Britons Prefer Brown and Wholemeal Bread in Favor of White Bread

The UK National Food Survey shows that Britons’ consumption of white bread dropped by 75 per cent since 1974, while brown and wholemeal bread has risen by 85 per cent.

The Survey also reveals that quick-fix foods have always been popular, but while households in the 1970s were asked to record levels of instant milk, instant potato and tinned peaches, today sales of convenience foods like frozen pizza and pasta have skyrocketed. In 1989 households were asked for the first time whether they owned a microwave, and since then the number of ready meals we buy has more than doubled.

An advance in technology – in 1974 only 15 per cent of households in the survey owned a freezer and where a Leicester household’s shopping list in 1974 included canned milk pudding, canned peas and potatoes, a comparable household in 2000 (when 94 per cent of households owned a freezer) bought frozen cakes, peas and chips. This rise in technology correlates with a drop in households sourcing their own food, with a wartime government asking about owning poultry and access to free eggs before the question was dropped in 1991.

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said: “Food is the heart and soul of our society and this data not only shows what we were eating 40 years ago, but how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. Shoppers are more plugged in to where their food comes from than ever before, the Internet has brought quality produce to our doorsteps at the click of a button, pop up restaurants are showcasing the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips”.

Truss adds that this data offer the possibility to look beyond what, where or how previous generations were eating and pinpoint the moments that changed our habits for good. “We’ve only scraped the surface of what the National Food Survey can tell us and from local food maps and school projects to predicting new food trends, I look forward to seeing how this data can be used to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future”, she said.

Today information from around 150,000 households who took part in the survey from 1974-2000 has been published by Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of its commitment to open data – meaning for the first time anyone can access the underlying household diary data behind the estimates and drill down into the cultural shifts that have helped shape the food we eat today.

The National Food Survey, set up by the wartime UK government concerned about citizens’ health and access to food, has been running in some form since 1940.

The data are being released as part of #OpenDefra, the biggest ever government data giveaway which will see 8,000 datasets opened up for free and public use by the summer.