Nursery World - A Unique Child: Nutrition

With our over-fed, under-nourished children and food-illiterate adults, where did it all go so wrong? asks Mary Whiting.

Hard to believe now, but English food was once glorious, and famous even in France! It was hundreds of years ago of course - in the time of the Plantagenets. Henry VIII gave us our first setback. Wanting to throw out everything Catholic, he banned 'Catholic', 'frenchified' food, and so under the new Protestantism, food became plainer. Cooking the great dishes of yore could cost you your neck, and they were eventually forgotten. However, many people still ate pretty well, using their own crops and animals.

The real disaster came with Enclosures and the Industrial Revolution from the late 18th century. As the lords enclosed the common land, there was nowhere for villagers to graze their animals or grow crops. Facing starvation, thousands fled to the burgeoning industrial towns in search of jobs in the new factories and mines. But the housing there was appalling, with no sanitation, no land and often no kitchens.

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