to think our children have far superior diets than we did?

[oldendaysending]

I had reasonably well-educated parents. Both worked full time however and our diets did suffer because their childcare arrangements were not great.

Breakfast, if we had it - frosties with semi-skimmed milk. Lunch was a sandwich on white bread filled with some sort of paste. Packet of crisps, chocolate biscuit. One piece of fruit (apple.) Drinks - coke/Ribena. Weekends was always a pie and cake

Evening meal - something my mother had cooked; these were usually OK. We'd snack on crisps/yoghurt/biscuit before tea. Might have a banana before bed.

Most children I know now have wholegrain cereal for breakfast. Sandwiches or pasta salad on wholemeal brea. Raw veg, yoghurt, oatcake. Water to drink. Snacks are fruit/more raw veg. kids should be very fit and healthy!

I can't begin to tell you of how deep my loathing for Spam fritters was.
Yes, child of the 60s and early 70s here, the food glowed on the plate.

Spam fritters were considered the highlight of my school dinners.

I'm another with a childhood spent in the 70's. I hated spam fritters at school. But apart from that I had a pretty good diet. But compared to my kids not as good. We had less fruit (lots of veg though), and traditional British cooking, not many puddings (apart from custard or blancmange most days). White bread rather than wholemeal/granary - but it was locally baked so not totally processed stuff.

I don't remember lots of crisps and chocolate - but do remember doorstep peanut butter sandwiches after school (I dread to think of the calorie hit of those !).

My kids have mainly home cooked food - probably better quality than I had as a kid because we are more affluent than my parents were then.

Did anyone else's school do pink custard? Doubt that was too healthy either. Coming over all nostalgic - I still miss watching Hawaii 5 0 on Sunday night.

Wasn't pink custard otherwise known as strawberry or raspberry blancmange ?

I remember thinking it very unfair that my mother refused to buy Findus Crispy Pancakes.

I disagree, actually. We were surrounded by affordable farm shops growing up. You could buy cheap fruit, vegetables, eggs and sometimes meat. My parents cooked everything from scratch, from corned beef hash to aubergines in garlic and tomato sauce, but the only farm shops now are 100% organic, and the average person is more inclined to shop at Tesco for preservative-lined food.

Ahhh paste white bread sandwiches (usually beef or fish) - takes me back . You are right that healthy eating wasn't promoted as much then. My family was pretty skint and used to eat horrible stuff like spam, faggots, liver and onions, oh and chips with everything!

I don't think that is true generally OP.I just think your parents were lazy

During WW2 and the years afterwards when food was rationed, the health of the nation improved hugely. Infant mortality decreased and life expectancy increased. Certainly the diet was far duller than we get these days, but if you look at old newsreels etc. there were very few fat people to be seen.

On the other hand, life expectancy was less and things like heart disease were higher.

Toad, was that in response to my post? Yes life expectancy even with rationing was lower than now, but it was a considerable improvement on expectancy before. Maybe adherence to the 'rationed' diet would make the current figures improve. Statistical figures not bodily ones, though they probably would too.

urgh those awful white bread sandwiches all limp by lunchtime. I used to just open my lunchbox and throw the sandwiches in the bin. Never told my mother. Next school I was at we had cooked lunches and they were really good.

I think dd eats pretty much the same as I did growing up but with fewer puddings and Sunday roasts (we are out all Sunday). She has a healthier breakfast. I had some kind of cereal with milk (cornflakes, rice crispies) but she has bad reactions from milk so I had to come up with something different.

Only major difference is that dd doesn't get fish 'n chips being abroad.

Going back to the OP, I am not so sure...you only have to look at the statistics re obese children, and that must tell us that a significant proportion of children are not getting a superior diet (unless we're talking superior quantities).

My Mum was a very good cook, but was a queen of the 70s...everything had butter and cream in vast quantities. She was very thin, but I was a bit of a porker. I think my DSs' diet is pretty good, but it is not quite as the OP describes....mind you they are very fit and healthy.

I think my mum went to more of an effort. They were taught to cook properly in her day. She used to make jam, pickle onions and things, had a huge freezer full of all sorts of things to make a variety of meals, spent days making Christmas cakes, puddings and so on. I don't have the skills, time, energy to be doing all that.

When I stayed at friends' places, I think they ate similar food to us. Kids are fatter these days than when I was young but we definitely didn't eat low fat - lots of fried food, creamy sauces, home-baked biscuits, cakes, puddings, tray-bakes, fudge etc.

Well my parents probably had as good if not better than my children,grew up in fifties with lots of home grown veg, and rationed sugar and fat in the early days .

On the other hand the people who grew up in the sixties and seventies are not so good ,findus crispy pancake anyone or maybe some arctic roll or Angel Delight.Plenty of people ate chocolate spread sandwiches and melon came frozen in ball shapes .

Except when my grandparents gave us home grown veg in the Summer all veg was frozen or possibly tinned .There was an awful lot of frozen convenience food and sliced bread ,don't remember ever being told that white bread was bad for you ,pasta came in a tin in tomato sauce and you had it on toast!My MIL is astounded that I make my own bread ,and Mr Kipling is the king of cakes apparently!

But then my grandmothers used to sew and knit all their clothes and my mother didn't do either ,now knitting and sewing,making your own bread and growing veg is coming back into vogue.My mother was just pleased to be liberated from the kitchen .The difference now i suppose is that we choose to spend time on these things.

HintofBream

Yes - I remember seeing a breakdown of a typical diet circa 1945 and marvelling not just at the amount of sugar, but also things like jam and sweets. Also, a large amount of butter, suet and lard: suet puddings were more widely eaten back then, and how many people now would tuck into a suet pudding?

One thing I remember about the 1980s is dairy products being everywhere. Milk puddings, cheese, cream, school milk and so on. I hated it. Was it just me or not? I did hear that until the early 80s, the Govt was required by law to purchase milk at a set price, so it was constantly trying to offload it onto the market in various ways. Also lots of eggs and not much meat.

Well I make everything from scratch, as did my mother. I used to yearn for Findus crispy pancakes and Angel Delight or Instant Whip. We used to grow most of our own veg - so I was eating curly kale, purple sprouting broccoli (don't remember regular broccoli) before they became fashionable. We also had a small orchard, so lots of apples (which we wrapped individually in newspaper and ate throughout the winter), plums (bottled for the winter), raspberries, loganberries, damsons, blackberries, pears, hazelnuts and almonds. My mother used to grow her own bean sprouts too, which she used to fling in a stir fry or a salad, and she used to make her own kefir (until I accidentally ate the culture).

The only thing I don't do, which my mother did, was to plan rigorously, so that you could tell what day it was by what was on the table. We also had spaghetti, macaroni cheese, curry and rice and chilli con carne and rice (the chilli recipe came from the back of an oxtail soup packet, and contained the soup, with half the amount of water. It was a bit of a salt-fest from what I remember).

what does suet pudding taste like?

fedup - my mum cooks the same. I'm staying with them for a couple of weeks and i feel fat and dull skinned already. My dad wont eat a vegetable if it's got any texture at all and everything is covered in stork marg. DH is loving it tho. He's looking at me like 'where has this food been all my life? why don't we eat dinner like this everyday at home? Yesterday was coq au vin and rhubarb crumble and ice cream. Sat was Prawn cocktail, peppered steak, and cheese. If i cook Dad picks the beans and veg out

My childhood was sugary cereal, lunch box of cheese sandwich and 5 chocolate bars - an orange and mint viscount, a raisin and an orange club and a wagon wheel. a packet of fruit shortcake biscuits and cheese sandwiches after school. Dinner at 9pm - spag bol with no veg and loads of red wine/toad in the hole and mash etc. Potatoes dauphinoise and mushrooms fried in stork and garlic are the accompaniments of choice - you can feel your arteries hardening. Oh and weekends are full english breakfasts or loads of croissants.

you ate late. I think we ate around 6pm

ZZZ

Very nice indeed, if done properly. Stodgy and horrid if done improperly. Suet is beef fat, so pretty unhealthy.

Here is an example: Sussex Pond. Line a bowl with suet pasty (suet + self-raising flour and milk). Take a whole lemon, prick it all over with a fork, and place in the bowl. Fill up the cavity with a mixture of butter and sugar (I add brandy too, when I have it). Seal it with a suet lid.

Steam for 4 hours. I normally serve with ice cream, but custard is more traditional.

It is not a pudding to serve a cardiologist.

Also lardy cake. Does anyone make lardy cake, or has that been banned?

yes ZZZ that was a big problem in my childhood. I was constantly hungry and tired. Mum didn't pick me up from the CM till 6.30 then was an hour bus journey home, then she started cooking from scratch. I used to fake being ill at school so i could have a nap in the nurses room. They didn't want to be 'one of those parents' who gave their children different meals or inferior food and thought we were more 'continental' and a bit cosmopolitan.

I'm going to try that thanks. What is a suet lid?