I swapped my avocado toast for kippers to see if the boomer diet really is healthier

Our writer, a young millennial, adopted the diet of her boomer parents and grandparents for a day. Here’s what she learnt

I would call myself a healthy eater. I have plenty of berries and seeds at breakfast, avocados often feature in my lunch and stir-fry made with ginger and chillies is a weekly go-to for dinner.
But I would also say that my parents, born in the 1960s, and even my grandparents, born in the 1940s – both belonging to the baby boomer generation – ate healthily, though mealtimes for them looked markedly different.
At my age, 28, their diets were much more stripped back, featuring eggs on toast for breakfast, simple baked potatoes for lunch and fuss-free meat and two veg for dinner. They hadn’t ever tried an avocado and didn’t have an array of sauces and oils in their cupboards to liven up their favourite meals. Ultra-processed food only really took off in the 1980s, so they were far more likely to cook from scratch and their portions were smaller.
It means that their diets were generally much healthier than the typical diet in the UK in the 2020s, says Rebecca McManamon, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association. The deterioration of the nation’s eating habits over the last few decades have contributed to record levels of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
So, what could I learn from adopting old-fashioned eating habits?
The make-up of a plate was noticeably different among previous generations, McManamon explains. While meat was a key part of meals, the quantity consumed was much smaller. 
This was in part due to the rationing mindset, McManamon says, though smaller crockery may also have contributed. Plate sizes were around 6cm smaller 50 years ago, subtly deterring people from overloading. The type of meat eaten was also different. Bacon, beef and offal – such as liver, kidneys and tongue – were on the menu, while chicken only accounted for around 1 per cent of meat intake. 
Additionally, “Vegetables were a key part of each meal which they are less so today,” she explains (vegetable purchases are currently at a 50-year low in the UK) and the main source of processed foods was tinned food, which are far less processed than the ultra-processed ready meals, cereals and snacks we eat today.
Breakfasts were also markedly different then compared to now. My grandparent’s generation started the day with kippers and eggs – much healthier than sugary cereals and pastries that many of us now tuck into, McManamon says. 
Overall nutrient intake was more balanced. “Rationing only ended in 1953, a year after the Queen’s coronation, so sugar and fat were used more sparingly compared to today,” McManamon continues. Sugar is supposed to make up no more than 5 per cent of our diet but now accounts for 12.5 per cent, while our diets are around 13 per cent saturated fat – more than the maximum recommendation of 11 per cent, according to the British Nutrition Foundation.
“All of these factors meant a healthier diet,” she concludes.
During my experiment, I start my day with kippers, a boiled egg, boiled spinach and a slice of seeded toast, a boomer staple according to McManamon. Setting aside the pungent fishy aroma – that even my seafood-loving boyfriend complained about – and the effort of having two hobs and the oven on the go first thing in the morning, there’s no denying this breakfast is a healthy one.
While it’s more calorific, containing 460 calories compared with the 360 in my usual Greek yogurt, blueberries, pomegranate and mixed seeds, it’s much more filling (I’m barely hungry by lunchtime). It has more than twice as much protein (28g vs 12g) and a tenth of the sugar (2.4g vs 21.9g).
It also adds a serving of fish to my day. We’re told to eat at least two 140g portions per week, one which should be oily. However, data suggests that fewer than a quarter of us meet this.
“Many of us don’t eat enough oily fish, so kippers are an excellent breakfast,” McManamon says. They’re high in protein, which is great for our muscles and our immune system, and omega 3, which helps keep our heart healthy. 
The addition of an egg provides nutrients such as iron and B vitamins, as well as even more protein, she adds. Certainly the “go to work on an egg” marketing phrase used in the 1950s and 1960s had some truth in it. 
“Overall, this is a high-protein breakfast, is filling and provides plenty of nutrients,” McManamon adds. 
While I can get on board with egg, toast and some greens for breakfast, I don’t think I can stomach it in this exact configuration each morning. The boiled egg and vegetables were bland and took longer to cook than a quick scrambled egg and this fish was too time-consuming to cook before work – and that’s before you get to the smell.
Fortunately, my usual yogurt-based breakfast isn’t a bad choice, McManamon tells me. It’s full of probiotics, vitamin B12, iodine, calcium and protein, while my toppings provide heart-loving polyphenols and plenty of fibre. 
Avocado on toast is a common lunchtime option that I, and many other millennials, enjoy tucking into. My iteration usually features sourdough bread, tomatoes, radish and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
But while eating like a boomer, I stripped it back to basics with a baked potato packed with cottage cheese and chives and some salad. It was fine for lunch but, again, an effort to cook, with the potato requiring an hour in the oven, opposed to the quick assembly that I’m used to. The cheese was also so heavy and creamy with the already dense potato, though the chives and salad provided some much-needed flavour and freshness.
“Potatoes have fallen out of fashion but research shows they are the most satiating food, meaning that they satisfy our hunger and make us fuller for longer,” McManamon notes. They also provide lots of vitamin C (for immune system health) and potassium (for heart and muscle health).
Cottage cheese took off as a diet food in the 1950s before falling out of favour (though it has since made a comeback of late as a result of social media influencers posting about its benefits and sharing recipes). “It has a high protein content and may provide some probiotic benefits; importantly calcium and iodine which women in particular may lack,” she says.
Meanwhile, my avocado toast option is severely lacking in protein, McManamon says. It contains just 6.5g, while the baked potato meal packs in 16.6g and is also lower in calories (403 vs 289) and saturated fat (1.9g vs 5.1g).
“However, avocados offer lots of magnesium and fibre, which we often have inadequate levels of in the current UK diet,” she says. Also, the sourdough offers up prebiotics and probiotics, which support gut health, McManamon notes. I reckon I could get used to adding a small dollop of cottage cheese to my usual lunch to make it more balanced.
Chicken fried rice is a dinner recipe in regular rotation in my house. With wholegrain rice, chicken breast and plenty of vegetables – carrot, peas, peppers, green beans – it’s healthy, quick and full of flavour from fresh chilli, spring onions, garlic, ginger and chilli oil.
However, many of these ingredients weren’t widely available a couple of generations ago, so I plumped for my Dad’s favourite – lamb’s liver and in-season vegetables.
“Traditional offal such as liver is less fashionable nowadays but it offers a nutrient-dense food that’s high in minerals such as iron and copper,” McManamon explains. “It has a higher ratio of minerals to meat than chicken, which is the nation’s most consumed meat.”
The taste is so meaty that I only manage around 50g for my dinner, compared to the 150g chicken breast I usually scoff without thinking. I also have to push the thought of it being liver out of my mind so that I’m able to swallow it. I serve it with bacon and onion gravy, mashed potato and boiled cabbage and peas, making it feel not too dissimilar from a Sunday roast.
Despite being much more dense and filling than my usual dinner option, it surprisingly has fewer calories (650 vs 710) as well as more fibre (14.9g vs 12g). It also contains much less salt, in spite of the bacon, than fried rice, which contains a whopping 3.42g of salt thanks to the two tablespoons of soy sauce.
“Cabbage is high in vitamin K and vitamin C but less commonly eaten to other brassica vegetables like broccoli,” McManamon says. However, the bacon and gravy are high in salt, so skipping the lardons and opting for low-salt bacon would be ideal, she says.
“All meals have pros and cons,” says McManamon. However, all six of these options can be healthy additions to a person’s diet, with some of the suggested tweaks, such as scrapping the bacon from the liver dish and adding protein to the lunch with avocado.
Overall, the average UK diet now contains much fewer homemade meals than the boomer diet, making it less healthy, she notes. I’ll be incorporating elements of the boomer diet into my recipes going forward – though I may need to dodge the kippers; while they’re certainly full of flavour, the smell is an acquired taste.
Photography by Heathcliff O’Malley
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