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?

In the 90s -
Corned beef hash
Chilli
Spag bol
Those nasty chicken tonight jars
Freezer food like Kievs, fish fingers
Sausage casserole
Absolutely no salad, ever

Spaghetti bolognese every Saturday!

Usually a roast dinner on Sunday. Mainly chicken but occasionally beef, pork or lamb.

Monday would be curry or risotto if we'd had chicken, made with the leftovers.

I also remember having M&S ready meal of beef stew and dumplings. Always that one. I don't even know if they did others then. I can't remember if we had a microwave.

I don't remember puddings really, I don't think we had them often. Blackberry season meant we'd have apple and blackberry crumble though, as we'd always go and pick loads.

Pizza and chips, egg and chips, egg and potatoes, cheese sandwich, chips and beans, jacket potato with cheese and sometimes coleslaw. Chips and mushy peas. Potato waffles. Jaffa cakes.

Cauliflower and sprouts at Christmas.

I was vegetarian in a household that didn't much like vegetables - or didn't know how to cook vegetables, or couldn't afford vegetables.

I still have fond memories of tasting my first parsnip at 16 😁

Oh someone mentioned Alphabites, I forgot about those! And potato smiles and potato croquettes. I reckon my diet was about 90% potato.

Anything that came out of the chest freezer mum kept in her bedroom.

Dalesteaks, Kievs, mini pizzas.

Then roast beef and Yorkshires every Sunday.

Spag Bol or casserole made using Colman’s packet mixes.

Tinned spaghetti hoops, beans, ravioli.

Liver and onions, smoked haddock cooked in milk, sometimes English breakfast for tea.

A massive treat was ‘bananas’. Mum would put a bunch of bananas and a loaf of bread on the table, and we could make sandwiches. Or we’d have them sliced up in milk and eat them like sandwiches. It’s only now I realise this would have been at the end of the month when money was tight.

Eat them like cereal, not sandwiches.

My mum was a good cook, so dinner was always something yummy.
Breakfast was cereal.
Lunch was school. If at home probably a sandwich and cut up veg or soup.
We occasionally did have spaghetti hoops but not as a proper dinner - maybe as a snack after getting in from school.
My parents didn't really do desserts day to day or crisps and things. There was always fruit or yogurt though.

Technically I was still a child in 1980.
But I grew up overseas so probably not interesting.
I don't identify with the diets described here.

Oh, and a massive salad on a Saturday while watching the Brookside omnibus.

Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, new potatoes, grated carrot, boiled egg, rolled up ham, homemade coleslaw, cold baked beans, spring onions, beetroot…about 1000 calories, probably!

Breakfast cereal Monday chicken pie (left over chicken from sunday dinner)
Tue saus and chips
Wed spag bol
Thurs whatever
Fish and chip fri

Super cereal

We went through a toastie stage when we first got the toastie maker

Pot noodles, chips with egg, or with beans or spaghetti or fish fingers or sausages. Pie or sausage and mash. Soup from a can. Beans or spaghetti or ravioli on toast. Potato waffles. Overcooked, over salted, mushy veg. Meat that resembled leather. Stew and dumplings. Meat and potato pie, which was boiled potatoes, with a layer of corned beef above and then topped with short crust pastry (a vegetarian version of just spuds and pastry was available) served with potatoes and overdone veg.

Born mid-70’s. No takeaways except fish n chips occasionally, and all food homemade:

Roast dinner on Sunday
Lots of meat & 3-veg meals
Lamb chops (fatty meat has put me off for life)
Schnitzel
Macaroni cheese with bacon on top
Savoury mince with veges, even better the following night on toast
Lasagne / Spag Bol
Quiche & Stir-fry’s and rice (more in the 90s)
Salad - always had a large amount of salad ingredients with sliced boiled egg on top

Packed school lunches were sandwiches (Marmite/Vegemite & lettuce/cheese, Marmite & crisps, or tinned salmon & brown vinegar - a Dad special which I hated because it stank and I was worried kids would comment), yoghurt & fruit, Dad’s chicken and legume soup in a Thermos in winter.

Breakfast was Weetabix, porridge, toast, Cornflakes, yoghurt

Drinks were squash or flavoured milk from DM’s work.

Lots of vegetables. Very little ready made or processed food. Never had findus pancakes or chicken nuggets til I went to University.

We moved a lot due to dad's job and food varied. When we lived in Lincolnshire for example, we ate lots of blackberry and apple desserts when they were in season and my parents had a huge greenhouse. In Germany we lived in an apartment at one point but my mum still grew stuff on our big balcony. Yorkshire puddings with herbs in were always a staple though and plum and potato dumplings from my great Granny's recipe. Spaghetti bolognese, chicken gyros and thin steak wrapped around minced veg with cheese were staples.

On the odd occasion we had fast food at home, it was homemade pizza baguette (2 types of cheese, salami, tomatoes, salt and oregano). Still love it. Restaurants were mostly Chinese, Turkish or Croatian depending on where we lived.

My school packed lunch as an 9 year old was things like salami and cheese on rye bread with a tub of coleslaw (with raisins and apple) and a slice of homemade cake.

I try and cook everything from scratch myself. Certainly some family recipes are still on the go.

2 main favourite:

Kraft Cheesy Pasta!

Tins of Campbell's meatballs 😆

Don't think I had any nourishment. But loved it all.

Corned beef hash, shepherds pie, cottage pie, beef stew, egg and chips (from the chip pan!), cheese on toast, beans on toast, poached egg on toast, stewed mince, gravy and potatoes, always a roast on Sundays. Working class household. Treats were Angel Delight and Sara Lee chocolate gateau.

I'm surprised at how unadventurus so many parents were then. I was an adult by then (married in 1981), and was making curries from scratch (thank you Madhur Jaffrey), Chinese food from scratch (thank you Ken Hom), Indonesian food, middle Eatern food etc etc. as well as roasts, sausage and mash and other traditional British food.

My mother was an awful cook and I grew up hating her food, led me into an eating disorder in my teens and 20s. Meal times were a battlefield ('You will sit there until you finish your dinner!'). She still prepares the same miserable meals for my poor dad after 50 years but he's too scared to speak up 🙄

Under unexpected circumstances she's staying with me now and I pettily prepare the spiciest food every evening. Every meal has at least six cloves of garlic and a shit load of chilli in it 🤣

Roast on a Sunday at 1.00pm on the dot. In the week tea would be at 5.30pm on the dot and consist of fish fingers & chips (hand cut and cooked in the chip pan), faggots with new potatoes and veg, stew, spag bol, curry (my mum's recipe and no others), Chicken Tonight, sweet & sour, fish and chips on a Friday (either homemade or from the chippy), stir fry, Toast Toppers. Treats were Findus French bread pizzas and micro chips. A quick tea would be tinned mince and tinned potatoes 🤢 Desserts would be Vienetta, arctic roll, Sara Lee chocolate gateau, Birds hot chocolate crunch, Angel Delight. Washed down with a Soda Stream.

Oh and she scoffs the lot btw 😂

born 70’s

we sometimes had Heinz tinned potato salad on a salad for a treat.

crispy pancakes , toast toppers.

we had some biscuits that were named after possibly aliens - yellow peril was one highly coloured biscuits - yellow , green , blue and red .

super mousse were a real treat.

Same as yours, lasagne and findus crispy pancakes were my fave meals as a kid, oddly my mum was Also always on a diet and usually consisted of grapefruit and ryvitas too .. I do remember only being allowed crisps on a weekend and chocolate once a week … and don’t remember many takeaways maybe the odd Chinese. McDonald’s was a special treat too think I actually had a birthday party there .. my daughter would be horrified if I suggested this now 😂

Salads (ploughman's type)
Roast dinner
Pizza / chips
Chicken in white wine sauce and rice (m&s tinned though not from scratch)
Pies
Boiled potatoes with stew 😖
Cottage pie
Cheese, Onion, potato pie and beans

I wish they still did the chocolate crunch 😂

Cheese toasties, smash, mighty white bread, boiled eggs and yoghurts. I remember eating raisins straight from a massive tub. Vanilla ice cream in a block that you sliced with a knife, and mousses in plastic tubs. Also sausages and micro chips.

We were very lucky and our mum cooked everything from scratch (I didn't take after her). Steak and kidney pie, shepherds pie, pork chops. Risotto, stews. Except when Wimbledon was on and we had to fend for ourselves. Always a roast on Sunday and home made cakes. Friday was fish and chips from the chippy. My kids would never eat this now.