What did you eat as an 80s and 90s child?

[Foodfan]

If you were a child in the 80s and 90s, what was your diet like?

im wondering if mine was typical for children in the 80s and 90s or my parents were just not very adventurous!

salad wise we tended to only have lettuce, tomato and cucumber. That was always what salad was.
I think the other vegetables I was given were peas and carrots (plus sprouts at Christmas!)

Meals wise I remember having sandwiches, toast, porridge, toasties, shepherds pie, sausages, chicken nuggets and chips, pizza etc.

I remember that my mum was always slim but always on a diet and seemed to live in grapefruit and ryvitas!

We also had things like baked beans, spaghetti hoops etc too but I didn’t even know there were foods in the world such as salmon or curry etc until my teens!

Was this a typical 1990s diet? If not, what sorts of things did you eat and were the norm in your house growing up?

What have you done differently to your parents with your own children?

Cottage pie and beans on Monday, Irish stew in Tuesday, Spaghetti Bolognese on Wednesday, Stroganoff, moussaka or pasties on Thursday, pizza or ham on Friday, roast chicken on Saturday, chicken curry on Sunday. World without end, amen.

Yes similar.

Salad might sometimes have celery or if going really posh, avocado, but that was unusual.

We did have more vegetables, but runner beans, carrots and peas (frozen) were the staples. Cauliflower was probably the most common other vegetable we ate, but not often.

"Foreign foods" like rice/pasta/pizza, those really exotic items, were not generally served.

Dm did get more adventurous as we got into the 90s, but standardly we had "good British staples".

I was labelled a fussy eater growing up. I've since discovered that is because I far prefer things like curry etc.

Findus cheesy pancakes
boil in a bag cod with parsley sauce

But we’re Nepalese so lots of Nepalese curries/veg curries.

i remember pasta went with Bolognese and the amazing new recipe my mum made from a Tesco card with farfalle, crème fraiche, ham and mushrooms and peas.

Veg were carrots, peas and cauliflower, with occasional sorties into green beans and broad beans.

potatoes were often just large spuds, boiled.

very much a meat + veg + spuds sort of diet, with pizzas on Fridays. My parents still eat like this

Pretty similar
Plus turkey twizlers, those ' hamwich' things, findus Crispy pancakes, waffles, potato croquets

I was born in 1985. When I was very young we had only home cooked food and they were religious about it.

Think my mum mightve had a bit of depression when we were older and then when we were teenagers we had TONNES of UPF food. So chicken kievs, chips, Chicago Town pizzas, more chips, chicken nuggets, more chips, spam on occasion (bleurgh) etc. That being said, we hardly ever ate crisps or chocolate or biscuits. They just never bought it in. We'd get 50p a week for penny mix and that was it.

Salad comprised of only iceberg lettuce, tomato and cucumber.

When money was tight tho, we had lots of stews etc.

With my own kids, I've cooked from scratch 99% of their childhoods. Occasionally we will have pizza and chips, but I can count on one hand the number of times that's happened this year.

My kids diet is much more varied than mine ever was. I can remember eating an olive for the first time when I was 17 and houmous when i was about 19. These foods are nothing out of the ordinary for my kids.

Breakfast was porridge, cornflakes, Typical lunches were Heinz’s soup, cheese on toast and sandwiches dinners were pies, Shepard’s pie, roast, bolognaise, chicken and chips, lamb chops. sometimes we’d had fish as my dad had a fishing boat but never salmon or anything fancy. We did have curry though and never had nuggets unless I was visiting a friends house. My mum made everything from scratch including pastry.

Typical dinners would be:

Pasta in a tomato sauce
Mince and dumplings
Chicken goujons, homemade chips and peas
Corned beef hash
Picnic dinner
Fish fingers
Homemade soups and stews
Lasagne
Quiche and salad
Homemade curry
Cauliflower cheese

I remember we had bread and butter with everything and my mum usually did homemade desserts like pineapple upside down cake, tinned fruit with carnation milk and homemade rice pudding.

As i got older my parents became more adventurous with cooking as we travelled a bit and we ate a lot more international foods.

My parents were both decent cooks. Meals were certainly of the traditional type, certainly when I was younger in the 80s - roasts on Sundays (different meats - lamb, beef, chicken more rarely I think), stews, shepherd's pie, sausage and mash. They used things like tinned stewing steak, boil-in-the-bag fish, potato waffles, later on things like vegetable burgers/grills. Pasta and so on filtered in around the late 80s/early 90s - pizza too but shop-bought only and sometimes served with potatoes or chips IIRC. They did make curries but mainly for adult meals.

I was born in 1984. We ate a lot of curries, probably not authentic but I enjoyed them, and definitely a lot of pasta. We lived opposite an Italian deli and fruit shop and the owners gave us a lot of recipes for authentic Italian food.

We also ate Scottish food like mince and potatoes and steak pie. Lots of homemade soup. I was obsessed with seafood so ate a lot of that. My Father would bring home bags of winkles and mussels and we'd work our way through the lot.

We ate out regularly, usually Chinese or Indian but often pizza or Italian too.

I did eat quite a lot sweets but I also ate my body weight in carrots and fruit. I remember eating whole paper bags of kumquats when the local deli got them in. I shudder now to think what they may have cost.

A lot of mince. Things in breadcrumbs, Ski yogurts with sugar poured over the top. Dairylea sandwiches on sliced white. Mr Kipling cakes. Orange squash. Cup a soup.

I don’t think I consumed vitamins until about 2004.

Shepard's pie, fish pie, lasange, stir fry, spaghetti bolongaise. Some potato bake thing with tuna fish. Chicken was a rare treat. Usually jacket potatoes once a week in the winter, soups.

Later in the 90's we had pasta pesto with mushrooms, cream and bacon, still one of favourites. Fish and chips for a treat.

I’m slightly older, we ate very well.
A roast on Sunday (4 different ones rotated)
the meat in a curry on Monday.
Tropical chicken which was a chicken and pineapple dish with rice
spaghetti bolognaise
home made burgers with home made chips
jacket potatoes with various fillings
macaroni cheese with some bacon on top
cauliflower cheese (these two were lunches)

I never had white bread or white pasta.

homemade cakes and pies or instant whip/choc ice.

I forgot lots of stir fries too and the occasional roast dinner.

Home grown veg, salad and potatoes.
Cottage pie.
Roasts
Stew
Beans and sausage on toast (Heinz)
Sausage and mash
Findus crispy pancakes
Pie - cheese/meat and potato (homemade)
Chicken and mash
Bacon and egg
New potatoes

Nothing exciting in the 70s! Got a bit more exotic in the 80s when mum discovered flavour!

Born 1980. My parents were both well travelled and good cooks. DM is American so I grew up eating things like roast squash alongside carrots and peas (well, I didn’t because I was the original impossible fussy child until 12). Once I’d stopped being fussy we also ate out lots, particularly on holiday and including things like seafood platters in France alongside the inevitable pizza and pasta. My DC are less fussy and eat the same range I was offered. Although I’m absolutely guilty of cooking beige food sometimes, just like my DGM used to when we went to stay with her!

Lots that people have mentioned but some others:

• curries; my Mum loved Indian food and cooked it often
• Brains faggots. Yes, really.
• Those 'add hot water and top with crunchy crumbs' puddings. Chocolate or lemon
• savory buckwheat panackes; during Mum's vegan phase
• sausage, mash and beans moulded into a castle with bean moat

we are vegetarian and were raised that way

indian food - curries, rice, dahl etc
soups - tinned tomato
beans on toast
jacket potatoes
cheese on toast
cottage cheese
crumpets
yoghurt
pizza
chips
alphabites, waffles
boiled to death vegetables
veggie burgers
lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot

Cottage/shepherds pie was a staple, some sort of Birds Eye product with potato alpha bites was a Friday. Also had a lot of soup/stew/spag bol.

beans/spaghetti hoops on toast was always popular. Or Ham sandwiches.

salad was like yours but also had celery in. Veg also similar but we also had loads of green beans.

my Nan used to make some sort of concoction with jelly with condensed milk so it was like a mousse. Otherwise choc ices were treat du jour.

Never had takeaways like pizza etc, fish and chips occasionally and. McDonald's happy meal for me every Thursday with £2 off my Grandad. Meals were stews (lots of stews), spag Bol, sausage casserole, bacon, cabbage and new potatoes, panacalty, turkey twizzlers, and toasties as a treat

Born in 81 we would have

Sausage and liver in tomatoes (boke)
Cheese and potato pie, chips and beans
Egg, chips, sausages and tomatoes
Cottage pie, roasties and veg
Crispy pancakes
Beans on toast
Roast dinner every Sunday with salad or chicken sandwiches for tea
Sausage casserole
Coq au vin
Chicken casserole
Meat pies
We didn't eat pasta or pizza and didn't have curry until I was a teen

Oh and I'd often have those sausages and beans or spag hoops on toast for tea on a Saturday when small.

Boil in the bag chicken curry
Crispy pancakes
Potato waffles
Super Noodles
Frozen pizza
Kwik Save no frills range, in the plain black and white packaging that looked like prison food.

Occasionally dad would make a spaghetti bolognese but only with the seasoning packet. Its a miracle any of us survived past 30 with all the upf and shit our parents fed us.

Oh and I forgot the Big Soup! Beef and veg flavour with white bread and butter.

It was mostly frozen food in our house, burgers and chips (no buns, cheese etc just the meat), findus crispy pancakes, fish fingers, turkey drummers, pizza. The only home cooked meals I remember were spaghetti bolognese, liver and bacon (🤢) and toad in the hole. We had a roast at my grandparents house every Sunday. Oh and pasta with tuna mayonnaise and sweetcorn, which is still my favourite comfort meal!