🎧 1971: A year that changed food forever?

Episode summary: Dan Saladino asks if the year 1971 was a turning point for how the world eats? It was a year of contrasts: McDonalds increased the portion sizes of the beef burger it served with the launch of the Quarter Pounder, meanwhile one of the best selling books of 1971 was full of vegetarian recipes, ‘Diet for a Small Planet’ by Frances Moore Lappe, which argued hunger could be eliminated from the world if we stopped eating meat and embraced plant-based diets. In the UK the food industry was innovating like never before and creating new types of processed foods and supermarkets were expanding across the country. Some embraced these changes, whereas others reacted to them, a split that was reflected in the publication of two important books that year. Delia Smith’s ‘How to Cheat at Cooking’ offered tips on how tinned convenience foods could be used to create quick and delicious dishes, whereas, Jane Grigson’s Good Things, was a celebration of slower, seasonal and more traditional cooking. Senior staff writer at Bon…