hospitals served none at all.
When the social reformer Seebohm Rowntree investigated the diet of the urban poor in York in 1901, his report revealed a class prejudice against fruit and vegetables. The British Medical Journal asked: ‘Who is responsible for the conditions which lead to the state of poverty and the bad nutrition disclosed by this report? Lies the fault with the poor themselves — is it because they are thriftless, because they lack training in cooking and in the economical spending of such income as they possess? Or is it that the actual wages which they can command are so low that it is impossible for them to purchase the actual necessities of life?’ Britain’s professional elite had initiated a critique of working-class diet that continues to this day. Vegetables, it was being discovered, were key to the nation’s security and so it was that, just as the urban working classes were giving up on veg, British officialdom was offering a lingering glance to the greengrocer’s barrow.
The government and the military had been shocked by the poor physical health of young men they wanted to recruit for the Boer War, and suddenly nutrition became a national concern. A parliamentary committee was assembled and experts recruited to try to explain what was missing from the diet of the working classes. An answer was discovered in a laboratory at Cambridge University by biochemist Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins: vitamins. In what became known as the Golden Age of Nutrition, scientists across the developed world were demonstrating that there was much more to food than a source of energy and flavour. Fresh fruit and vegetables, it was realised, were a vital part of a balanced diet and consumption rose dramatically, particularly among the educated and better off. Britain’s working class, however, did not share the newfound respect and enthusiasm for carrots and beans.
With the Great Depression in the 1930s, millions were once again forced to swallow their greens and their pride. Some well-meaning authorities encouraged unemployed workers to grow-their-own in temporary allotments. Others set up soup kitchens where the hungry would stand in humiliating lines for a bowl of thin vegetable stock. In 1934, 68 million free school meals were doled out to poor pupils in elementary schools as the League of Nations published official guidelines suggesting children should consume at least 100g of green leafy vegetables every day. For a generation of working-class youngsters, the shame of being marked out as a classroom charity case would always be associated with the slop of overcooked veg hitting a dinner plate.
With the outbreak of war, among the few food items not rationed or in short supply were carrots, swede and potatoes, and so government hatched a plan to rehabilitate vegetables, to rid them of their lowly status. The maitre-chef de cuisine at the Savoy, Francois Latry, and a peer of the realm, Food Minister Lord Woolton, joined forces to devise and promote Woolton Pie — basically carrots and swede (with other veg when available) topped with potatoes or pastry. An editorial in
The King and Queen did their bit by being seen planting vegetables in the gardens of Windsor Castle and the Royal Parks. The flowers in Kensington Gardens were replaced with rows of cabbages. But attitudes proved hard to shift. As
Another wheeze was to convince the general public that vegetables had magic properties. The Ministry of Food suggested the success of the RAF’s most celebrated night-time fighter pilot, John ‘Cats Eyes’ Cunningham, was down to his love for carrots. Sales apparently improved as people consumed extra helpings following official advice that ‘carrots keep you healthy and help you see in the blackout’. But despite Carroty George’s help, the country couldn’t get to grips with cooking vegetables. Perhaps it was a relic of its pottage past, but Britain seemed hell-bent on boiling all fresh veg to the point of submission, and many consumers actually preferred the tinned variety.
In 1944, nutritionist Frederick (Bill) Le Gros Clark was commissioned by Hertfordshire County Council to investigate how to get local schoolchildren to eat their vegetables. The Jamie Oliver of his day, Clark was convinced that pupils could be taught to like the detested ‘slimy’ marrow. A letter to the British Medical Journal entitled ‘Children’s Food Fads’ summed up his conclusion:
We grow the best vegetables in the world and ruin them in the pot. The bias against greens among these children might easily be accounted for by the sodden tasteless messes put before them, and the indifference to potatoes, especially when boiled, may derive from the same cause. The school canteen can do much to eradicate food dislikes in children, with great advantage to their nutrition, especially if the mothers at home pay more attention to the saucepan and less to the children’s whims.
Britain actually emerged from the war a better-fed and healthier nation, but as rationing was removed, a diet class divide emerged. In 1952 the government’s National Food Survey studied the effects of social class on food consumption and found that fresh vegetables were ‘purchased in decidedly greater amounts by Class A than by the lower income classes’. Poorer families tended to buy large amounts of potatoes, white bread and cheap foods rich in fats and sugar. The report concluded that ‘shortage of money induces the purchase of energy-producing foods as distinguished from “protective” foods’.
The second half of the twentieth century saw a transformation in Britain’s relationship with food in general and vegetables in particular. Increasing affluence and new technology meant no one needed to go hungry. Diet became a lifestyle choice and for some that meant curries and burgers while for others it was lentils and beans. In 1961, the first Cranks vegetarian restaurant opened up in London’s swinging Carnaby Street, a sign that the parsnip might have a role to play in the social revolution. The 1960s hippy counter-culture, guided by the philosophies of the East, helped give vegetables a credibility that would feed the attitudes of generations to come. When Paul McCartney explained that he and his wife Linda ‘don’t eat anything that has to be killed for us’ he was implying that veg eaters occupied the moral high ground.
The carrot and the mung bean were symbols of an earthy alternative to the space-age grub that usually won pride of place on the supermarket shelves. This was the age of fast food — instant coffee, instant whip, instant mash. From boil-in-the-bag to microwave ready meal, domestic eating was increasingly about convenience and speed, enabled by new gadgets and appliances. Nutritionists, who had once enjoyed the ear of government, were sidelined despite increasing scientific evidence of the links between health and diet.
In 1983 Margaret Thatcher was asked ‘as leader of the nation and as a housewife’ what she intended to do about the assessment of the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education that Britain was eating its way to a public health crisis. The groundbreaking report, commissioned by her government, argued it was the job of the state to encourage citizens to eat more vegetables and fruit while cutting down on sugar, fat and alcohol. ‘I do not think that those people need advice from me, and I think that it would be presumptuous of me to give it,’ the Prime Minister told the House of Commons.
Mrs Thatcher was accused of burying the research to protect her friends in business, but it became increasingly hard to disguise the evidence of a nation with an eating disorder. The administrative arteries of the National Health Service were becoming clogged by consequences of poor diet. The Royal College of Physicians said that so many people were overweight in Britain that a change in the dietary pattern of the whole country was warranted. Health officials warned of a nation indulging in a mock-Tudor diet, consuming far too much red meat and not nearly enough green vegetables. This time, though, it wasn’t the wealthiest who were suffering most. It was the poorest.
Researchers working in Norfolk found they were able to predict how many vegetables someone consumed by their job and their postcode. ‘Being in a manual occupational social class, having no educational qualifications, and living in a deprived area all independently predicted significantly lower consumption of fruit and vegetables,’ they reported.
The Department of Health was bombarded with evidence that Britain needed to consume more veg, particularly those in the poorest neighbourhoods. If only the working class could be persuaded to eat their greens, ministers were advised, the health costs from heart problems, stroke and cancer could be dramatically reduced. The UK had one of the lowest vegetable intakes in Europe and one of the worst heart disease records in the world, but many developed nations were growing anxious about the same problems. Selling fruit and vegetables to the masses became a global crusade, with the World Health Organization encouraging governments to find ways to convince the citizenry of the merits of broccoli and spinach.
