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!

My gran used to make Fat Cake. Yum yum

It's just a piece of suet pasty rolled into a rough circle, placed on top of the lemon/butter/sugar and pinched together with the suet pasty lining the sides and base of the pudding basin, thus sealing the pudding.

I hope I'm not responsible for permanently damaging your health, but the Pudding Club Cookbook is my Bible for winter puddings.

My childhood diet was pretty good. Lots of homemade stuff with good ingredients.

Even home made pudding nearly every night, I don't do that.

With the odd 70s /80s thing, cordial, soda stream. But still water at dinner in a big jug on table and chocolate as a treat on Friday nights.

Thanks, I'll have a go at that. I don't eat a low fat diet anyway, so no problem. I just like to taste good. Everything but in moderation for me.

The other thing of course is that there was no such thing as organic and meat and veg were routinely pumped with or sprayed with chemicals., antibiotics etc

I just remembered we used to have white bread, butter and sugar sandwiches for a treat

Toad, my DM used to make Sussex pond for "high tea" on Sunday, it was absolutely gorgeous. Does anyone remember the Galloping Gourmet? He was a tv cook and everything he cooked was covered in cream and butter like a lot of 1970s fare. Then he had a heart attack when he was about 40 and then did a new series where he basically just cooked vegetables in low fat sauces,

I think 70s food was horrible and perhaps not super-healthy, but the upside of this was that nobody ate much.
Foodies who think they are so superior are responsible for a lot of fatness, because people are more interested in eating lots of good food than lots of bad food.

Would you eat more at this dinner party:

marinaded olives in herbed oil
sweet potato soup with homemade focaccia
braised lamb shank with potatoes, green beans and salad
Home made syllabub
cheese and biscuits
wine

or this one:

70s irish stew and smash
sara lee gateau
tap water
Arguments throughout about how much of this filth you are actually expected to eat
post-prandial playing out with skipping ropes and tennis balls

?

The first appears to have all sorts of "healthy" things in it, but if you eat all that you are looking at 1000 calories.
The second includes its own built-in exercise in arguing about the food and begging to be allowed back out to play.

Throckenholt - we used to have sugar sandwiches too!

The thing is, my parents were actually very well travelled, educated and decently wealthy, and it was 80s/90s so advice is not that different to know. I think they suffered from passing on their own foibles (i want an ice cream, so kids can have one too) and just being busy, we got back from school late and ready meals and takeaway was much easier.

I sympathise with both!

go on Angsana, we won't ridicule you

Oh my, you are so right! It's a point i've raised with my DH before.

My diet growing up was AWFUL. I got my pick of chocolate/sweets and fizzy drink after school every day from the shop, if the ice cream van came down our street I always got one, pot noodles, fish fingers, oven chips, mcdonalds, oven pizza, KFC, cola on tap, microwave meals, sugar puffs, frosties.. I used to polish off a large chocolate bar (one of the share ones) by myself and a box of maltesers... In fact the only nutritious things I remember having were Sunday dinner and honeydew melon slices It's a wonder I wasn't obese! I wasn't even overweight remarkably.

Now I absolutely cringe that I was allowed to each such shite. All those dodgy additives, carcinogens, colourings, sugar and salt.. Argh! Now i'm one of them health obsessives believe it or not, I won't even let my DC have shop bought bread! I blame my parents We're vegan so other than my home baking (which I consider healthy anyway) we should be given a health star

My DM has told me how she weaned me at 3 months but well before then gave me rusks, I cringed. I wouldn't dream of giving my DC any of the shite I was fed.

Have made Sussex Pond pudding a few times. It's amazing. The only problem is when to serve it as it's so filling you need to eat it on its own rather than after a meal.

My grandma used to make lardy cake a lot. Oher grandma used to make a savoury suet pudding to soak up the gravy of a Sunday with the roast.

All delicious.

We have a healthy tradition of suet and lard in my family!

I'm 37 and I had a terrible diet growing up. Rice crispies with more sugar on top for breakfast, crisps at school, sweet shop on the way home..My mum hated cooking so we had a lot of Findus crispy pancakes, smash, chicken nuggets etc. i was thin as a rake though..

I now a health nut and do feed my kids a much better diet than I had. I think in the 70's all the convenience foods were being introduced and Mothers who didn't like to cook from scratch thought they were brilliant. I do think it is only recently we have realised how bad these foods are.

My theory is the post war generation (my parents) had a great diet. Things cooked from scratch, meat only a few times a week, no convenience foods. My generation (in 30's now), quite often not so great, though obviously there are lots of exceptions. Hopefully, we have come a full circle and now we are realising how bad convenience foods are for us. Though this is only in certain parts of society.