrocers now,” she says. “I’m so used to ordering online from a supermarket. I do a big online shop probably once a fortnight and I live close to a Waitrose so I’ll pop in there and get bits and bobs.”
She also admits that while she and Simon have “bigger portions than my mum would serve me at home”, the faster-paced lifestyle her family leads means they rarely all eat together during the week and her daughters tend to snack more than she ever did. “They do a lot of afterschool activities so I’ll eat early with them but for example after they’ve been swimming I know they’ll be hungry again.
“But rather than give them sweets I’ll try to make flapjacks that taste nice but also are quite good for you.”
Ultimately Vanessa believes that, far from today’s families being in the grip of a dietary crisis, the sheer range and availability of nutritional food year-round means that the opportunities to eat healthily have never been so great. “The girls can have raspberries and blueberries in their packed lunches even out of season, which I never could as a child.
“Also, when I was young there was no question of my mum pandering to my fussy eating. We’d have what was in front of us and that was that. Whereas now I’m much more, ‘OK, here’s a selection of things, what would you prefer?’ The priority is to make sure everyone eats something healthy rather than send anyone to bed hungry.” Whole milk, 1 pint – 64 cals per 100g Butter 250g – 751 cals per 100g Bacon – 2 rashers 140 cals Lamb chops – 329 cals per 100g Lard 250g – 900 cals per 100g Cheese – 416 cals per 100g Ski yogurt – single pot – 107 cals