Children of UPF parents

[Horriblebirth]

Just wondering if anyone else grew up being fed absolute shit by their parents and what their relationship with food or their diet is like now?

Growing up I was given ready meals, frozen meals, sugary snacks, probably over 90% of my diet was UPF. Pasta using a jar of sauce was considered a cooked meal.

I used to get embarrassed when I'd go to a friend's house and their parents cooked a lovely meal and I didn't like any of it. I wasn't being rude, I was just so used to beige crap.

It's been so hard to try and get myself to eat real food as an adult. I'm still terrified of trying new things and have a really limited diet. I'm trying my best to ensure my kids never turn out like me because it's depressing and embarrassing.

I lived in a mostly upf household but mainly because my mum was the cook and she was a nurse so didn't come home until late. Dad was lazy and just sat in front of the TV all the time doing nothing.. Still does.
However my mum still did cook a Sunday roast every week, also did the odd meals in the week like cottage pie, tuna pasta bakes, chilli con carne, slow cooked most meals as well like stews and casseroles so not every day was upf. I would say we ate half upf beige crap and half homecooked (sometimes with jars of sauce, stock cubes instead of home made stock, instant mash that kind of thing).
I was overweight and always struggled with overeating, but she gave us big portions and my dad would often bring home crap.
Now my husband is a fantastic cook, we mostly have delicious home made meals. I still eat too much though as it's so tasty compared to my mums bland cooking (sorry mum) he does everything from scratch.

I think a big part was that sugar was scarce back in their day, so it was seen as a treat. They’ll have remembered their own childhoods eating ‘boring’ bland, low-sugar diets and I’m sure they’ll have felt that they were giving us ‘better’ by filling us with sugar and ‘exciting’ UPFs. They wouldn’t have had a clue about the dangers of processed foods. They’re were doing their best.

I always cooked from scratch in the 90s/00s. I had no choice due to DCs’ food allergies, but as soon as they left home they now live on takeaways and beige crap. I think it’s often human nature to do the opposite of what your parents did. The pendulum swings back and forth.

I was brought up in a lentils and spinach household, with the result that as soon as I went to uni I went on a massive binge of sweets, crisps, booze, takeaways etc.
It did mean however that I was always happy to try new foods and now have a very varied (and mostly healthy!) diet. Unsurprisingly the key is balance.

It's sad to see others had the same diet but quite validating at the same time.

To be clear, I wasn't slating jars of sauce. What I meant was that boiling pasta and using a jar of sauce was a rarity and what we considered a home cooked meal.

In my case it definitely wasn't a case of doing the best with what we have. We had takeaways 2-3 times a week so could have easily afforded to cook proper meals, it genuinely was just laziness. Another poster said about the kids eating beige crap and the parents eating plain meat and boiled veg, I can absolutely relate to this.

A few people have said I need to take responsibility for my own diet. I absolutely am but unless you've spent half your life going "eww it's got green bits on" you have no idea how hard this is to overcome.

I was fed a lot of 'boil in the bag' meals, oven cooked pizza, and the odd (bland) homemade dish or soup. We ate quite a lot of takeaway chips, sausage rolls and the like too. I was also given a lot of junk snacks like crisps, sweets and fizzy juice.
I purposely taught myself how to cook proper food in my late teens/early 20s.

Yes and when I left home I learned to cook. Took a while and many mistakes.
No idea why my mum refused to cook decent meals, she was a SAHM.
But then, she was and still is incredibly selfish.

Same here.

But what's confusing is my mum was great. She was also a SAHM and not one but selfish or lazy in any other way.

My Mum hated cooking and she also worked nights and was knackered so I do have sympathy for her.

I think there was a mix in those days. Some kids had home cooked healthy food and other families embraced the convenience foods - either due to money reasons or lack of time. They were a god send to some Mums.

We didn’t have the same knowledge about UPFs then as we do now so I can’t judge too harshly.

I became more adventurous with food when I went to uni. Finally trying curries (Birmingham- had to!) and then living in France seemed to cure any fussiness.

So I think you do need to take ownership at some point. Because I didn’t have the healthiest diet growing up I do really try to eat healthily now and cook from scratch. There’s not much I won’t eat..

I grew up eating UPFs nearly all of the time. I was always ashamed and scared of going to friends houses for dinner because I had never tried even the most normal British home cooked food. Packed lunches were also a source of shame, no one else had two slices of cheap white bread with one slice of burger cheese to the middle.

Once I left home I started trying new foods. I remember the first time I ate curry and rice, I had tried neither before and it blew my mind. So I started trying everything and anything, found out that I love food. Then I taught myself to cook. So no long lasting ill effects here thankfully.

I mean sugar sandwiches i take it back! It does honestly sound like she didn't know any better, i know I fed my 90s children the odd .biege breadcrumby thing because I had to learn to cook and it was easier some days just to give them a chicken thing with a potato thing, with some salad just because they wouldn't try anything .

I also think one of my children had ARFID growing up but at the time it was classed as "fussy eating " and not to pander but because she struggled with food for a year or 2 in early primary I fed her what I knew she would eat, she is a healthy adult who eats most things but I put that down to her fending and trying things at her own pace.

I use to love Cadbury smash when I was a kid, and those boil in the bag fish and parsley sauce! I use to eat a Heinz baked bean pizza - loved it! Loved a chicken Kiev too, bit had one in years between my DD would love one!

My Mum isn’t a great cook and still isn’t but tries. She is also a competitive under eater and uses really negative language around food (good / bad) a bit piggy if you enjoy a meal etc.

i have a really healthy relationship with food and really enjoy eating and cooking. I get a lot of pleasure from feeding my children well and enjoying treats like weekend pancakes etc

My mum also has a terrible relationship with food even now in her mid 70s she survives on very little mostly sausage rolls and biscuits, although her cooking was fine when I was growing up she was either not hungry or too tired after work to eat, and she never let me cook.

I now eat a large variety of food but as well as being a UPF family, we were also a "eat everything on your plate" family so I now eat too much food whether its UPF or not.

I also loved the fish in sauce I bought some recently it was the tiniest bĺt of fish.

I was the opposite.

All meals were cooked from scratch. Good wholesome English meat and two veg type.
Very occasionally we bought fish and chips - perhaps 2-3 times a year.

My Parents' typical menu:
Breakfast: porridge
Lunch: Brown bread sandwiches and salad
Tea: Cornish pasties/cold meat/pie etc all cooked from scratch and with mashed potato and two seasonal vegetables. Sometimes jacket potato with beans or similar.
Fizzy drinks/crisps etc were very rare treats. Heck, even our yoghurts were home made... Cakes were always home made. We might occasionally be allowed a shop bought digestive. Sweets were only for long journeys and chocolate only on Sunday.

Result is, my diet is rubbish. I can't stomach brown bread or mashed potatoes to the point I may actually vomit if I try - and I do from time to time, because I decide it's silly and it isn't that bad. I don't even mind the flavour, but it triggers something in me from the number of times I had to eat it when not fancying it.

So my typical day's food is:
Breakfast: Nothing. Choking down cereal first thing in the morning does nothing for me.
Lunch: What I get from the canteen. Normally chicken nuggets or maybe a pork pie. Occasionally I have a health kick and manage a salad for a couple of days. Washed down with coke zero.
Dinner. Piece of cheese and snacking with coke zero.

I know it isn't good for me. I struggle with eating, and can very quickly trip into must more disordered eating than I already have.
I find the "Good English Food" just turns my stomach.

So your parents might have done everything right and you eat rubbish now.

Im surprised OP because nearly every single thread on here about food and dinners involves people falling over themselves to say that if a child is given a healthy diet, they'll grow up to be bingers of junk food and their parents are orthorexic.

Usually what a person is role modelled is how they do things as an adult, not exclusively, not all the time but largely.

We had healthy meals growing up, home cooked food, it was the 70s so convenience foods were expensive and few and far between but nice enough, Vesta paella for one thing, but we were given massive portions and Ive always had a big appetite so I became very overweight despite not really having snacks or afters because we just didnt

But I love all food, from the most exquisite expensive to the downright cheap and UPF. Love it all. I have an almost complete UPF free diet but thats because I love cooking not because Im anti anything.

And crap teeth are a combination of poor hygiene and genetics, not necessarily what you eat.

Im 67.. there were my parents and 5 kids.. so that kind of food wasn't around much. We had loads of veg based dinners.. Sunday roast every Sunday.. mum was a very good cook and Baker.. yes sometimes we had home made meat and tatie pie or liver and onions with tatie n swede mash. Fish and chips were a treat. I always cooked home made and my daughters have followed suit.. with occasional take away or a quick pizza for example.

I was fed a largely UPF diet growing up in the 70s and 80s - microwave meals, corned beef, squash/fizzy drinks/ribena as drinks, awful school meals though those improved as 80s went on. Sunday lunch was the only home cooked meal. Well English breakfast at the weekend rather than chocolate cereals in the week but hardly healthy.

I quickly once I left home started having a wider range of foods and now eat a very healthy and balanced diet.

Same here. Mum did cook when I was very young but she tended to boil all veg to death, and fry meat until it was leather. Sausage rolls and boil in the bag were absolute luxury.

Then the microwave was invented and she never looked back - sloppy salty ready meals all the way.

I taught myself to cook from scratch, started with fried eggs or something like a spag bol from old recipe books, worked up to stir fries and curries. Can't bear microwave food..

My Mum is a very good cook and very health conscious so we rarely or never had UPFs. This also meant that she often spent a lot of time preparing the evening meal so there were no options- you ate what was served or you didn't eat. Going and getting some chicken nuggets out of the freezer wasn't possible because we just didn't have that kind of thing in the house. I didn't love everything she cooked. Lentil stew is a hard sell to a 7 yo. However, my brother and I learned that some meals you love and eat with relish and some meals you just eat because it's what's available. You maybe don't enjoy it very much but it's food and it will fill you up until the next meal. I have noticed that a lot of children- and many adults- think that everything they eat has to be their favourite. It doesn't. If you don't particularly like a food but you know that you have to eat it in order to stay healthy and give your body the nutrients it needs, put it in your mouth, chew it and swallow it. The more times you eat it, the more enjoyable it will become anyway.

I have a child with AFRID. It’s been a bloody nightmare. I’ll not be pleased if she writes a thread like this when she’s older! (Shakes fist)

I wonder if some mums just saw cooking as drudgery? So couldn't be arsed. A lot of thinking and preparing goes into making dinners and if you don't enjoy cooking then bung in the oven food is easier, I have been meal planning since early 00s just so I know what we are having and it motivates me to cook, even now it just me and dh and we plan our weekly meals.

Worth remembering how new the concept of UPF is. Plenty of things we now think of as UPF were considered pretty normal or even healthy in the 80s-90s. Breakfast cereals (apart from the most obviously sugary ones), sliced brown bread, yoghurts filled with shite, processed cheese and sandwich spreads, low calorie ready meals like Lean Cuisine- loads of it was marketed as being healthy and the stuff that wasn't healthy was "a treat". My poor dad ate awful trans-fat spreads for years rather than butter because he thought it was better for his heart. Plus marketing could be directed far more at kids making the parents' job even harder.

By the time all our kids are adults, half the stuff we feed them will be exposed as being unhealthy. In fact it's already happening- all the processed crap for toddlers that was pushed as being healthy when my kids were small because it used fructose not glucose ("sugar free" biscuits) and those weird tasteless Wotsits, processed slop in a pouch that's marketed as healthy because it's organic, etc etc.

So I don't think having eaten this stuff means you had shit parents. We're (almost) all doing our best with the knowledge we have and in the situation we find ourselves.

OP, if you want to expand what you can eat, I'd start by trying to recreate "real" versions of things you enjoy in UPF form- homemade chicken in breadcrumbs, homemade pizza or whatever. Take it gradually and build on what you find you like- you don't need to throw yourself into the deep end.

i grew up in the eighties, it was alway fresh veg from the allotment and meat from the butcher but any sauces were packet or jar, we only drank pop or tea and sugar was added to anything sweet and salt to anything savoury. Super noodles, findus crispy pancakes and pop tarts also featured pretty heavily and crisps, sweets and chocolate.

im pretty healthy these days although I still love crisps and chocolate they are more of a treat. We aim to be fairly low upf, cook everything from scratch, add lentils/beans/pulses. We do meat free 4 days a week.