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?

I’m not overly fussed about sugar in my kids diet in moderation, it’s the frustose and glucose syrups and the gums etc that I think are so bad for you. So a homemade cake or biscuits or fruit crumble for pudding each day isn’t an issue for me. Plain yoghurt with organic honey is okay for me. But all of the chocolate bars, cheap shop cakes, haribos, lurid ice pops and slushies and sugary cereals etc that I ate do worry me.

Like others have mentioned, I’m slim also and active and have really cleaned up my diet since getting into my thirties. But me and one of my sisters still have stomach issues. I might always have had them but I know when I eat badly they really flare up

Have a read of “Ultraprocessed People”
by Chris Van Tulleken. The brief version is that microwave meals are still ultraprocessed because, even if they don’t contain anything that you wouldn’t find in your kitchen, they’ve still been made in an industrial factory. There’s also the concept of “the food matrix” which is the concept wherein the individual molecules of the food are “packaged” in a way that enables them to be delivered at the right point in your digestive system. So that’s why drinking a glass of orange juice has a completely different impact on your blood sugar levels in comparison to eating four actual oranges. The sugar is packaged within the cell walls in the orange and its absorption in the gut is delayed. Back to the microwave meal, it’s likely that the food matrices have been destroyed in the process of making said meal because it’s been industrially processed. And it’s thought that this negatively impacts health.
So in summary, microwave meals probably are ultra processed food that we should aim to eat minimal amounts of, but they’re probably better than eating a tube of Pringles for dinner.

So the Mumsnet branded meals are not as described in the press release as being a healthy and convenient way for busy parents to feed their toddlers one of their five a day and donating 5p to Alder Hey?

Grey area I would say! A home cooked meal would be better. But a bowl of cheerios would be worse…

I grew up in the 80s and my diet was healthier than this - all homecooked meals, plenty of fruit and veg. However, I ate a lot of sweets and drank full sugar squash, so over the course of my childhood, that made me overweight with tons of fillings.

I would say my dc have a better diet but it's still a struggle to get them to eat well - much more convenience and UPF around to tempt them, and me as a parent.

The lunchbox you mention would be fine in a lot of schools - plenty of kids eat like this at my kids' school; they don't enforce lunchbox rules. I imagine lunchbox police is in wealthier demographics where they know parents will comply.

You would’ve been the sort of friend I envied madly, OP.

Crisps were simply never bought in our house, nor fizzy drinks, sugary cereals or processed food. We were never, ever bought sweets. This was purely because my mum would have considered such things a monumental waste of money rather than any health concerns.

Having said that, I managed to get my children to secondary school before they had any drinks other than milk or water.

The real disappointment is eating some of them now. They taste vile. I use to love cheese Findus pancakes. Not now.

The only thing that has held up is butterscotch angel delight. Even DD likes it.

Sounds great to me

I was born mid 70s. Whatever I was fed by the parents, I had no control over. End of!

I definitely had a lot of minced beef, pork sausages, fish fingers, pies, roast chicken on Sunday. All of these served with potatoes and veg or baked beans. My parents weren't well off, my mum wasn't an adventurous cook.

However, I lived 12 miles from the nearest McDonald's. No KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dominos. Only the local chippy which was a treat. Never had a Chinese takeaway ever until I was about 23 and left home.

I walked to school, later to work, I walked to the shops, swimming pool, library, cinema when I lived with the parents.

7.5 stones at age 21! I'm 5ft 3" though.

Life was very different to how it is now, especially as I live in a different area and work 8 miles from home. Nowhere in walking distance. But every fast food place about 4 miles from home and takeaways all around. No wonder I've gained weight as I'm less active and probably have tried all the junk food known to man by now 😂

I can remember going to a friend’s each Wednesday after tennis. They had food I’d never heard of. Sandwich Spread, which was basically coleslaw in a jar, pepperami, pop tarts and the thing I really envied - a soda stream!

How times have changed. I used to covet processed junk because I never had it. My kids’ friends used to ask to come to ours because they loved that my husband made them ‘proper’ food.

And you survived. Do you have any health issies as a result ?. If no, then whats the problem

I think I'm a bit older than you, but in the 70s I think I was mostly fed on lard! We did eat veg, but a lot of stodge. Pudding with custard most days at school and at secondary school we could choose chips and huge greasy doughnuts. That being said, we were more active - I was always out down the woods with my friends, riding my bike, climbing trees, playing games and generally running around. When I was older I walked everywhere. It was nearly a mile to the bus stop or any shops so we probably worked more of it off.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about sandwich spread. I absolutely detested it! The days that appeared in my lunch box my sandwiches went in the bin!

I ate similar at school in the 80s, sometimes school dinners. I was thin, most of my classmates were thin as we were so much more active back then. My diet got worse as an adult, with far too many takeaways. I have type 2 diabetes now but this is due to my diet as an adult.

Exactly the same here. My diet was awful. My mum couldn't be bothered. On the plus side, it has made me very interested in cooking healthy meals as an adult.

I totally get what you mean, the fact that everything was upf and knowone batted an eyelid. 100 percent agree with you as a 90s kid who grew up in the time of Heinz baked bean pizzas, findus crispy pancakes, tinned meatballs, fray bentos pies and Iceland pizza flavoured sweetcorn.

My childhood diet was very similar

breakfast - coco pops with sugar on
lunch - jam sandwich, a chocolate bar and a packet of crisps
dinner - fish fingers and beans

Unfortunately this diet continued into adulthood as I really didn’t know any better. It was only when I had kids of my own that I started learning about nutrition. My digestive system in in a terrible mess now in my 40s

I brought up children from the mid '70's and this was a pretty typical packed school lunch, though most children also had fruit and often a yoghurt. One mother was bold enough to put in the leftover ham salad from the previous night and the school phoned her and told her it was an unsuitable lunch.

School lunches weren't great, it was common to have them prepared elsewhere and reheated in the school kitchens rather than cooked fresh, so many children took packed lunches. Even at the fancy secondary school that my daughter went to most of the lunches were more snacky than meals, think pizza ahd baguettes, though there were jacket potatoes and bits of salad added everywhere. Most secondary school canteens were a nighmare of chips and pastry, when "healty" food was introduced some enterprising mothers started to sell fish and chip lunches at the school gate.
Snacks at home after school were something like toast or Weetabix. We all ate a proper meal together in the evening, usually cooked from scratch and typically followed by yoghurt or fruit but often yes with a pudding and custard. Obviously all my children are adults now, some with their own families, and I don't think that a faintly rubbish lunch or a pudding in the evening did them any harm. None of them are overweight, have eating problems or are unwell.
The children we used to worry about at that time were those who ate the poor quality school lunches, some had no breakfast and lunch was their main meal of the day.

I agree, regular fruit and veg wasn’t really a thing. That said it also wasn’t as readily available. Very few supermarkets around in my area anyway.
i have a theory that the reason so many young people are so freakishly tall is the fact they’ve been fed 5 fruit and veg since birth!
Most women especially, I know raised in the 70’s and 80’s are quite short!

Omg have you really nothing better to worry about? It was 40 years ago and you’re still here. Whatever you think you can’t change things, let it go and get on with living!

I had the opposite experience. My mum was on a diet for her whole adult life (but was obese throughout). We were allowed sweets once a week which was a small chocolate bar (such as a Mars) cut into four as there were four children.

No crisps, no fizzy pop except for at Christmas, very little cake (only if grandma baked one). My school lunchbox would be a brown bread peanut butter sandwich & an apple with a flask of the weakest orange squash known to man. Tea would be a very small portion of meat or fish & veg. We rarely had pudding but if we did it was fat free yogurt.

The end result? As soon as I had my own money at 16, I spent it on eating everything I’d never been allowed as a child. I have also had a weight problem for my entire adult life, same as my mum. I myself have three adult DCs who I allowed to eat everything in moderation - all are healthy weights & have sensible attitudes to food.

i rarely ate sweets,
or chocolate
it is only since i met dh that i started eating chocolate and cakes, as the weight shows!

I was also at primary school in the 80’s.. cereal for breakfast, rarely coco pops but things like corn flakes would have sugar on top! School dinners always had a sweet pudding. Packed lunches were a ham or cheese sandwich and then some combo of crisps / biscuit / piece of fruit / yogurt / juice box. I remember we had chips or potatoes with a lot of dinners. Basic veggies like peas or cauliflower, but not nearly so much as I’d eat now. We had stews and casseroles. Occasionally lasagne or pizza, but they were definitely new and considered a treat! Oh, and yes to the boil in the bag fish.. usually served with instant mashed potatoes.
I don’t eat like that now, but it was of its time and I’m not going to judge.

You can’t change the past. Lots of things went on which were the norm at the time; this national habit of looking back in horror is just daft. You can only judge behaviour by today’s norms. I only hope people will be looking back in horror and the sort of stuff that goes on today.

I used to be jealous of the kids who brought money for crisps and chocolate every day, and the girl beside me had Jacob’s cream crackers with butter.
I had salads and sandwiches on whole meal bread. I have a fond memory of waiting at the school gate for my mother to arrive with lunch if she had run out of bread that morning. The sight of her coming around the corner on her little red bike with our toasted cheese sandwiches in her basket 😋 we had very little money but she always made sure we ate good food. I didn’t appreciate that until I was a lot older.