Are Raisins Still A Thing?

[TheLeadbetterLife]

When I was a kid, raisins were everywhere. My parents were very into the 70s / 80s wholefood, grow-your-own thing, so we never had sweets or chocolate (except cooking chocolate) in the house. We had raisins (Nanna had sweets though...).

Breakfast was bran flakes or weetabix with raisins (plus extra wheatgerm). We had those little red boxes of raisins in our lunchboxes. Baking usually had raisins in it - chocolate was for birthday cakes. Puddings were almost always fruit based as well (e.g. stewed damsons with custard).

To this day I love dried fruit, especially the extravaganza of it at Christmas.

Are raisins still big? I suppose there's anxiety about the sugar content now, but they have loads of fibre, which possibly compensates.

Yes.

Sorry, they are actually extinct.

I give my daughter raisins. I don't see them as a health food, and make sure she brushes her teeth extra thoroughly, but she loves them.

Got to be better than other sugary snacks.

I wanted to get some for pancake day (my mum used to throw some in the batter before it started to cook) but I couldn't get any.
I didn't want a massive pack so was looking for those little boxes - but there was none to be found 🤔

They are only a thing in my house until my DH finds the packet. Then they are an ex-thing.

We still get a lot of children with little boxes of raisins in their lunches in the preschool where I work, but we don't give them out anymore for snacks because they are so bad for teeth - no better than a pack of sweets.
I often have sultanas on my cereal or porridge as i prefer them to raisins.

My blackbird and robin definitely believe they’re still a thing! They’re not too worried about the sugar content either 😁

Yeah we always put them in porridge.

If you ask my DD4 yes they are a thing still, but DS8 would turn his nose up to them. There is still a huge selection in my local tesco of different size boxes, plain, covered in yogurt, big bags etc.

Lidl do a pack with raisins, golden raisins (think must be a different grape 🤔) and cranberries. They are delicious on weetabix or porridge. Or eaten straight from the packet.

Lol! @TheLeadbetterLifeyou’ve described my childhood!

I think raisins fell out of favour as a snack food for kids, because they are very sweet and stick to your teeth. You can still get individual packets though, including the red boxes of Sun Maid raisins, often character branded, and tend to be in “crisp” type bags rather than little boxes. There’s actually a big range of dried fruit snacks out there, marketed at adults as well as kids.

Yes. I have a posh mummy friend who gives them as a 'treat' to her kids. In moderation of course. She once looked alarmed when her daughter requested a second glass of apple juice and I nearly complied!

God help them when they hit 11 and have free access to McDonald's.

I have a handful on my muesli every morning. I love dried fruit; it reminds me of Christmas!

I was pondering on this very question recently.

sunmaid raisins haven’t existed for ages but other ones def exist!!

I have to add my son - now an adult - has always been raisin obsessed and he’s never had a filling!

God yes! DGD was obsessed with yogurt and raisins. Until she clocked flavoured yogurt was a thing, then raisins became persona non grata. It was good while it lasted!

Thinking about it.....I used to regularly buy bags of mixed dry fruit from Poundland.
They were always 2 bags for £1 and I used to get the yoghurt covered ones as well.
Since so many of my local Poundland stores have closed I haven't been able to get them. Presumably other shops sell them 🤔.
There's a lot of products I used to buy from Poundland that it's annoying now to have to go searching every blimming aisle in the supermarket for.
I miss my Poundlands 🙁

I think I'm going to start buying raisins and making stewed fruit. I've been so wrapped up in the likes of Nigella and Ottolenghi as an adult that I'd forgotten how nice some of that old-fashioned stuff is.

I mean, yes, raisins are sweet, but I bet we never had them any more often than other kids got e.g. cornflakes. Also, fibre mitigates sugar spikes, so... I could probably eat them by the handful.

My money-grubbing dentist will be pleased, any road.

Of course. I put them in my overnight oats.

Just to add I prefer sultanas myself, have'em in porridge. Happy with raisins but given the choice will have sultanas. Also in cakes and scones. It's not entirely the flavour, it's the succulentness, IYSWIM.

Early years settings aren't supposed to give them any more. The dentist doesn't like them 😂

How mad that I was thinking this the other day 😄

Terrible fruit that ruined many cakes of my childhood

They're still about though

I packed a mini pack of raisins in my dcs lunchbox at nursery on Monday, and got a note back saying they had confiscated them as the sugar content is too high and they count as a false fruit? (Rather confusing because they are allowed one sweet item in their packed lunch- like a cake or biscuit, and so the raisins were the sweet item we had packed for them, but apparently they’re deemed worse than a chocolate penguin biscuit?) Seems ridiculous to me!

As a childminder I’m no longer allowed to give them (along with popcorn, sausages and anything with sugar) to children but I personally don’t see the problem with a handful a day. In my earlier days of childminding a decade ago I did see some kids who seemed addicted to them though!!