What happened when I ate a 1960s diet for a week

It's one of the warmest days of the season, but the oven is switched on and working its magic. Inside it's roasting a joint of beef and a tray of layered roast potatoes infused with beefy flavour. Just about to be cooked are my Yorkshire puddings, whilst on the stovetop, a rice pudding is simmering away, alongside a couple of tins of peas and carrots, which are simply waiting to be cooked.

It may seem rather odd, considering the rising temperatures, but I've had a most unconventional week myself. I've spent the last seven days eating like it's an era long past – hearty roast beef, accompanied by tinned vegetables, just as one would have done in the 1960s. I'm curious to know what the health benefits of this retro eating plan might be. While I must admit there are a few customs I wouldn't wish to continue in modern times (a startling lack of fresh vegetables and toast at almost every meal, for instance), I do intend to adopt a few healthier habits I've developed this week.

By the late 1950s, the average person in the UK typically tipped the scales at 65 kilograms for men and 55 kilograms for women. Fast forward to 2021, and these figures had increased, with the average man weighing approximately 85.1 kilograms and the average woman around 71.8 kilograms.

The "affluent years" – post-war rationing was receding into the past and the economic downturn of the 1970s was yet to come.

Generally speaking, most working individuals enjoyed relatively nutritious diets in the 1960s: On average, the British population consumed substantially more milk for the week – 4.84 pints per person – topped their toast with more butter, ate more eggs, ate significantly more sugar and had higher meat intake compared to their counterparts in either 1950 or 1974. Additionally, their consumption of fresh fruit and green vegetables was also greater, although they still consumed fewer fresh vegetables overall. This marked a starting point for the era of convenience foods and tin cans.

In the UK, a traditional idea of a meal is a classic format consisting of meat, and two types of vegetables, often eaten together during a meal with the family.

The display highlights 1960s recipes. Meanwhile, at my husband's workplace, "this is still the era where the office tea trolley arrives twice a day."

Compared to the amount we consume these days, relatively little processed food was eaten back then, with an average of around 503g, or 17.76oz a week per person, whereas nowadays we have 1.8kg a year per person. Although the Sixties saw a rise in popularity of breakfast cereals, with products such as Coco Pops launched in 1961 and Ready Brek in 1957, and new crisp flavours becoming available (Golden Wonder's Ready Salted in 1960 and Cheese & Onion in 1962), the truth is that these were relatively rare and unusual delights, with the addition of Angel Delight, in 1967, further adding to the occasional treats available.

In the 1960s, we hardly had any fresh faces.

Bread and butter, potatoes and stewed plum pudding

Canned goods were a mainstay of any meal; meat was predominantly red (chicken was a pricey indulgence) or processed (such as sausages, ham and Spam) and leftovers weren't given a grand title - they were simply the next meal; not least as few British households, particularly towards the start of the 1960s, possessed refrigerators.

Even by 1968, a television set was only available to half of all households. Other vegetables were sourced from either tins or local greengrocers like it was back then: peas, carrots, cabbage, and marrows (which weren't then known as courgettes). “Broccoli hadn't been invented,” my 77-year-old dad told me. Three-course meals typically ended with a dessert, often something accompanied by custard, eaten at the end of the meal. My mum recalls being allowed some plain cake at teatime during the week, but only after having a slice of bread and butter beforehand.

It would have been around 100g per person for a meat serving, with the majority going to the male head of the household, leaving us, the women, with a scarce amount – I was allocated only 1.5kg of beef, which spanned three meals for our four-person family.

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People were much less inactive back then. As a housewife, I would have been on my feet whether shopping, cooking, or cleaning for most of the day, and I'd be walking or getting the bus rather than driving a car. As of 1967, a significant majority (77% of adults) claimed they had walked for at least half an hour a day, whereas by 2010 only about four in ten adults (42%) managed this.

I decided to have a crack at a 1960s diet to see what the previous generations were up to.

My week of eating like it was the 1960s had its ups and downs. I kicked things off on a Sunday with a humble breakfast: a rasher of bacon, some fried bread cooked in beef drippings, and a cup of tea. The highlight was, as always, the Sunday lunch roast, and although I'd only had a smaller portion, I was stuffed and could only manage a couple of slices of bread and jam for tea in the evenings, a scenario that wasn't entirely unusual in the Sixties.

Baca Juga

On Monday, the menu consisted of leftovers, including a couple of roasted potatoes, some vegetables, and gravy, accompanied by a slice of bread and butter for lunch. For supper, I had cold roast beef served with boiled potatoes and a salad, made more appealing by the addition of a tin of peaches and some chopped banana topped with condensed milk for dessert. On the following day, I made a potted beef dish from the remaining beef so I could have it in sandwiches.

Although in the 1960s I had typically prepared the main meal for lunch when my husband and children would return home, circumstances during my exam week meant I had to switch things around: breakfast was usually toast with either a boiled egg or butter and Marmite most mornings. Midday meals were leftovers from the night before, perhaps with some bread and butter added to make it more substantial. Our main meal, eaten together at 6pm, was the highlight of the day; it might consist of spaghetti hoops on toast (Heinz was quite popular back then) with jam roly poly and custard for dessert; alternatively, we could have had potato and onion pie followed by rice pudding, or toad in the hole with leftover tinned peas and a dessert of tinned fruit cocktail and custard.

For my dad's birthday, I made a traditional dish inspired by the Sixties, but with a tweak - I replaced a specific ingredient with Nescafé instead. On the other hand, it was business as usual with fish and chips on a Friday. Just like in the past, this meal was a staple in most homes, whereas the morning coffee from a café and a glass of wine with dinner, things that had become relatively common, were noticeably absent.

At first, I was quite surprised by this experience. As someone who doesn't typically have breakfast, I found that having toast or an egg helped reduce my hunger later in the day, so I was happy with a smaller meal at lunchtime. I never thought I'd say this, but even a simple meal of three cold roast potatoes and a spoonful of tinned peas with gravy would fill me up.

I also noticed myself feeling less peckish in the afternoons. Come early evening, I was ready for a meal, but I wasn't famished – and even on a day when I was particularly strong as an appetite I was more than happy to stick to just the one sausage and a small serving of mash (I unearthed a suitable-sized vintage plate to make sure my portion sizes were reasonable) – and dessert brought everything together nicely. The scales even showed that I'd lost a couple of pounds, which seemed very surprising considering the quantity of carbs I'd been consuming.

Sam Rice, a specialist nutritionist, carefully reviewed the meal plan I had for the week.

While some might argue that the diet lacks variety, one notices a scarcity of complex carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Whole sources like beans, lentils, nuts and seeds also seem to be underrepresented. The absence of omega-3 fatty acids from oily fish is another concern. Currently, the premise seems to rely heavily on saturated animal fat for calories, rather than healthier fats found in olive oil, avocado or nuts.

By the end of the week, I'd be delighted to never lay eyes on another bread and dripping slice, nor gaze upon jam again. The weight I'd managed to shed has also strangely reappeared on the scale.

There are a few things I'll take away from this. To begin, smaller meal portions are a good idea - I'll stick with my 1960s-style dinner plate size. A drink like Nescafé with milk from a carton is a perfectly acceptable and less expensive alternative to a latte for everyday consumption, and having a glass of wine every now and then is better than making it a regular habit (I won't be making sherry a regular drink). My children would also be pleased to continue with the daily dessert routine.

I'm rather pleased to have a fridge and a wide selection of fresh fruit and vegetables at my disposal. And you can be sure that tinned Spam will never occupy a shelf in my larder.

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