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?

Yes

Dc now 30 and we talked about it yesterday! She had veggie sausages and burgers by Linda McCartney for a few years and then was a vegetarian most of her life. A person that was I n my friendship group back then had an uncle that had cjd and subsequently died so the fear was very real. My older dc (14 years older) would not eat vegetarian meat substitute so it was just the younger. Now younger dc is flexitarian and eats what her body needs.

We had mince all the bloody time. It was always on offer because they couldn't get shut of it. Eggs though, that was a different matter altogether. They were banned from the house as DM was paranoid about salmonella. Don't tell her but I used to have two boiled eggs at my best mate's house for breakfast after a sleepover. DM would have gone bananas at that!

Born 84. We had a few years of not eating beef but it didn't last long!

No. I remember cracking up when watching the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility when they're economizing - her mother says 'Do you want us to starve?' and she replies 'No, just not to eat beef.' The whole cinema laughed, so it wasn't just me.

I also remember not being allowed to eat lamb after Chernobyl.

We did eat beef and I used to eat McDonalds burgers a lot which horrifies me now!

This was all prior to 1989, when I became vegetarian (I still am). If I had known about Mad Cow disease at the time, I would have completely avoided it. I know of someone who died from it in the 90s.

Not during the BSE crisis, we even switched to goats milk.
Don't remember when we switched back.

That's awful, I'm so sorry. Always sounded like a horrific way to go :(

Nope I wasn’t allowed either.
My mum told me to ways ask “is it beef” before eating meat. I remember 6 or 7 year old me getting exasperated ‘no’s and ‘yes’s from school catering staff when asking about sausage rolls and burgers respectively, cause I hadn’t clicked what type of meat was used for what!

Thank you, yes, it was awful. I got the dates wrong, it was actually 2003 when they died. It was the daughter of someone we knew, I think she was a teenager which is so very sad.

I met a lady recently whose son died aged 17 from VCJD. Awful.

I was in Edinburgh on a study abroad for about 6 months in the mid 90’s eating beef.

I’m now banned for life from giving blood (US).

Huh… looks like they lifted that requirement/prohibition.

Born late 80s. We would have a roast dinner every Sunday and beef was probably the most frequent meat and would also regularly have beef mince in spaghetti bolognaise or chilli con carne. I don’t think my parents ever considered the risk of CJD particularly high.

Born 91.
Mum stopped buying beef joints and mince as a kid due to the foot and mouth outbreak.

She used to buy quote mince for spaghetti and I hated it lol.

Born in early 80s and we definitely didn't have much beef growing up and certainly never burgers. One of the victims who died of vCJD was a few years older than me at school and I always saw her in school plays - she was so talented. She died in her late teens. It was just so sad and did affect what we were allowed to eat growing up.

90s kid here. We weren't allowed to eat beef when I was younger, I think once we got to the early-mid 2000s my mam relaxed on it a bit

My parents banned beef pies, mince, and burgers from the house. They never came back. The stories as to what animals were eating made them change to organic meat.

Eventually they did restore beef for Sunday lunch but a long time after all the scares about BSE.

Don’t know anyone who wasn’t allowed to eat beef, except for religious reasons

No, we were both Scientists and our children didn't eat beef for many years.

We didn't eat beef for many years after the BSE outbreak .

My nans 84 and still doesn't eat it got fear of mad cow disease

I think we reduced eating it until it passed.

I remember my Mam throwing out all the beef stock cubes in the cupboard as 'you couldn't be sure'

I was born in the 1970s, never stopped eating beef.