To be slightly horrified now by what I ate as a kid in the 80s?

Your not the original poster so my curiosity isn't with you.

I was born in 98 with my mum being a kid of the 70's. Mum grew up poor working class and they had just enough to get by, and my mum never really learned to cook herself. And she went back to uni when I was a baby. So other than a roast, it was most processed/ packaged food growing up for me. I've taught myself a few meals to cook, and now I have my own kids I really wish I was more capable of cooking healthier. It's become a strange comfort in eating food I know is terrible for me and not doing me or the kids any favours. I know in theory how to do it, but growing up eating how I have has made it harder to be adventurous with food.
Also my four year old asks for a pudding every night still, I guess some things never change!

I've done both.

What are you curious about?

We had mostly healthy dinners at home and I had school dinners too.

My breakfasts were always topped with sugar and I must have snacked a lot too, as I had a mouthful of fillings by the time I hit my teens.

Is there not a middle ground between chocolate, crisps and squash, and fruit / veg?

Some plain biscuits would be better than chocolate

Maybe cheese and crackers or some cold meat instead of crisps

Do you make your kids poach eggs with avocado on brown toast for breakfast? Or put salmon dinner in there lunch box just curious

Lmao, that's what I eat now and I'm 28 🫠💀

Hah. My dad worked at a greengrocers so we had loads of fruit and veg! Was always cornflakes for breakfast, but we did sprinkle sugar on top of them 😬 Packed lunch was always a sandwich (cheese and tomato or cheese salad were good), crisps, fruit, yoghurt, little chocolate bar (Gold bars were my favourite). Tea was usually home cooked but treats included crispy pancakes or pizza-rolls. Lots of home baking and home made puddings Dad would bring g home all the fruit that was going off and had to be used up, so lots of apple pies and freshly squeezed orange juice.
I was a skinny thing and we were always outside playing, walking the dog etc.
80s food in itself wasn’t bad, but companies have improved the food they put on the shelves and food standards/legislations have changed things.

I couldn't agree more.
As I said upthread however, today's parents (or on MN at least) seem to be absolutely convinced their parenting is the point at which the line is drawn and nothing will ever change because they have got everything right and those who have gone before have got everything wrong.
They are wrong of course and things will change. They always do.
As a 1990s and early 2000s parent, I am amazed at the amount of micromanaging of children's diets that goes on nowadays - especially as it will all go out of the window when they become teenagers anyway. Because, despite the fact their toddlers 'love veggies' and their six-year-old refuses sweets in favour of fruit and nursery has been told one slice of birthday cake once in a blue moon isn't necessary, parents cannot control their child for ever.

We did as well but with jam too. Possibly not breakfast but more like a dessert

I was a 71 baby and supermarkets had only really just started in the late 70's/early 80's. My mother always cooked from scratch but packed lunch would probably be a sandwich or sometimes soup in a flask, penguin/club biscuits and an apple. When we were older, we'd go to a nearby shop and have half a loaf (cob) and a packet of pickled onion monster munch. Eat the middle of the loaf and then tip crisps in for a massive crusty, crispy thing... So nice but terrible health wise.

I used to be jealous of the kids who brought money for crisps and chocolate every day, and the girl beside me had Jacob’s cream crackers with butter.
I had salads and sandwiches on whole meal bread. I have a fond memory of waiting at the school gate for my mother to arrive with lunch if she had run out of bread that morning. The sight of her coming around the corner on her little red bike with our toasted cheese sandwiches in her basket 😋 we had very little money but she always made sure we ate good food. I didn’t appreciate that until I was a lot older.

You can’t change the past. Lots of things went on which were the norm at the time; this national habit of looking back in horror is just daft. You can only judge behaviour by today’s norms. I only hope people will be looking back in horror and the sort of stuff that goes on today.

I was also at primary school in the 80’s.. cereal for breakfast, rarely coco pops but things like corn flakes would have sugar on top! School dinners always had a sweet pudding. Packed lunches were a ham or cheese sandwich and then some combo of crisps / biscuit / piece of fruit / yogurt / juice box. I remember we had chips or potatoes with a lot of dinners. Basic veggies like peas or cauliflower, but not nearly so much as I’d eat now. We had stews and casseroles. Occasionally lasagne or pizza, but they were definitely new and considered a treat! Oh, and yes to the boil in the bag fish.. usually served with instant mashed potatoes.
I don’t eat like that now, but it was of its time and I’m not going to judge.

i rarely ate sweets,
or chocolate
it is only since i met dh that i started eating chocolate and cakes, as the weight shows!

I had the opposite experience. My mum was on a diet for her whole adult life (but was obese throughout). We were allowed sweets once a week which was a small chocolate bar (such as a Mars) cut into four as there were four children.

No crisps, no fizzy pop except for at Christmas, very little cake (only if grandma baked one). My school lunchbox would be a brown bread peanut butter sandwich & an apple with a flask of the weakest orange squash known to man. Tea would be a very small portion of meat or fish & veg. We rarely had pudding but if we did it was fat free yogurt.

The end result? As soon as I had my own money at 16, I spent it on eating everything I’d never been allowed as a child. I have also had a weight problem for my entire adult life, same as my mum. I myself have three adult DCs who I allowed to eat everything in moderation - all are healthy weights & have sensible attitudes to food.

Omg have you really nothing better to worry about? It was 40 years ago and you’re still here. Whatever you think you can’t change things, let it go and get on with living!

I agree, regular fruit and veg wasn’t really a thing. That said it also wasn’t as readily available. Very few supermarkets around in my area anyway.
i have a theory that the reason so many young people are so freakishly tall is the fact they’ve been fed 5 fruit and veg since birth!
Most women especially, I know raised in the 70’s and 80’s are quite short!

I brought up children from the mid '70's and this was a pretty typical packed school lunch, though most children also had fruit and often a yoghurt. One mother was bold enough to put in the leftover ham salad from the previous night and the school phoned her and told her it was an unsuitable lunch.

School lunches weren't great, it was common to have them prepared elsewhere and reheated in the school kitchens rather than cooked fresh, so many children took packed lunches. Even at the fancy secondary school that my daughter went to most of the lunches were more snacky than meals, think pizza ahd baguettes, though there were jacket potatoes and bits of salad added everywhere. Most secondary school canteens were a nighmare of chips and pastry, when "healty" food was introduced some enterprising mothers started to sell fish and chip lunches at the school gate.
Snacks at home after school were something like toast or Weetabix. We all ate a proper meal together in the evening, usually cooked from scratch and typically followed by yoghurt or fruit but often yes with a pudding and custard. Obviously all my children are adults now, some with their own families, and I don't think that a faintly rubbish lunch or a pudding in the evening did them any harm. None of them are overweight, have eating problems or are unwell.
The children we used to worry about at that time were those who ate the poor quality school lunches, some had no breakfast and lunch was their main meal of the day.

My childhood diet was very similar

breakfast - coco pops with sugar on
lunch - jam sandwich, a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps
dinner - fish fingers and beans

Unfortunately this diet continued into adulthood as I really didn’t know any better. It was only when I had kids of my own that I started learning about nutrition. My digestive system in in a terrible mess now in my 40s

I totally get what you mean, the fact that everything was upf and knowone batted an eyelid. 100 percent agree with you as a 90s kid who grew up in the time of Heinz baked bean pizzas, findus crispy pancakes, tinned meatballs, fray bentos pies and Iceland pizza flavoured sweetcorn.

Exactly the same here. My diet was awful. My mum couldn't be bothered. On the plus side, it has made me very interested in cooking healthy meals as an adult.

I ate similar at school in the 80s, sometimes school dinners. I was thin, most of my classmates were thin as we were so much more active back then. My diet got worse as an adult, with far too many takeaways. I have type 2 diabetes now but this is due to my diet as an adult.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about sandwich spread. I absolutely detested it! The days that appeared in my lunch box my sandwiches went in the bin!

I think I'm a bit older than you, but in the 70s I think I was mostly fed on lard! We did eat veg, but a lot of stodge. Pudding with custard most days at school and at secondary school we could choose chips and huge greasy doughnuts. That being said, we were more active - I was always out down the woods with my friends, riding my bike, climbing trees, playing games and generally running around. When I was older I walked everywhere. It was nearly a mile to the bus stop or any shops so we probably worked more of it off.

And you survived. Do you have any health issies as a result ?. If no, then whats the problem