As I enjoyed my gluten free pasta and a small slice of jack fruit pizza earlier on it made me really question how much food has changed in the last twenty years or so, in this country at least.

There are so any foods around nowadays that I don’t think we would have ever dreamed of eating in the 1970s or 1980s, here are a few – definitely for me anyway.

Pizza – as far as I can remember I never had pizza as a child, isn’t it weird when pretty much most people love to snack on a pizza or have pizza as an easy dinner.

Pasta – I honestly never had any type of pizza until my Mum started buying this really nice M&S tagliatelle with ham and mushroom, when I was a teenager, whether that is because it only came out then or she only just started buying it, I have no idea. I don’t think I had spaghetti until I was in my twenties!! Oh of course unless you count delicious spaghetti hoops – which you had to see how many you could get on the prongs of your fork, or a tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce but that definitely didn’t taste the same as spaghetti hoops.

When did you have your first curry? – I couldn’t tell you when I had my first curry, again it was probably when I was in my twenties – I don’t think I was brave enough to try anything but a chicken korma, oh yes I remember I had one with fruit in, possibly bananas, that sounds completely weird doesn’t it? What is your favourite type of curry?

Obviously McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Pizza Express weren’t a thing either. In fact if we ever had take away food it was from the fish and chip shop – as a person who doesn’t eat fish at all I always had either battered sausage, battered burger or spam fritters, I’m not even sure they do battered burgers or spam fritters any more. Who doesn’t love a chippy tea?

I don’t recall having peppers in salad either, or rocket, water cress or spinach. I think there was a choice of round lettuce or iceberg lettuce, cucumber or tomatoes. I didn’t used to like cucumber or tomatoes so you can see my salad choice wasn’t the most exciting. It was either lettuce or ermm lettuce.

Crisps and dips weren’t a thing either. At Christmas it was a variety of salted peanuts, dry roasted peanuts and cheesy biscuits or Bombay mix or pretzels. Does anyone actually like pretzels?

We had white bread or brown bread, no fancy artisan bread, no seeded bread, no gluten-free bread or other 57000 varieties of bread that are around now.

No sweet potatoes, in fact the first time I tried these I was on holiday in Barbados when I was about twenty and in awe of their delicious sweetness. Did you know sweet potatoes are healthier than white potatoes. There was no broccoli, no basil, garlic or rosemary. Jacket potatoes were exclusively for bonfire night, chocolate was just for Christmas or Easter and hot-cross bun were only eaten at Easter.

Now whether this is a coincidence or not, I was as skinny as a rake then, I wonder why…