Late 80s/90s kids - were you allowed to eat beef?

[magicalkitty]

90s kid here and I was not allowed to ever eat beef as a child. This was due to a fear my parents had about mad cow disease so it was never in the house.

I am a vegetarian now anyway, but I think I've only eaten beef once in my life, at a BBQ in my early teens.

Just wondered if other kids were also banned from eating beef, or if my parents were just odd?

Born 84.

I remember my mum successfully campaigning for my primary school to stop using 'mechanically recovered' beef in school dinners. Basically the beef version of pink slime. It was around the time that politician was photographed feeding his kids a burger as a publicity stunt to 'prove' it was safe. John somebody? I can't remember.

She also got us proper loo roll, instead of the stuff we got sent to collect during art projects, to use as tracing paper.

My hero

Born late 80s and always ate beef growing up in our house 🤷

Nope we were too scared to eat beef. Don’t think I had it til I was 20!

Reassuring to know we weren’t the only crazy ones 😂

Wasn’t allowed it growing up either. I remember being given a strict talking to in the car before drop off parties at McDonalds that I was only to eat nuggets.

We ate it loads, I think your parents were unusual, but probably the sensible ones.

Eating infected beef can infect you with prions which lay dormant in your body for decades and nobody would know until they started to misfold it's real nightmare inducing stuff.

It's why no other country will touch British blood donations. Us Brits are stuck with them because if we didn't take them, we wouldn't have enough!

I really like beef (not the point I know)

I was born in 1990 and remember not being allowed to eat beef. I didn't eat much meat as a child anway and always wanted to save the animals my grandfather raised for meat. I'm vegan now.

I remember hearing about mad cow disease but I was too young to understand what it was and thought it turned people into angry cows 😂

@Hopingforno2in2023 it's actually very sweet! The memory made me smile although it must have been such a worrying time. I remember my mum relenting and letting us eat burgers at the seaside - must have been around 1997

Omg me too. I never would've eaten anything else but the nuggets anyway, but I remember thinking my parents were weird.

We weren’t allowed to eat school meals but mum did buy organic beef for us at home. Never ever ate anything like MacDonald’s.

I was born late 70s and when the BSE scare became public my DM banned us from eating beef. I was 23 before I ate it again. DM is still suspicious of it and won't cook it.

I was until the cjd stuff came out in the mid 90s. My cousin was a toddler at the time and wasn't allowed to eat it.

I was born in 83. We still ate beef but generally ate imported beef (Ireland primarily but from other places too). I remember restaurants generally put the country of origin on menus too for beef.

I think we did. Braising steak and definitely stewing steak. And those hockey puck burgers.

It was so horrific for farmers. I can remember the burnings.

Remembering Chernobyl, there was a lot of rain that week and DH replaced all the sand from the soggy sandpit as a precaution.

Granddaughter of a beef farmer here. No way was I not eating beef!

We stopped eating it, though I remember my grandparents bought twice as much as they reckoned the time it took for CJD to develop was more years than they had left!

We did eat beef, including the burgers which were definitely not mechanically recovered meat and definitely not burgers either because they were called 'grilled steaks'.

I remember my mum rolling her eyes at my aunt and uncle who avoided beef for years because "they believe everything they read in the Daily Mail".

We stopped eating beef for a good few years, also had the McDonald's talk before being dropped off for parties. Actually, just realised I have never ventured for a beef burger at Maccys - even though we eat plenty at home. Clearly my parents overshot and I am conditioned for life.

My dad was a farmer, so we still ate British beef and didn’t worry about it! But I do know people who’s parents stopped eating British beef because of the whole mad cow thing (which turned out to be a fuss over nothing anyway, a human couldn’t get mad cow disease or the human equivalent from eating beef!)

Born late 88. Yup we ate beef on roast dinners and burgers.

My mum’s favourite roast was beef. We all preferred chicken.

Made the right choice? It was all false, you can’t get BSE or CJE from eating beef!

I don’t recall it being disallowed at all. We definitely had loads of things like spaghetti bolognese, chili.

I don’t really remember having steak / roast beef but I suspect that was more due to cost.

Born in 1990.

Born in 83.

It wasn't until I was in my 20s did I learn that roast beef wasnt meant to be grey/brown - sorry mum! She is still horrified to see any pink in beef.

But yeah we still ate it, mainly cheap frozen burgers and mince meat.