Break and milk for breakfast?

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Growing up, bread & milk covered in sugar and heated in the microwave was a standard breakfast. Thinking about it, we used to eat weetabix with lots of sugar heated in the microwave too.

We also used to regularly dunk toast in sweetened tea.

I wouldn’t eat either now as I don’t have a sweet tooth anymore, but they were fairly standard meals in our household.

Did anyone else eat things like that or was it just my household?

My Granny used to make us sugar sandwiches, just bread, butter and sugar as children for lunch and yes also to sugary weetabix heated up. Same to piles of sugar on strawberries as a 'healthy supper'. There weren't many trips to the dentist either so it's no surprise I've lost a total of 9 adult teeth! Not sure where it came from but I can't imagine feeding my own children like that!

My diet was horrendous. Coco pops, sugar puffs, every sweet cereal that was made plus golden syrup on weetabix and in porridge. I shudder at the thought of it all. I lived on cereal until I was in my twenties.

God, I would have loved to grow up in your house! My mum was an early adopter of the whole food thing (way back in the 70s) so my house was all brown bread, brown pasta and cakes made with wholewheat flour. Things we weren't allowed that I wanted so badly: squash, white bread/ pasta, angel delight. She got over it by the time I was a 10ish, but my siblings and are are convinced our obsession with all things sweet comes from having health food forced on us at a young age! (My oldest sibling didn't have any sweets or sugar until she was 5!)

My tea used to be jam sandwiches followed by Victoria sponge. And in summer, strawberries sprinkled with sugar and left till it formed a delicious strawberry flavoured syrup, and served with evaporated milk. But we walked a lot more - few women could drive of had access to a car, spent a lot more time outdoors and being active, so all these "empty" calories gave us the energy for our daily lives.

We also didn't have snacks when we came out of school. We expected to be ravenously hungry when it came to mealtime.

I think it's a west of Scotland thing, but as a kid a breakfast treat was a sugar top. Basically a morning roll with clumps of sugar on top. You buttered the bottom of the roll. Bloody delicious.

No, my mum would have been a classic Mumsnet orthorexic, so we had weetabix with raisins and skimmed milk, along with orange juice.

My mum still puts sugar on strawberries! I don't get it all, they're so lovely and sweet already! We used to have bread and milk sometimes too. I remember coming home every lunchtime from school and having it!

Yes also to the sugared strawberries! We’d have a little bowl filled with sugar and dip our strawberries in to eat them. It amazes me now when I feed DS strawberries and he’s quite happy with them as they come.

Also yes, we had all the above - white bread (jam sandwiches were the norm), squash all the time (I don’t remember ever drinking ‘pure’ water as a child) and angel delight (which is actually awful tasting it as an adult!).

I used to put sugar on Frosties or crunchy nut cornflakes

Toast and jam dunked in tea, still do, and so does Ds1.

Banana sandwiches where the bananas were sliced then sprinkled with sugar, haven't had one for years!

We had the bread and milk and sugar thing. Except the bread was toasted and buttered first! Haven’t had it for years. Also had sugary cereals every morning and sugar in strawberries. Did read somewhere that strawberries these days have been modified to be sweeter though

I don’t think we put sugar on Frosties, but did on normal cornflakes (also microwaved - not sure why that seemed to be the norm!). I’m starting to think that the pre-sugared cereals may have been healthier options.

Yes - I forgot all about banana sandwiches! Funnily enough I don’t even like bananas anymore.

I'm fairness some fruit, I think imported strawberries are one of them, have been bred to be naturally sweeter over the years. It used to be that only English strawberries in season were really nice to eat in terms of flavour and natural sweetness.

My granny used to put sugar in neutral or already sweet stuff as a matter of course. She also used to peel apples before giving them to us to eat. Probably because she had dentures and thought they were easier and nicer to eat that way!

My mum used to put a lot of sugar on weatabix and strawberries. She gave us cereal with not milk. If I eat strawberries now I don't put sugar on them. I don't add sugar to cereal. I eat them with cold milk... I think it might be a generational thing and in the past I think "fat" was seen the enemy, if people paid attention at all, and it was later that the advice came to reduce sugar intake.

My favourite treat at my nans house was rich tea biscuits coated in a thick layer of proper butter.

We didn't have an especially poor diet by the standards of the time but the 80's was certainly different in expectations. Sugar on plain cereal was ok. As was already sweet cereal. My grandparents put sugar on tomato slices. I don't remember anyone drinking water or worrying about hydration - drinking other than at lunchtime was banned for most of my school life unless it was seriously hot weather then we had cups of squash provided. A standard pack up was a paste sandwich with white bread, crisps, blue riband (or similar) and a "juice" carton which had probably never seen actual fruit. No lunch police or finger pointing in those days.

We didn't do this normally (eg at home in England) but at my nonna's house in Italy we'd have crusty rolls spread with butter (from local cows) and sugar sprinkled on top.

If I'm making a big fruit salad I put sugar on it to counter all the lemon juice I squeeze over the top to keep it fresh in the fridge. It makes a lovely sauce. I don't usually sprinkle sugar over fruit overwise.

@bloodywhitecat

Banana sandwiches where the bananas were sliced then sprinkled with sugar, haven't had one for years!

At Girl Guide camp we had fried banana and jam sandwiches covered in sugar. They were delicious and and just the thing to fuel 16 hour days of charging around the countryside! Not to mention the night-time explorations...

I hated the warm milk and bread, but it was usually supper as could oxo and bread be. I still have Weetabix warm, but pour boiling water on it, one of 6 so we were careful with the milk. Yes and sugar butties.

I think I was growing up at a transitional time, up until I was about 10 there were quite a lot of sugary cereals bought, plus regular sugary puddings etc, then it seemed like those things became less acceptable.

When we were little a regular treat was a slice of bread ,crust if we were lucky ,spread with dripping and sprinkled with salt, lovely.
You don't seem to be able to get dripping now, shame really ,it never done us any harm.

Oh god that sounds gross, sorry. I think we did sprinkle sugar on strawberries but maybe that was my nana because it's a very old memory. I've never eaten jam, banana or sugar sandwiches. My nana used to cake butter on bread though and I used to have a thick crust of sugar on top of all cereal.

I remember sugar sprinkled over strawberries, sprinkled over cereal (cornflakes for example), over hot Weetabix, and golden syrup on bread.

Needless to say my teeth weren’t great. My mum gets so offended why I try to stop her stuffing my children with sweets and treats. “But you were alright!”

My Dad is in his mid 60s now and remembers porridge made with full cream milk and lots of sugar, sugar on fruit, regular puddings e.g. rice pudding, apple pie and custard etc.

He and his siblings/parents were never overweight though. I assume it's largely because portions were probably smaller than they are now and they didn't snack between meals. My grandma didn't drive so she used to walk everywhere. My grandad did drive but there were long periods where he didn't own a car so walked everywhere. The kids walked the 3 miles to school and did the same on the way home. Plus, they were out playing a lot more.