Orwell wasn't describing a mid-Victorian diet at all. He wrote that nearly a century after the mid-Victorian period, when sugar and processed foods had already

Orwell wasn't describing a mid-Victorian diet at all. He wrote that nearly a century after the mid-Victorian period, when sugar and processed foods had already become much cheaper than they were. In mid-Victorian times, eating margarine, bread, sugared tea, and corned beef regularly simply wasn't an option for the poor, regardless of any lack of self-discipline -- those things were all far too expensive to be anything other than a rare treat.