To be slightly horrified now by what I ate as a kid in the 80s?

[NotWantingToBeRude]

Breakfast was a bowl of either Coco Pops, Frosties or Sugar Puffs. (At least they didn't sell Froot Loops over here I suppose).

Packed lunch in my My Little Pony or Care Bears lunchbox was a sandwich (usually some form of processed meat, occasionally even jam), a pack of crisps, a chocolate bar and a juice box (Ribena or Um Bongo). Never any fruit.

Snack on arriving home from school would be not crisps and chocolate, possibly a Pepperami. Sometimes we’d stop off for pic ‘n’ mix.

Dinner included a full dessert every single night, usually with custard or cream.

Is it just me or would this not be considered so acceptable now?

You ought to have seen what we consumed in the late 60s/70s!! 😆

Vesta Curry and Rice anyone (dried, add water, weird raisins in it)? Chefs Square Shaped Soup, Findus Crispy Pancakes?

Such a wholesome era 🤣 But we live to tell the tales 👌🏻

I haven’t read the whole thread but just wanted to say that Fanta fruit twist tastes like um bongo 😁 Also I miss toast toppers and fiendish feet.

60s child here. Even if we didn’t have sugary cereal we added spoons of the stuff on top of weetabix and cornflakes. I still don’t really like it without!
White sliced bread. Sugar sandwiches. Sugar in every hot drink given to me. Had to wean myself off it in my twenties.
I was a skinny child so they tried to fatten me up with cream cakes etc
So certainly not just the 80s

Sounds like the average packed lunch at most schools even now tbh though the chocolate bar may need to be a plain one depending on school rules.

The typical breakfast for the children at my primary school is cereals and/or toast with jam, honey or marmite.

Also Many families still finish the day with a cooked meal followed by a desert. The desert may be a bit more varied these day.

80s here too- no fruit or veg unless you count the odd fish finger chips and peas and Sunday roast with veg boiled into oblivion. We might’ve had mushrooms in spaghetti Bol occasionally. Small portions and no puddings.
We were the generation to first know microwaves and my parents made full use of ready meals
On a weekend there was routine and we’d eat sweets or crisps from the shop instead of lunch and have something like gammon or egg and chips for dinner.
i don’t miss those days tbh, i always felt slightly hungry and unwell.

Yet here you are, alive and well and posting on mumsnet. I’m sure your parents were doing their best at the time

It certainly wasn’t an everyday food when I grow up in the 80s and 80s. We’d never heard of it.
i first tried it after leaving home in the 90s.
it wasn’t an everyday food for anyone I knew.

I think it depends. I'm 45 and I had the following growing up:

• Breakfast: large bowl of yoghourt with fresh fruits and home made musli (almonds, oatmeal, dried fruit).
• Lunch made and served in school
• Snack : fruit
• Dinner: lentil or vegetable soup with home made sourdough bread (only had home made darker bread) and cheese, or home made lasagna or pizza. Whatever it was it was made from scratch by my mum who also worked ft. She made delicious cakes and cookies.

I definitely had a healthier diet as a child than my children do. But my mum was a super woman and I think we were easier to please whereas I'm happy that my children eat veg with all meals.

i still eat Vesta Chow Meins now! Those crispy noodles are divine!

You may be entitled to compensation.....

A letter home? You clearly aren't very worldly.

Was anyone at secondary school in the early 2000s when the Jamie Oliver school dinners thing took off? Coming to school one day and all the vending machines were gone and they were only serving chips on Friday :(

Born late 70s at school 80s to early 90s. I remember cereal for breakfast was the norm, with sugar on anything that was not sweet. Cup of sweetened tea to drink. Pack up was ham or paste sandwich, crisps, penguin and the brand new novelty that was ready to drink ribena. Later, um bongo. Dinners were often fishfingers or sausages. Chips or mash. Roast dinners at weekend. Spaghetti bolognese. But we did have vegetables and they were good, not overcooked or anything. Always jelly and cake for Sunday tea at my grandparents. But we very very seldom had takeaway. I got a Chinese for my 18th birthday, that's how novel it was. Fish and chips was a rare treat for holidays and very very occasionally if we were really busy at home. No fizzy, limited sweets. So a mixed bag really. When my mum met my non British step dad we were introduced to a whole new world of food, possibly before many people in our small and culturally void town.

bowel checking doesnt start until people are 50 or so

Bowel-cancer rates rising among younger people - BBC News

mum would only buy coco pops in the variety packs and only for holidays in the caravan and we’d fight over them.

I ate a lot of frozen mini pizzas, weight watchers lasagne, and find us crispy pancakes for lunches in the holidays. And toast toppers. We ate a lot of mince based items too. Thinking about it my widowed mum was probably up to here for cooking for 4 kids.

lunch at school was a cheese sandwich on brown bread, an orange juice, a penguin (I don’t like penguins) and maybe a satsuma. It was the 80s ….quinoa hadn’t been invented yet.

It was a common snack in NZ too.

My 7yr old (admittedly he's a neurospicy one) has toasted fruit bread everyday for breakfast and cheese or jam sandwiches,cheese on a cracker and a packet of crisps for lunch every day. He will also eat a couple of biscuits every day, eats beans on toast about 3-4 times a week for his tea and barely touches a vegetable. But does eat some fruit, apples and occasionally grapes or strawberries. He is slim and healthy .
Sugar has been over demonised lately, but the crap they put in food now to replace it is a 100times worse! Your body uses it as a fuel as long as you are active, it's certainly not using the chemicals that are replacing it.

I had a sugar heavy diet for the whole of my 20's and 30's and was skinny and never ill. It's only in my 40's that my exercise schedule and metabolism aren't enough for it and I have to watch what I eat.
If kids are fed and healthy,it's hardly a tradegy.

I was born mid 80s.

I think my mum was slightly unusual in that we rarely had sugary cereals. I don’t think my parents could afford them.

Most days for breakfast my mum cooked me an egg, or chees/ beans on toast, pilchards on toast, marmite on toast, weetabix, bacon or sausage.

Lunch at school was a sandwich, probably chicken or processed meat or meat paste, and a penguin or wagon wheel. I never ate my lunch anyway. School gave us biscuits and squash at break.

Pretty much grew up on potatoes. My mum cooked a roast 2-3 times a week, then homemade chips the rest of the time. Chilli con carni on a Saturday night.

I was allowed unrestricted access to sweets/biscuits/chocolate. Hardly ate any fruit apart from bananas. Didn’t drink any water, only cheap fizzy pop.

Cereal is the ultimate example of a very processed food being marketed as essential, perhaps with the exception of a couple of the basic wheat cereals.

I do sometimes scratch my head at the evangelical talk of school breakfast clubs as giving children ‘a healthy breakfast to kickstart their learning’. Whenever I have been near a breakfast club it has seemed to be processed cereal, toast (often white) and jam or spread. Perhaps a bit of fruit on offer.

Of course, for some children they would get nothing at home and it is far better that they have a meal than don’t have a meal, but I think there are questions about the nutrition of what is provided.

It is not an easy issue to resolve.

My diet was similar to that (minus the nightly pudding). I often had microwave chips for dinner.

However, I (and my friends who are the same type of food) were slim growing up, and still are mainly, and have turned out to be perfectly healthy, so it doesn’t seem to have had long lasting negative results. We know more about nutrition now (I think) yet there are overweight and obsese children everywhere, so I’m not sure if there has been a huge improvement overall.

Breakfast club at my son's school only offers porridge (the type of porridge varies from day to day - oat, rye, barley, wheat, rice, 4 grain) with some fruit sauce, bread with some cheese or ham and lettuce or tomato or cucumber. No breakfast cereals ever. Milk or water to drink. Very healthy.

It seems that many people are more obese these days. Not just the 80s generation. Take a look at current teenagers and even younger kids. Must fatter than they were when I was at school in the 80s. We had " the fat kid" in a class. Now a 3rd of kids are overweight

I loved crispy pancakes They were a treat as a kid. Tried them as an adult and tasteless lol.

We were fed lots of rice and veg with a small amount of meat or fish , as a well as various stews and my fave chicken chassuer.

people dont have to be obese to be unhealthy, to get bowel cancer, high cholesterol, etc,