The Not So Healthy Option

[barney15c]

I have been watching Heston Blumenthal on C4 and one of the thing he liked as a kid was Pot noodle. He got the company to make them exactly as there tasted back in the 70's ie more slat and all the E numbers we are told were not good for us.
This got me thinking.......this is way of the wall but.....I find a lot of the food i remember when i was younger tasted much better than the blander less salt, fat sugar equivalents we get today.
My question is unless there is a clear health risk (ie E numbers and additives that have been found to be very harmful), shouldnt shops offer people a choice of the not so healthy option products with more taste from yesteryear with more salt sugar fat etc if thats what people want. We all seem to have been forced to conform to these "less" foods without given a choice. After all we havent gone down the road of low calorie alcohol or healthier cigarettes yet.
I cant be the only one who hankers for the taste of older foods rather than whats on offer today.

[lcg]

i agree with you. pot noodles tasted great years ago and now they are 'healthy', they taste bland as. i rectify that by adding pepper and salt and loads more soy sauce. much beteer....x and yes - we should be allowed to choose as adults!!!

[sherrardk]

I don't eat much ready-made stuff these days but when I do I find that they are not to my taste as much as they were when they were stuffed with E numbers and additives (may be we are just used to the old taste and people who never had the old stuff prefer the non-additive stuff?).

[poodicat]

Never into pot noodles,he was making a upmarket spam fritter,i still love them,next time its the 80's what food do you remember from that era?

[barney15c]

Fish fingers tasted better way back....and they were nearly twixe the size too!!!

[4getmenot]

there were less obese people in the 80's

[looobylooo]

and whats happened to the salted peanut i ask?! - wheres the flippin salt??!

[Jan1957]

I used to love a packet of plain crisps but now they're all low fat, low salt, they just don't taste the same. If I do have a packet, which is not often, I have to add salt.

[looobylooo]

yeah ive tried adding a bit of extra salt to peanuts too jan, but it just doesnt seem to stick! :o/

[tamborine]

Look at History tv & see the skinny population living on cheap fatty cuts, potatos & pastry swimming in lardy gravy - not much greens in them days of frugality.

no health warnings on my cigs - from Dubai.....£4 for 200; and arabs live for hundreds of years :)

[looobylooo]

precisely tambo ... and remember bread and dripping with salt too....

pssst ^^ - by the way we are now ready for your answer on the bestest 3 foods thread! lol

[merciasounds]

Well, the option is, to do it yourself!!! Add more salt if you want, cook with salt. Have real butter on your toast, it's up to you! I come from farming 'stock', my uncles lived on fat bacon, eggs, suet puddings, dairy butter, bread and dripping, white bread and full fat milk - and everyone of them lived well into their 80's, and they all smoked 'plain' cigarettes, and liked a drink everynight!

[pastafreak]

The reason why people ate hight=er fat foods,yet were not as obese as folk are now,is due to several things. They worked a hell of a lot harder than people do now....physical work-not sitting at a desk all day. They also probably ate LESS in proportion to physical activity.
We try to make up for it by going to the gym...it doesn't work.
There IS a health risk to too much salt,sugar and fat....heart disease,diabetes,and all the associated costs of obesity.
If you'd had foods with less salt,etc years ago-you would not be able to tolerate it now. I know I have never added salt to cooked food-and little in the cooking....I hate it.

[ayabrea38]

Even things like bacon and chicken taste different these days,so I wonder if the way the animals are bred has a bit to do with it.I tried a happy free range corn fed chicken a while ago and it tasted more like the stuff I had as a kid,but the price!
I am also fed up of all the white water that comes out of bacon,I don't remember Mum having that,and I know its put in to up the weight.
Yes,I would like a choice,adding a bit of salt just doesn't do it.
p.s I add soy sauce and gravy granules to my beef and tomato Pot Noodle.It helps.