Eating habits....then and now.

[bafta16]

I was born in 1957. I was never much a of a breakfast person. I liked cocoa pops and sometimes toast. Lunch was school dinners. Primary school was big helping of ghastly food which we more or less had to eat.
Dinner was 5pm. Something like shepherd's pie. I lb of meat for 4 people. Tinned fruit maybe. Supper a couple pf plain biscuits.
Moving to Secondary, less lunch, sometimes a bag of donuts or some chips. I wonder how many calories...maybe 1,500 or so? No alcohol in the house.

Now I am constantly grazing and/or stuffing my face. I do wonder what on earth has gone wrong. Somehow I need to re educate myself.

I was born a few years before you OP and your description of our eating habits is so accurate. Food was for filling us up. My mother always cooked 3 meals every day but like you I usually didn't eat breakfast, particularly in my teens and we didn't eat out at all. But I remember clearly when Chinese and Indian restaurants were opened in our town, we couldn't get enough of the delicious food! And the Chinese restaurant had a dance floor so it was a popular place to go of an evening 😆
Now, I never really feel hungry, but always want to eat. Do you remember the biscuit advert "a drink's too wet without one"? That's how it is... 😉

I remember being in the Lower Sixth and going out for a meal. I ordered Drambuie as it was the only drink I'd ever heard of!

I was always really hungry as a kid as we weren't allowed pack lunch but the dinners were inedible. Luckily we weren't forced to eat them so I survived on grated cheese, grated carrot and treacle, chocolate or jam sponge. Never lumpy custard. The pink one was terrifying! The worst days were when semolina was on the menu. I'd end up desperate for chocolate or sweets after school.

I remember mum giving me orange juice thinking it was healthy so my baby teeth were terrible! She also gave me milky coffee for breakfast from two onwards! This was the 80s.

I'm a child of the 70s. On Saturday, we would be taken to the sweet shop where we could choose 'a quarter of' whatever sweets we wanted. These were in big jars on shelves behind the counter. That was it for the week. If you ate your sweets in one go or rationed them out for a few days it was up to you, but once they were gone, they were gone. I don't recall there being a whole aisle of large 'share bags' of sweets in the supermarket, although you could buy bags of fun sized Mars Bars, which were generally for birthday parties. At Christmas there was the enormous tin of Quality Street.

In my memory there wasn't the vast array of pop and snacks you can get now. Pop was delivered on a lorry, 'the Alpine man', in returnable glass bottles. We only had pop on special occasions or when we visited my grandparents. There was plenty of warm orange squash around, but we would never buy a can of pop, unless we were at the pub.

Dinners were big and there was always pudding. My mum used to stew apples then tip a tin of rice pudding over the top and heat in the oven. It sounds minging, but it was delicious. We would have fresh oranges (not satsumas or tangerines- they were for Christmas) segmented and sprinkled with spoonfuls of glucose. Everything had a good spoonful of sugar tipped over it - sliced bananas, breakfast cereal etc - because we needed energy to run about.

Packed lunches - meat paste, jam, marmalade or golden syrup (!) sandwiches. A Penguin or Club biscuit. An apple. To drink there were warmish jugs of water in the dining hall.

I'm a 70s child and my mother's cooking was always 'functional', meat and two veg and boiled potatoes. I remember going to a friend's house and being served spaghetti bolognese - I just sat there in horror as I had no idea what it was or how to eat it 😱 I didn't realise until I left home that food was also meant to be enjoyable.

The strange thing is, when my parents stay with me now and I prepare something really delicious (forrin muck 😅) my mum scoffs the lot and asks for seconds. Yet back home she still makes the same meals as she did 50 years ago not that my dad would dare complain

I was born in 1950, never had Coco pops or anything like that..I never had school meals. primary walked home,a couple of minutes. secondary late father worked in a factory opposite we went home. we kept chicken,he fished, neighbour shot rabbit pigeon.Late DM shopped daily. Certainly didn't eat donuts.

I was born in 1962. We usually had porridge made with water and salt for breakfast.
We came home from school for dinner at 12.30 which was meat and two veg with boiled tatties followed by a milk pudding.
At 5 we had tea which was bacon and sausage, macaroni and cheese type of thing.

My mother taught full time and my memory of her is standing at the cooker browning neat and peeling tatties for the next day's dinner.

I struggle to thinn of one cooked meal per day - goodness knows how she did two.

All that food yet nobody exercised or was overweight.

I think I was about 9 when I discovered cocoa pops. The little boxes of cereal were a huge treat. Fizzy drinks, maybe twice a year and my Grannies. I recall people talking in muted tones about a teacher who " ate yoghurt" It was regarded as highly unusual ( along with other foreign contraptions like duvets)

The portion at 5 pm was what would fit into my hands ie smallish.
There was no grazing. It was deemed bad manners to eat whilst on the street.

although you could buy bags of fun sized Mars Bars, which were generally for birthday parties. At Christmas there was the enormous tin of Quality Street

Never, ever was aware of these things.

Born in 70s, at school in the 80s:
Breakfast was cereal with sugar or toast and tea with sugar
Packed lunch was peanut butter, jam, cheese or sausage sarnies, a Penguin or Club, crisps, fruit. Probably orange or blackcurrant squash.
Tea (dinner) was shepherds pie, stew, something (eg fish fingers) and chips, a Pot Noodle for a treat on Friday. Mum worked and had 3 kids but always cooked something as dad finished work later.
Lovely roast on Sundays. Pudding was yoghurt, doughnuts, ice cream, choc ice, Swiss roll, a crumble!

Honestly, a lot of these things are still in our family diet now - along with, pasta, rice, different cuisines, snacks etc. No sugar in tea or coffee or on cereal now!

I apparently had an old-fashioned childhood... in the 1990's/2000's. It was cereal at home, but if I was at my grandparents', it was porridge, bacon sandwiches, or possibly a few slices of fruit loaf bread. Summer holidays meant foraging and making jam.

Primary school is responsible for introducing me to ultra-processed foods that Jamie Oliver subsequently banned. The rest of it put me off certain foods for life (anything lumpy, quiche, and the mere smell of mushy peas, which permeated the assembly hall, and often got squashed underfoot during indoor PE).

I stopped eating lunch at secondary school, partly due to severe anxiety, and because the dinner ladies thought I was fussy for asking for a plain jacket potato. I was not a fan of beans, and couldn't eat cheese due to migraines.

Dinner was usually meat and vegetables at home, or meat/fish, vegetables and a pudding at my grandparents'. Pudding meant something like apple crumble and custard. I don't remember eating cereal/

I went through a phase of a fair bit of ultra-processed food at university, but have since gone back to my grandmother's kind of cooking, like homemade soups, fish and vegetables, steamed puddings and so on. That's what I've had today, and I am stuffed! Admittedly, I do a lot of batch cooking (e.g. bread, pies, soups) so that I'm not reverting to ultra-processed food during the working week. I try to grow some of my own fruits and vegetables, which I am not very good at, unless they don't mind a bit of neglect.

I don't drink tea or coffee, and drink more water/milk than anything else. This is quite handy, because I am rarely in the mood to drive to the nearest town to buy anything else after work!

I don't eat much junk food, which helps on skipping around 90% of the aisles in the supermarkets.

@TheeNotoriousPIG little junk food and no coffee, admirable.

70's
Pop from the Alpine man but it was so tasteless I doubt it had any sugar in.
Occasionally we'd have fresh donuts from the kiosk at the Pier Head in Liverpool. Fried in front of you and then rolled in sugar.
New fangled cereal called Alpen but usually toast for breakfast.
School dinners eventually made me vegetarian. No more liver or spam fitters for me just scoops of weird mashed potato and overcooked veg.
Until the vegetarianism took over tea would be chips with egg or beans, Scouse or corned beef hash; something from the chippy every few weeks and a trip to a Chinese restaurant once a month. We're still very much a chip based family.
Don't ever remember ever buying cans of fizzy drinks. We were lucky as a relative worked at Cadburys and would give us bags of misshapes, often slightly deformed Milk Tray.

There was no grazing. It was deemed bad manners to eat whilst on the street.

Yes, it was considered very rude, almost as unacceptable as smoking in the street, especially if you were a lady! Takeaway food wasn't really a thing, except for fish and chips once a week or so at teatime. People tended to stick to mealtimes, so no grazing. My siblings and I were only allowed snacks (packet of crisps or a bag of sweets) on a Saturday as a treat.

You missed out! The Quality Street tin was truly massive, nothing like the ubiquitous plastic tubs you get these days. One of the great disappointments of modern life is that Quality Street have changed their wrappers, so they are no longer all shiny and Christmassy. (Plus getting rid of the brown caramel, for which they will never be forgiven.)

I agree with PP who mentioned not eating in the street. I still won't do this. Someone else mentioned never having doughnuts - we did, but only rarely and in a cafe, if out for the day. You just didn't buy great trays or bags of them. We might get to buy one from the bakers, but this was a rare treat in our house.

Home cooked dinners were things like pork chops and mashed potato or the dreaded 'wash day dinner' as it was known in our house - mince and peas, made using minced left over Sunday roast. And it literally was mince and peas, sometimes with a chopped onion added. No herbs or tins of tomatoes added. The 'wash day' reference was a hang over from when my mother was young, and Monday was the day when my grandmother did all the washing without a washing machine, so didn't have time to cook anything more involved. God love her, she was still boiling pants in a huge vat on the stove, liberally seasoned with Daz, well into my teens.

The past, eh? It's another country!

@ Theresmagicwheretheflowersgrow

That Chinese restaurant wasn't the Willow was it?

I totally agree with the 80s diet btw which was awful- we talk about highly processed now but I ate it all day then.

however my diet itself is SO much better now. I agree it’s likely more. But you have-

• imported tasty fruit and veg all year available cheaply- I eat raspberries, strawberries, avocado, blueberries, pineapple, melon, varieties of tomato, garlic, Chinese leaf, rocket etc etc etc every week.
• the internet / globalisation opening up a plethora of recipe and cooking styles to explore- no longer the “microwave cookbook” or delia!
• knowledge and interest in the impact of nutrition on health and longevity.

i am so much healthier now- I agree it’s harder to control calories and sugars but that’s also due to so much choice, which has many many positive for us too

We didn't have snacks when I was growing up, lunch was a sandwich, no side of crisps or even veg. There fruit if you weee hungry so I ate an apple a day. I do remember always being hungry. Even when I was in my 20's we didn't eat much, mainly because I was skint. Something happened in the noughties, an onslaught of celebrity chefs, greater exposure to more cooking styles in every day recipe books, more coffee shops and snack options including a huge market of snacks for babies, toddlers, kids etc that it is now so ingrained in our culture. I find it hard to decline the constant cake and biscuits at work as well. I think it's a combination of marketing but also we've got used to the cheap prices and become quite frivolous with food, regularly eating meals with multiple additional ingredients beyond meat and 2 veg. It's great to eat delicious food but it definitely leads to over eating and over spending.....and an expanding waistline.

It is so interesting that some people really get stuck in habits

i am like that myself 😅

lucky for me i grew up in the 70s with a mum who cooked basic but tasty food, so i still crave that. Porridge every morning or overnight-oats with fruit (yes it was already around in the 70s but just called Swiss Muesli, it was not the dried stuff though)

like some other posters i had a brief love affair with junk food in my late teens/early twenties but drifted back to familiar food like mashed potatoes, sausages and cabbage

i still think it is mad luxury to drink a can of pop 😁 out to eat out at all, or to eat more than a few squares of chocolate, or more than 1 biscuit with my cuppa

There is much more of a culture of indulgence now and I know there is a COL but in my town everyone is eating luxury treats all the time and eating out.

i feel very frugal with my thermos on beach walks too

old habits... I feel like I am very frugal and boring and restricted in my eating but on the other hand it has kept my weight stable, what I eat is nice and tasty too.

We never had snacks in the house. I remember raiding the baking cupboard for glacé cherries or cooking chocolate when I got in from school as there weren’t any biscuits in the house. Then I’d get in trouble when mum went to bake a cake.
we had Smash instead of mashed potato too, great adverts, awful product. Child of the 70’s!

I used to raid the cupboard for glacier
cherries and cooking chocolate too 🤣

I was thinking similar the other day, when I was in a convience store and looking at the array of chocolate bars. Theres so much choice and options now.

As a child (my recall being in the 80s) - and a mostly 90s teenager - I'd have had a decent choice of chocolate bars but now there's a vast amount as there's a different versions of each bar from my youth. (Such as the KitKat - as a child it would havd been two or four fingered, now there's chunky ones (definitely not a complaint, love them!), white chocolate ones, mint ones, orange ones, and so on.)

Take aways and eating out seem to be more common - delivery of ready made food wouldn't have been common at all when I was young. Mind you I don't think I'm a good judge of that - i was 19 the first time I experienced a pizza delivery and at 21 was more excited than I care to admit at being in a shop totally dedicated to sandwiches for lunches in London (a Pret a Manger). Not sure why - i think it was idea people went there every lunch time and the variety of choices which already made up just seemed fancy. Despite the fact locally we had a places that you could get a sandwich made up, i had bought Marks and Spencers ready made sandwiches and I knew delis existed!)

My mother told us cooking chocolate was poisonous so wouldn't raid the cupboard for ir!

Take aways and eating out seem to be more common - delivery of ready made food wouldn't have been common at all when I was young

I was in my late teens before a take away pizza place opened in my market town. You still had to go in, order it and wait to collect it. There were fish and chip places, but my mum wasn’t a fan so we didn’t have them much. The Chinese takeaway was considered to be very expensive, so we very rarely had one, it was a pay day treat and certainly not every month, and this again was in my teenaged years. I don’t recall takeaways at all when I was younger, despite the fact we lived in a city then with more access to more culturally diverse foods. I had never even tasted curry until I was at university.

We definitely weren’t a ‘cook everything from scratch’ household, though. I recall frozen burgers and Marks and Spencer’s shepherd’s pie. There were lots of sausages. Mum used to buy a huge sack of potatoes which would live in the garage and be used for chips, mash, boiled potatoes and jacket potatoes. The potatoes were covered in soil, which I presume helped to stop them rotting or sprouting. Cleaning and peeling them was quite an effort. I used to hate boiled potato dinners - these days I only do boiled new potatoes, but we regularly had main crop potatoes, peeled and boiled. These great white lumps would be served with boiled carrots and some sort of meat, such as left over roast chicken. No sauce, just a bit of butter on the potatoes. I feel like choking just writing about it!