To ask what you ate growing up?

[Bature]

And how it compares to what you and your family eat now? Particularly interested in people who aren’t in or originally from the U.K.

I grew up in a west African country and grew up on home cooked everything, lots of fresh veg, minimal animal protein (it was a garnish or flavouring, not the ‘main event’), pretty elaborate meals and lots of spices. Almost no sweets (we ate fruit), limited processed food and very occasional fizzy drinks.

I now live in the U.K. and I’m trying to feed my family similarly. On the upside, my diet is incredibly varied (everything from Vietnamese curries to Swedish meatballs). On the downside, there’s probably more processed food than is ideal, I take the occasional shortcut, and I eat rather a lot of chocolate.

How about you all?

I was born early 60’s and basically we ate what we grew. Fruit and vegetables were seasonal and meat came from either our own animals, what my grandmother hunted or from a nearby farmer. Both my grandmother’s were amazing cooks, my mum not so much, she was totally disinterested so her food was not inspiring but it was always made with fresh ingredients.
There were no takeaways where I grew up apart from chippies and the nearest one was about 20 miles away so a very rare treat maybe once a year
Thats also how I fed my family and how I eat now.

Homemade from scratch mostly. We did get the odd chicken drummers and findus pancake etc. And obviously angel delight & vienetta.

But mostly it was shepherds pie, liver & bacon, lasagne, casserole, roasts, a roast every Sunday, meat & veg, jacket potatoes, curry etc.

Now I tend to cook a lot of pot meals, curries and soups, stews, or meat in sauce. I eat a lot of chicken, then pork, occasionally fish, then rarely beef.

I grew up in Australia in the 60s-70s. Meals were all home-cooked. Meat and 2 veg sort of thing, but tasty, veg never boiled to death or anything. On Sundays we'd always have a roast of some description, and in the evening my mother made fried rice which was a real treat. Curries were non-existent as were takeaways or any type of ready meal in our diet. I think the latter didn't exist back then, but there was a fish and chip shop in town. My mother let me have fish and chips a couple of times but I think she didn't like me having it because it was fast food. We always had dessert which might be ice cream, apple pie, apple sponge, rhubarb crumble, etc. We grew some veg which was amazing to have. Afternoon tea was always cake of some kind, my grandmother made amazing cakes!

Now I live in England and have a lot of food intolerances so my diet is very different from back then. Dessert has been a thing of the past for decades, only have a main course. I no longer eat any red meat but eat far more fish than I had as a child. I need to have fresh food so meals are prepped from scratch. I wish I could eat what I had as a youngster!

Born 1960s, California.

It's too complicated to summarise neatly.

Biggest differences
... huge amount more salad & fresh fruit when growing up.
... hugely more variety growing up (my california cousin's kids also eat a larger variety now)
... had lots food prepared out of house lots when youth, that's rare now
... have lots more hot drinks & food now
... I grew up snacking, few family meals. DC have a family meal daily, hardly snack at all

I baked a lot of home-made cookies when I was young; could do that in my sleep. Totally forgot how, now.

Grew up in the Mediterranean; my great grandparents and later my grandparents grew most vegetables, fruit, and raised animals for the family (we got milk, eggs and meat from them). Everything was from the ‘farm’ and cooked from scratch. During the summer we’d can fruit and vegetables for the winter, make jams etc. We baked cakes occasionally. now- our diets are way too processed.

Beefburgers
Fish fingers
Pizza
Sausage meat and onion tart (it was lovely)
Semolina
Tapioca pudding
Homemade biscuits
Roast dinner on a Sunday
Loads of potatoes. We had massive sacks of them
My sister and I were allowed a Vesta beef curry when they were out. We loved it
Cakes etc were homemade
Stew with loads of veg

I grew up in the UK but mum was from Finland so we ate a mixture of British and Finnish foods. Mum cooked from scratch, things like roasts, casseroles, curries, soups, macaroni casserole, baked fish. Sometimes more adventurous dishes. No beige freezer meals but they would have been difficult as mum has Coeliac Disease and there wasn't all the gluten free options then but we did occasionally have sausage and chips (I usually requested it on my birthday) and Fridays we often got takeaway from the chip shop down the road.

Puddings only on Sundays, after a roast lunch always (and Mondays were leftovers from the roast). Christmas was always Finnish Christmas food on Christmas Eve, never had turkey at Christmas (actually I don't think we ever had turkey at any point)

After school snack and a snack for supper every day, otherwise no snacking, and sweets only on Saturdays when we got our pocket money.

Edit: Forgot about how it compares. Eat pretty similarly now except more Finnish meals as I live in Finland now, and beige freezer meals from time to time but mostly cooking from scratch. OH cooks half the week now and does his own thing, very basic Finnish meals that aren't particularly great
Pudding twice a week and juice day on Fridays (growing up Friday was can day when we got a can of fizzy, but also had more grown up fizzy like Shloer on Sundays)

80s/90s

Everything was meat, potato, veg. So shepherds pie, meat pie, pork chops, roast dinner. Mash, roast, boiled, chipped. Carrots, peas, broccoli, cauliflower. On a loop. No takeaways or eating out except fish and chips once in a while as a treat.

80/90s - growing in in England was beige and processed mainly. My mother never really cooked. It was oven pre made or microwaved. Never baked anything. Rarely ate fruit or vegetables. I’m surprised I never had scurvy tbh.
My siblings all grew up with health issues and weight problems. I didn’t like most of it so often ate cereal or toast. No weight problems or health issues.

I learnt to cook after I left home at 18. Several stinks abroad meant I had to cook from scratch as processed wasn’t as available. Then London living gave me to chance to try all different worldwide cusine.
We now live abroad again, much healthier food culture here imo. lots of homegrown produce, mainly unprocessed day to day food. If we eat cake or other desert it’s usually homemade. Less meat, more veggies. Ds eats fruit mainly as sweet option

I grew up in the 80s/90s, U.K. my mum was a teacher so she worked and also had homework to mark/classes to prepare but everything was always cooked from scratch. Lots of traditional British food - shepherds pie, casseroles etc but always with fresh veg, but also lots of pasta, curries, stir fries. In the summer we would often have BBQ - some sort of marinated meat, with salad and new potatoes or rice. My dad also cooked too, not quite as frequently as mum as he got home from work later, but quite a lot and he was also a good cook. We didn't have take away as we lived in a small village and there wasn't anywhere to get them. Fizzy pop, crisps etc was only on holiday or at birthday parties. There was a cupboard with sweets and chocolates in that had to be high up so out of reach of my little brother, but I wasn't particularly interested in sweets.

I should add that we were on a pretty tight budget but they seemed to make it go a long way.

I grew up in the 80s/90s and we didn't eat a great diet.

Sunday was always a roast, either beef, lamb or pork as my mum didn't like chicken.
Monday was my favourite dinner as it was made with leftover meat. It could be stovies, sweet and sour pork with rice, yellow 80s curry and probably more things I've forgotten.

We always had fish from the fish van on Thursday which would range from Arbroath Smokies (once a cheap food and now a luxury), fishcakes, breaded white fish or peppered mackerel.

Other days were things like chops, sausages, mince and tatties, spag bol and macaroni cheese. As I got to 12 and my parents divorced there was a lot more junk food like turkey drummers or crispy pancakes.

We would have the obligatory council salad quite a lot in summer, my mum grew a lot of salad. The meal consisted of ham, a boiled egg, home made potato salad or coleslaw, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, spring onions, beetroot and radishes.

My parents just accepted I didn't like veg so I ate very little of it and we didn't get much fruit.

I eat a far more varied diet now, I eat pasta a lot and very rarely eat potatoes. I try and fit my 5 a day in. I also eat stir fry, steak, experiment with world cuisine, eat out too often.

My diet is totally different (and much better) now compared to when I was a child in the 90's.

Lots of frozen chips, chicken kievs, fishfingers, chicken nuggets, findus crispy pancakes, frozen pizzas, white bread. McDonald's or chippy food was a regular treat.

There was limited education around healthy eating back then, and how bad processed foods and loads of sugar can be for your health.

I was basically allowed sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks and chippy food whenever I wanted from when I was old enough to walk to the shops down the road. I always seemed to have pocket money for them or would be given some. I had no restrictions and behaved as you'd expect a kid to behave in those circumstances. I was overweight!

We rarely had home cooked meals, and even then a 'home cooked meal' would be something like a lasagne or curry made with jars of processed sugary/ salty sauce. My mum didn't know it was any different to making her own and it was just so convenient.

I don't blame my parents but I do wish I had a better diet as a kid. As an adult I now love the taste of some ultra processed foods and have nostalgic associations with them, and I have to fight an urge to eat too many. I mostly do OK with that but I wish I didn't have the positive associations in the first place!

Another one that always sticks in my head is my mum telling me I could eat as many digestive biscuits as I wanted because they were good for me (in the 90's).

She really just didn't know anything - there was a complete lack of education.

I grew up in the UK, in the 90s. Like a previous poster, it was always "something and chips" and I don't remember eating veg hardly ever! I remember when my mum did try to cook us something from scratch, and we'd be so horrible about it that she didn't bother very often.

I try really hard to be healthier now. Usually salad or homemade soup for lunch instead of white sandwiches, and a fair bit of home cooking (though lots of pasta and curries). I'm vegetarian now too.

Unfortunately my own young children are going through a real beige food phase at the moment. I feel bad about it but then I remember what I was like as a child, and I don't think it's done me much harm. We try our best!

I grew up in the 50s and 60s - can't remember the early years but a Sunday lunch roast each week. But we had school dinners (most loved them, I was a bit fussy and hated eg fatty meat) so only had eg poached egg, cheese on toast in the evening.
SAHM and she hated it when DF couldn't get home for lunch in later years and main meal moved from mid day to evening.
Fruit and veg was very seasonal but we had potatoes, carrots and onions, cabbage all year. No processed food until I was teens but even them maybe twice a week.
Went to secondary in the local town so ate a chocolate bar after lunch each day.

Another 1970s childhood here.

DM cooked from scratch but aimed at DF's tastes. Stews (boiled to death meat and vegetables), casseroles (boiled to death meat fewer vegetables), curries (stews with lots of curry powder). Everything accompanied by huge helpings of floury potatoes or rice.

Sometimes we would have boiled bacon - unrinsed, cooked in brine. Saltier than the dead sea served with boiled carrots and floury potatoes.

All followed by heavy puddings.

DM was a school cook and was very much of the view that you ate what was put in front of you without complaint.

Much better than I do now sadly - DM was an Italian SAHM and is also a bit of a hippy (lots of healthy broths featured).

I've picked up her habit of offering a different herbal tea for every health complaint though.

50/60s child...we were poor, everything was with chips/ potatoes as they were cheap.
Dad got the meat as he worked hard.
Still love chips today, but never been a great meat eater, I do however eat lots of biscuits and cakes, something that we rarely had as children, treats were for xmas and birthdays!!

I grew up in South East Asia in the 70s/80s. My family were big-city-urban middle-class but went through periods of poverty (job losses in a country with no social safety net).

We ate very similar to the OP. Lots of fresh veg and small amounts of meat, food was highly flavoured with herbs and spices and chilli. Typical SE Asian dinner would be steamed rice plus at least 3 "dishes" consisting of e.g. one large veg dish, one large soup, one small egg/meat/curry. Almost everything bought fresh and every couple of days, from local wet markets. My mum did all the cooking despite also working as a teacher, sometimes my grandmother came to live with us and would take over the housework. I don't ever recall them using convenience foods, everything was made from scratch. I was expected to help with the cooking from a young age.

Also hardly ever had any sweets or fizzy drinks or desserts. The only drink with meals was water. After dinner, we'd get a plate of sliced fruit if we were lucky. To this day, I don't have much of a sweet tooth and actively dislike fizzy drinks!

But the other thing that is completely normal in SE Asia was to eat out at street vendors, this was (and still is) extremely cheap and delicious. Every neighbourhood would have a "hawker centre" where we could get a wide selection of amazing food. So we'd often do that if mum didn't have time to cook.

Here in the UK, DH (English) and I share the cooking; like the OP we do all sorts of cuisines from SE Asian to Japanese to British to Mexican to <anywhere>. But we do use shortcuts to speed things up e.g. gravy granules, instant mash. DC also get to have sweets and fizzy drinks because DH grew up with those and is happy to buy them.

As a kid, lots of processed food. Crispy pancakes, nuggets etc jacket potatoes, cottage pie, roasts. Veg was boiled from a tin or frozen.

I don't remember much fresh food in the house and neither of my parents were very good cooks.

Now, we eat a lot more fresh vegetables and other ingredients. Still pretty carb heavy but there's spice and flavour now. 😄
Curries, stir fries, tray bakes. I think we eat less meat too but it's better meat.

I grew up in the 60s food was quite expensive and my parents were poor
so we lived on free school dinners and bread and jam or bread and margarine
sweet stodge was filling so homemade blackberry crumble when we’d picked them or bread and butter pudding were a treat
On Sundays we went to grandparents for a proper Sunday dinner but it was always a cheap cut of meat like rolled shoulder of beef - chicken was a treat for Easter
In the 70s we had more processed food as parents worked long hours but the portion sizes were much smaller - a pack of 4 Birds Eye burgers and a tin of beans served 4 of us so one burger each with a small amount of beans and a heap of bread

Irish and very fussy child , generally have a rotation of spaghetti bolognese, roast chicken , beef stew , coddle , mashed potatoes, beans , sausages .
I got a bit more adventurous when teen years hit so was able to join in with the other meals- lasagna, chicken Al a king , chicken broccoli.

Now I have my own fussy children , one who only eats pasta based dishes and one who eats like a bird at meal times - fun times !

UK, 1980s and my mum was a very bland cook. Would not use the oven as too expensive so it was usually pressure cooked potatoes, carrots, cabbage/ broccoli and some meat such as lamb or pork chop, sausages (grilled), chicken breast, liver (grilled, yuk). Chicken casserole. Pasta salad with mayonnaise. Fry up on Sunday mornings, pot noodles or vesta weekend lunches. Angel delight.
When I worked for a Jamaican lady at 17, she had to show me what to do with the garlic.

Grew up in the Caribbean, only home-cooked, any kind of 'convenience' food was too expensive. Lots of sides on the plate, it took me a while as an adult cooking for just one to realise that cooking did not need to be so time-consuming and one side with some veg was enough

Now after over a decade of living in the UK I rarely cook, ready meals do me just fine.