I posted about the 1950s and 1960s. Here are the 1970s, when Britons ate more fat than at any time in their history:

“The average Briton’s consumption of fat peaked in 1970. Each person eating the equivalent of nearly a block and a half of butter a week. Now we eat half as much.”

“It’s just food smothered in fat and salt and oil,” 15-year-old Ros said.

This is a very likable family. There’s Rochelle, 52, her husband Brandon, 53, and their children Miranda, 17, Rosalind or Ros, 15, and Fred, 10. It amazes me how game they were to eat just about anything put in front of them.

If there was anything unique about the 70s, it had to be the deluge of industrialized food. More women took jobs outside of the home to offset price increases. Manufacturers came to their rescue with convenience foods and labor-saving appliances. There were instant mashed potatoes, instant noodles, instant soup cups (Pot Noodle). The sale of freezers took off, as did frozen foods. You could serve the whole family a meal from the freezer – Swanson frozen dinners and frozen cake. That was a lifesaver for mothers who arrived home late from work with the family still looking to them for dinner. Women’s lifestyles were changing, but their family’s expectations for them weren’t. As Rochelle said, women in the 70s were trying to do it all, and were finding out they couldn’t.

This was also the decade that saw the rise of factory farming for livestock. The example given was chicken. People began to eat more poultry in the 70s because it was available and because they could afford it.