Trends in food have been as up and down as our hemlines—reflecting our political landscape, immigration, holidays abroad and the emancipation of women. In the 1950s, the concept of ‘Healthy Eating’ was as foreign to most people as spaghetti Bolognese.
Ready-to-eat microwave meals lauded convenience in the eighties. And by the nineties we were consuming 604 fewer calories per day on average than we did twenty years earlier. Another legacy many brands now share is, that a hundred or so years ago, foods were purposely invented to mimic their more luxurious and expensive equivalent, often using inferior ingredients.
Who do you think are top of the class for ‘clever’ foods?
More recently, we’ve seen manufacturers taking ordinary dairy products, fruit drinks and bread and adding ‘clever’ ingredients to them. The most well known of these are: brain-boosting Omega 3s and ‘friendly bacteria’ probiotics. Presumably they’re there to make us smart enough to appreciate the boost to our health and intellect we’re receiving.
Health claims for foods have been made for 150 years
Even the humble digestive biscuit was marketed on the back of sodium bicarbonate—considered at the time to be a digestive tonic. Wartime rationing and its hangover into the 1950s pressured the government, and the food companies, into taking nutrition seriously. That period saw vitamins and minerals being added to food, notably breakfast cereals, to improve the nation’s health and fighting spirit.
‘LESS IS MORE’ is all the rage now
For over two decades we’ve ‘gone for the burn’ with Jane Fonda workouts and Atkins’ Diet devotees have consumed enough protein to make a 17th Century Chop House proprietor proud. This search for bodily perfection has created all manner of fat and thin eating disorders. Thankfully, many of us are now better educated about food and cooking—ditching the fads and choosing a simple, balanced diet.
One of the most significant emerging forces in food marketing today is the ‘less-is-more’ concept. This is typified by people who try and buy additive-free, whole-nut, whole-grain, whole-fruit and ‘nothing-but-the-fruit’ brands of food and drink.
