The diet of the future in Britain

[Neily at the peak]

Would anyone like to hazard a guess at the diet of the future in britain, say 20 to 50 years hence.

Suggest a possible meal by meal, month by month example.


E.g.

January

Breakfast

Porridge, with jam to sweeten and make tasty.

Dinner

Mashed potatoes, carrots, swede, some form of meat pie and gravy

Tea

Bread and butter, jam, cheese, (ham on sundays!) Sponge cake.


Supplementary questions.

Would this provide significant nutrition.
How could it be made more iteresting.
Will we be eating more without cooking.



Neil

p.s. my rural upbringing means we have breakfast, dinner and tea, not breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[RevdTess]

p.s. my rural upbringing means we have breakfast, dinner and tea, not breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I thought that was a northern thing, not a rural thing.

[tattercoats]

I grew up saying Breakfast, dinner and tea as well... in a Southern city. Hey ho.

I'll play:

breakfast will be porridge for sure. Jam if there's sugar; otherwise honey, and if not that, then maybe dried apple bits or dried cherries or something.

dinner/lunch will be bread (made with beanflour, quite posibly) and if you're luckty, come chese, maybe a bit of drioed fish or meat, some fruit, some raw veg - half an onion with an apple, bread and a lump of cheese is great when you're working out in the field/garden/allotment, travels easily, doesn't need cooking (fuel is valuable, who cooks in the middle of the day?) and anyway, it's just a quick break before you start digging/harrowing/planting/harvesting the rest of the plot.

Evening meal: more bread, hopefully with butter, something hot and savoury like a stew or thick soup - lots of veg in that, roots and grain and pulses. Maybe a grain/suet/fruit 'pudding' boiled in cloth in the same pot, more dried fruit and cheese. Some of these may be seasoned with spices from far away as spice will still be worth carrying to merchants.

More: beans, grains, root veg. homebrewed small beer.
Less: animal protein, fat, sugars.
No: processed food.

Also more folks round the table as larger households make more sense, and the shared meal is a daily rite that nobody takes for granted after the decade of hunger that preceded it...

Tattercoats

[Ballard]

I'll go with...

soylent green

[caspian]

I'll go with...

soylent green

I've developed more of a taste for soylent yellow, although I wish they'd stop using so much artificial colouring.

[Neily at the peak]

p.s. my rural upbringing means we have breakfast, dinner and tea, not breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I thought that was a northern thing, not a rural thing.

I thought so too, coming from Lincolnshire, but have found the rural community down here in Devon also refer to it this way.


We cook in the middle of the day generally! A lot of farming families also do even now. With more people back on the land perhaps it will become more normal once again, especially if we are using solar energy to cook.


Neil

[SILVERHARP2]

I guess if you were to look back at the WW2 diet then you would not be a million miles off, the issue will be free market v rationing, my bet is that a lot of this will be left to the market, as large governments will be in retreat so if you have spending power you will still be able to buy meat and coffee and other luxuries but otherwise, you will be forced to exist on the very basics, on the bright side C4 will not be showing ?You Are What You Eat? except as repeats

[isenhand]

That reminded me of something I have been wondering about. If we had hydroponics would that be sustainable and would we be able to grow more food and food normally grown in hotter climate post peak. Then we would have a bit more of a varied diet similar to now.

[skeptik]

I guess if you were to look back at the WW2 diet then you would not be a million miles off

Apart from the canned Snoek which my mother says was disgusting. Even their cat wouldnt eat it.

As to the rest of the diet, if and by how much global warming has kicked in over the 20 to 50 year period is going to greatly influence what can be grown in the UK ( Penzance Late Oranges?) - or will the climate in the UK be colder? who knows... I think there will be a lot of fresh fruit and veg grown locally even in the cities. Its amazing how much can be produced in a 'vertical garden' even on a small patio.

Exotic fresh food currently flown into the UK, such as fresh Zimbabwean sugar snap peas, as sold by Tesco, will be a thing of the past. Imports which are not time sensitive, such as tea and coffee, and which can be transported by rail and sea willl be least effected by Peak Oil. I'm guessing that ocean going ships in 50 years time will mainly be engine/sail hybrids.

Beef will probably be too expensive for most people in the UK. The poor will have to make do with some genetically engineered vat grown mycoprotein substitute that is a perfect simulation of the rubbery minced anus and nostril texture of the Big Mac that they love so much. Something like Quornburgers.

[Ballard]

Whilst reading Dickens...

I found no references to vegetables at all, the people depicted in the 1830's seem to have lived on a diet consisting of Beef / ham and Bread, oh and lots and lots of 'Punch'.

Possibly this was the diet of the middle classes and the rich, with the poor chewing on turnips or something.

Yup, I know, they had less people then.

[PS_RalphW]

Possibly this was the diet of the middle classes and the rich, with the poor chewing on turnips or something.

Not so far from the truth, apparently...

. . . Esther Copley's Cottage Cookery (1849) suggests the poverty of the rural diet, for her recipes were for potato pie, stirabout, stewed ox-cheek, and mutton chitterlings. In Wiltshire, admittedly one of the poorer counties, the Poor Law Commission found that the standard fare consisted of bread, butter, potatoes, beer, and tea, with some bacon for those earning higher wages. . . .If the rural poor ate birds then the urban poor ate pairings of tripe, slink (prematurely born calves), or broxy (diseased sheep). Edgar Wallace recollects working-class families along the Old Kent Road shopping for 'tainted' pieces of meat and 'those odds and ends of meat, the by-products of the butchering business.' Sheep's heads at 3d each and American bacon at between 4d and 6d a pound (half the price of the native product) were too expensive for the irregularly-employed casual labourer to have frequently. In Macclesfield 23 per cent of the silk workers and in Coventry 17 per cent of the labourers had never tasted meat. Stocking weavers, shoe makers, needle women and silk weavers ate less than one pound of meat a week and less than eight ounces of fats. . . .

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health8.html[/quote]

[skeptik]

Possibly this was the diet of the middle classes and the rich, with the poor chewing on turnips or something.

I think you are right. In Pepys diary (written from 1660 ) descriptions of meals consist mainly of the the order of arrival of various meat and fish courses on the table - the vegetable accompaniments are rarely mentioned - they did have veg side dishes but obviously not considered important. Quantity and variety of meat presented to ones guests indicated social status and wealth. Meat pies, both beef and venison were very popular in Pepys time. Pie shops known as 'cook shops' were the McDonalds of 17th century London. Pepys was fond of mince pies (which did contain meat in his day) and venison pasty (a particular favourite of his) and often mentioned in his diary whether they were good or not.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1661/05/22/index.php

Obviously a 'pasty' was somewhat more substantial in Pepys time! Pepys always worked flexi time at the Admiralty. Some days he'd get up early and go straight to the office, others (especially if nursing a hangover) , as on the day described above, he wouldnt make it in till after lunch, and would then work late...

Reading Pepys diary Ive always been struck by the enormous distances Londoners would walk in the 17th century on a daily basis. Even Pepys, a well to do civil servant would walk huge distances on govt business (or just for pleasure) and mentioned these treks in the most casual way as if they were nothing special. No wonder they ate such huge meals - except for breakfast, which usually consisted of a pint of 'small' (low alochol) beer often taken in a pub somewhere while walking to work.

Back to the future?

Fruit and veg mentioned in the first 3 years of Pepys diary, 1660-1662.

Apples
Asparagus
Cabbage
Cherries
Coconut
Figs
Gherkins
Gooseberrys
Grapes
Lemons
Melons
Mulberries
Olives
Oranges
Peas
Strawberries

Other fruit popular at the time include pears and quinces.

[Neily at the peak]

Some surprisingly exotic things mentioned there, such as coconuts and olives. Maybe it won't be all that bad, but then there were a lot less people and this was London. I imagine that even in Pepys' time London was a lot more cosmopolitan than some places are now.


Neil

[skeptik]

Some surprisingly exotic things mentioned there, such as coconuts and olives. Maybe it won't be all that bad, but then there were a lot less people and this was London. I imagine that even in Pepys' time London was a lot more cosmopolitan than some places are now.


Neil

This was the 1660's. There had been regular sea trade with the Mediterranean since the Roman occupation, hence Nell Gwynnes oranges, olives, figs etc. By this time the Dutch had established their colony in the East Indies, so the coconut is no surprise, especially as it's almost indestructible - the perfect exotic fruit for a long sea journey.

[Neily at the peak]

If I can still eat some of these exotics and keep warm and secure I will be happy. However there are so many more people in the world and the countries where these things are produced will need them to feed their own people.

We can learn a lot from history. I wonder what the average family will be able to afford and even what the poor will be able to afford. Lets remember the poor are likely to make up the majority in future and I doubt that if we are relying on wind power ships that many exotics will be very affordable.


Neil