When I was 8 years old (in the late 70's), a treat would have been something like homemade buns, the occasional packet of crisps or a small chocolate bar. A friend of mine always had chocolate chip cookies at her house - the height of posh at the time!
Fast forward a few decades and I now have an 8-year-old daughter. So many things have changed in the intervening years; TV's have got bigger and better, cars are faster and safer, mobile phones have changed our lives. And what about the humble chocolate chip cookie? It, too, has grown.
I bought a chocolate chip cookie at a high street coffee shop recently, purely for research purposes of course! I bought the same brand of chocolate chip cookie that my friend used to supply 40 years ago. Amazingly, they're still knocking around! And I compared them.
AS you can see from the picture, the retro cookie is teeny tiny compared to the modern day version. The retro cookie weighs in at 21g (for 2) while the modern cookie is a hefty 85g. The calorie count is 104 calories versus 428 calories and the sugar content is 7.8g compared to 32g. Basically, the coffee shop cookie is 4 times bigger than the retro cookie. This may in some way, explain the expanding waistlines and increasing incidence of lifestyle-related illnesses that abound currently.
If we were all to revert to portion sizes of the 70's (we can keep the phones and the technology!), this might help keep our weight and that of our children in check. Portion size is hugely important and we seem to have lost sight of that (behind our big TV's, fast cars and mobile phones). It's back to the 70's for me - in terms of portion size only. They can keep their flares and tie-dye!
PS - In the interests of further research, I consumed both cookies in one sitting, a couple of hours before bed. Not my best idea ever - I wasn't able to sleep afterwards.
