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?

Born late 70s.

Cornflakes/rice crispies/weetabix for breakfast. Plus toast.

Packed lunch for school - cheese or ham sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar (penguin/clubs etc).

Dinners - I remember quite a lot of sausages or fish fingers, chips & beans type dinners. Always served with bread & butter.

Pork or lamb chops.

Minced beef with mash.

Sunday roast and then boiled eggs and soldiers for Sunday tea.

My sister (6 years older) introduced pizza (French bread style) and spaghetti bolognese (boil in bag?!!) to the household in the 90s.

I don't remember eating much fruit. It was available, but I wasn't made to eat it if I didn't want to.

My food at home was pretty adventurous and on the wholefood end of the spectrum.

We did have baked beans but never spaghetti hoops, or oven chips, or chicken nuggets.

Lots of kidney beans.

oh pot noodles as well!

Monday - cold meat (left over from Sunday dinner) and chips
Tuesday - stewing steak and mash
Wed - sausage and chips
Thurs - mince and dumplings
Fri - fish cake and chips
Sat - cottage pie
Sun - Sunday dinner

This was my meal plan for a whole year during the 80s - a set menu for the children's home I was placed in. That meal plan is ingrained on my brain.

Safeway frozen pizza; fishfingers; lentils (we ran out of money for food often and those were the back-up); Mother's Pride with Nutella.

80’s child, lots of meat, potatoes and veg dinners, roast dinner, egg and chips, sausage, mash and peas, egg/cheese salad. I remember my brother living on beef burgers and crispy pancakes as he refused so many foods. We always had custard puddings like banana custard or rhubarb and custard.

Then I refused meat and eggs from about age 10 so I had lots of pasta and rice dishes, stir fries, lots of vege sausages with jackets and veg, nut roasts on a Sunday, lots of salads (yes, only lettuce, tomato and cucumber) and sandwiches.

Lots of tinned soup, beans, spaghetti, those pasta in sauce packets at some point.

Orange squash from the milk man, fizzy pop only at Xmas. We always had apples and had things like pinapple, grapefruit and grapes at Xmas.

Then I became totally vegan at 16 ish so my mother despaired. 🤷🏻‍♀️I became very good at vegan cooking by 18.

My mum was alway in a diet as well, despite being slim. I think she had an ED to be honest.

Weird thinking back!

We always had big sacks of potatoes as well, never the little bags that are sold now.

Shredded wheat or rice crispies for breakfast.

Paste sandwiches 🤢 with a packet of kwiksave no frills crisps and a penguin for lunch.

Dinner would be meat, veg and spuds, or spag bol, or supernoodles with a crispy pancake or something similar, or chicken in homepride jar sauce with rice, or chilli con carne, or plain cheese pizza with beans.

Mum didn’t like cooking, so -
Egg and chips, Beans on toast. Potato waffles and crispy pancakes etc.
Dad more adventurous and likes cooking -
Cross and Blackwell stuff, chicken chasseur, beef bourginion, curries, roast dinners.

oh pot noodles as well!

We were never allowed pot noodles so #jealous. 😂

Hamwiches
And those drumstick things which were an 80s chicken nuggets type thing.
Homemade burgers
Spaghetti Bolognese
Omelette
Liver and onion
Mince and tatties
Cottage pie
Shepherd pie
Steak pie
Salmon
Soup
Spaghetti hoops

Egg mashed up in a cup

Angel delight, jelly, ice cream type pudding

Oh I loved this.

A lot of things that were staples in our house, I now rarely eat. We had potatoes with every meal, now I can barely tolerate them. I remember vegetables were always overcooked and consequently lacking in flavour. A roast every single Sunday. I don’t much like roasts now.

We always had pudding after dinner which seems bizarre to me now as we only ever have pudding in my house when we’re hosting guests.

My mum used to bake every Sunday without fail and would make cakes, puddings and pastries for the whole week. This might explain why I don’t have a sweet tooth as I had my fill for life.

I remember my mum discovering convenience foods in the mid 80s, which was, frankly, a relief. My siblings and I then got to eat M&S pasta dishes, garlic bread and chicken kievs.

We never had squash and fizzy drinks were only for Christmas. I did the same with my children and now as young adults, they drink water only unless they’re out.

Take-aways were unheard of. I was 18 when I had fish and chips for the first time. We never went to restaurants as my mum thought that was a monumental waste of money and home-cooked food was better.

I was completely unsophisticated as a young adult having never eaten out nor tried different cuisines. I can remember going to a Chinese restaurant with my boyfriend’s parents when I was 18 and having to pretend I knew what I was doing and eating. How different to our own children’s lives. I couldn’t have imagined having the range of cuisines they have enjoyed or being happy to eat sushi and sashimi, French, Chinese or Indian foods with relish.

Breakfast: Toast with marmite and fruit

Lunch: Cheese sandwich, capri sun, petit filous, chipstix ot skips or discos.

Tea: mix of findus crispy pancakes, hamwiches, waffles, faggots and mash , cottage pie, cheese on toast, fishfingers, chips n peas, ham, pineapple and chips.

Tinned Campbells meatballs (pretty much resembled dog food) and a slice of bread and butter.

Spaghetti hoops with fried chicken drummers.

Sausage and mash with tomato ketchup

Ham, egg and chips

Roast on a Sunday

I can still remember the first time we had lasagne made with Campbell condensed mushroom soup as the white sauce and curry which was just mice with raisins and curry powder.

Loving the sound of a 🐁 mouse and raisin curry 😆

Yes to all this. I remember trying avocado and kiwi for the first time so must have been a reasonable age for that. Never heard of Thai food or sushi until university in late 90s. DM had done a cordon bleu cookery course as a new wife in late 60s so we had lovely things like homemade chicken pie, coq au vin, boeuf bourgignon etc. Plus she always made her own pastry so even sausage rolls were home made. Boiled eggs or drop scones (scotch pancakes) for tea at the weekend when we'd had the main meal at lunchtime.

Quite a bit of meat and two veg, sausage and mash, liver and bacon, coq au vin , spag bol, casseroles, stews, lasagne all from scratch, chicken in white wine sauce (jar), steamed fish haddock usually. Lots of curries though often cooked by neighbours but my mum did learn, we lived in the East end. Salads especially in the summer, but also had beetroot , radishes, other leaves but my grandad grew a lot in his garden.

Fridays we were allowed our choice so often crispy pancakes, tinned meatballs, chicken nuggets, fish fingers, those Chicago town pizzas the little ones. We were pretty poor growing up so it was cheaper cuts but home cooked, I think the processed foods were more expensive hence being a 'treat' , we also didn't have fizzy drinks unless it was a birthday party, but did have squash. Very rarely fresh fruit juice which I loved

A lot of processed foods and everything with chips cooked in a chip pan. Things like Findus Crispy Pancakes and similar were often eaten. Lunch was things like Batchelors pasta in sauce, pot noodles, powdered soup mix shared between us with buttered bread, spaghetti hoops and cheese on toast, beans on toast, dippy eggs and soldiers. Very rarely we would go the chippy as a treat. Never had a takeaway or ate out unless it was a picnic of ham sandwiches and crisps.
My mum didn't really cook (split from my dad and a single parent). Sometimes we'd have a roast chicken on a Sunday and then leftover cold meat with chips and beans on a Monday. When I was around 13 I started cooking a chicken stirfry on a Sunday with a sauce in a jar (they were a new thing at that point).
My mum only ate chicken or turkey, we never had vegetarian meals, fish or other meats.
All in all, very unhealthy, carb loaded meals. I blame my childhood diet for how I am with food now. I was allowed to eat things like donuts for breakfast. I struggle with my weight a lot and am fighting my inner "mother" constantly. She is type two diabetic, seriously obese and riddled with health conditions. I'm trying very hard not to go the same way.
It's funny though, because my dad's diet was very different. I only went once a week though, sometimes for a couple of days in the holidays, so didn't really get to experience the full extent. He cooked from scratch every weekend I was there. Delicious flavourful food. A long way from what I had at home and it was the only time in a week I had red meat and things like pasta (which my mum wouldn't eat).

I forgot to add, the drinks of choice were caffeine free diet coke and when it was released, gallons and gallons of Sunny D! Rarely did I have water. Now that is mainly what I drink, I don't tend to have any kind of fizzy pop more than once a week.

Haha oops obviously meant to say mince, even my dad wouldn't make us eat mice and he had some funny ideas about food.

I'm from a working class background. The 80s started with really traditional food - meat, potatoes, veg. Things like liver and onions, cottage pie, bacon and new potatoes, chips and sausage etc

My parents were really adventurous and as the decade wore on we had more things like courgettes, manage tout, garlic bread, pizza, pasta etc. We still had a lot of tinned veg though and tinned fruit with evaporated milk after every meal. We used more convenience food like crispy pancakes, home pride cook in sauces, frozen minute steak (still miss that one) etc

I became vegetarian in the mid 80s so things like Sizzles, sosmix and Beanfeast sneaked in. At this stage I was 13 and cooking for the family, I was scouring vegetarian recipe magazines for ideas and cooking all kids of new cuisines. I still started Uni having never eaten an avocado!

I can remember being terribly envious of my school friends that had soda streams. Also going to friends’ houses where they had crisps and cans of coke and sweets. I could only dream of such crap!

I had an American friend whose mum used to make us cola floats and popsicles and we’d have hotdogs and s’mores. It was another (much better) world!