Healthy eating advice
The College openly shared its expertise in dietetics with the general public through, practical demonstrations, recipe books, leaflets and articles in local newspapers. Despite improved standards of living, food poverty remained a problem. Tried and tested methods of educating people about healthy, low-cost food have been repeated over the decades to help improve public health and nutrition.
The Glasgow Cookery Book was originally published as a College textbook for cookery students but demand from the public made it available more widely. With revised editions still in publication it offers a comprehensive book of recipes with cooking hints for best results.
To help cover costs of publication, early editions of the Glasgow Cookery Book included advertising. Many of the adverts promoted some of the more healthy, locally made food products.
The College produced a number of booklets, pamphlets and leaflets advising people on healthy eating. Cheap diets representing a week’s meals was one of these pamphlets published in the early 1930s to help people on low incomes to plan and cook a variety of tasty yet healthy meals to feed a family through the week.
Much of the dietetics research work led by Mary Andross was published in scientific journals but it was also widely reported in local newspapers and produced on leaflets which were targeted at the general public. Her work showed better ways of cooking foods and how to create healthy, nutritionally balanced meals.
Inexpensive meals for the family was published by the College in 1973 as a result of a prize-winning project to help deprived families plan out the weeks menus to provide more nutritious meals on a low budget. Catherine Gillespie, College lecturer, won the 1972 Tube Investments Ltd Home Economics Award for the project. It involved collaboration with the Glasgow Social Work Department and Home Economics students to help deprived families to manage their homes and family budget.
In 1976 teacher training numbers were cut and some home economics students found themselves unemployed. As part of a job creation scheme some of these unemployed graduates spent 6 months helping underprivileged families to prepare meals with a limited budget. They worked from clinics in the west end of Glasgow and surrounding area, advising the people on their case lists how to prepare cheap yet nutritionally balanced meals using cheaper cuts of meat and the best value, locally sourced foods.
The College produced another recipe booklet in 1979, “Enjoy Cooking for One”. It was aimed at the over 60’s but also proved useful to other single people who had difficulty in planning and budgeting for one. The first print of 10,000 sold out rapidly, as did the second reprint.
