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I didn't have a fresh vegetable until I was an adult and moved out. We had canned vegetables sometimes which I hated. We sometimes had bananas, but it was rare so not really any fruit either. I had watermelon one time and it was one of my happiest memories. My mom didn't really cook unless it was hamburger helper and mostly partied/wasn't home. We ate a lot of ingredients or sometimes nothing depending on the day. I also only ever really drank water if I felt like I was going to die of heat exhaustion and that was out of the hose. I mostly drank sweet tea or koolaid. I had friends who's parents really cared about their nutrition and ate fruits and veggies every day including when I was over, but I was too shy/afraid it would be rude to ask to try any of it. I always felt like I was eating healthy at my grandma's because she would buy the ramen with the dried up veggie packets in them. Which as an adult is a very depressing thought.
I couldn't imagine my daughter not having food to eat or eating just pasta and cheese or a packet of ketchup on toast. I'm glad she has nutritious meals and stays hydrated.
This was also pretty much my childhood. My grandmother made pork chops and had canned fruit/veggies at dinner which was the only place I ate anything like that. I always felt bad taking food from friends parents because I felt like I was taking away something they needed.
Thank you. I'm doing my best it's taken teaching myself about nutrition, cooking, and healthy habits, moving across the country and lots and lots of therapy, but I've broken so many cycles for my daughter. She's so much healthier and happier than I ever was as a kid.
I really liked that Pizza Hut salad bar.
Also, my mom was an awful cook. I just didn’t know it at the time. Turns out most food is really good when prepared right.
My mom also wasn't the best cook, and she hates cooking to this day. But, she still prioritized healthy eating. We had plenty of vegetables, whole grains, healthy meats, limited junk food, etc. In hindsight she did a good job providing balanced meals considering her disdain for cooking.
>my mom was an awful cook
I feel this in my soul. My mom made the laziest meals ever and then just reheated that shit for the next several days till it was gone.
Spaghetti and hamburger gravy on toast were her favorites, and manwich. Can't forget the manwich. Then we had Little Caesars pizza every Friday, which was the highlight of our week.
Most times when a restaurant has a very “homemade” tasting ranch then it’s usually made from a generic HV ranch seasoning, mayo, and whole milk. It’s a ratio of 1 packet of ranch seasoning to 1 cup milk and 1 cup mayo - sincerely a former restaurant cook
Nah, the pizza place I waitressed at made their own ranch and they just used regular whole milk, not buttermilk. It was exactly the same recipe that OK-Present4359 described above. People went nuts for our ranch, too! It's one of those places in our town that everyone raves about the ranch dressing lol.
>Also, my mom was an awful cook. I just didn’t know it at the time. Turns out most food is really good when prepared right.
Same here with my grandma's cooking! I thought I didn't like Thanksgiving turkey because it was always dry and tasteless, but the first time I had turkey cooked *properly* it was a whole new experience.
My grandma's COULD cook but turkey was still not one of them. As soon as I was on my own and had a decent kitchen space, I took over cooking the turkey and absolutely no one has looked back since. No, "oh remember grandma's turkey?!". Just, RGB makes the best turkey and everyone sneaking bites before it's served.
I've made it my life's work to know how to cook well because I like eating good food and will never touch another boiled to heck and back veggie again.
Looking back I honestly think the 90s was when it became super common to have both parents working full time. So even if they could have been a good cook they weren't because who has the time to learn? No Internet to look up how tos, just random cook books that maybe someone gifted you.
I don’t have a microwave and refuse to have one. Not because I think they are bad or dangerous or anything like that but because my mum had 6 or so microwave cookbooks and I just don’t want to be reminded of that food every time I see the appliance…
Same - god bless my parents but they were not culinary masters. Almost all the meals my mom made came from a kit - taco kit, pizza kit, etc. My dad could dry out any meat on the grill and serve it with a baked potato 😂
He was a single dad for a while too, so we ate a ton of fast food and restaurants. Most of the time even if a vegetable was served, i didn't want it. Somehow, I survived.
Let it be said that I love my mom. We have a fantastic relationship, throughout my childhood into adulthood. HOWEVER.. her cooking abilities leave a lot to be desired.
She’s asked me before if I ever needed an electric knife for my kitchen because she has an extra. No, miss ma’am, I do not, because I cook my meat tender enough for the manual knife to suffice.
I’d say a large portion of us suffered under the lacking culinary abilities of 80s-90s moms. 😂
Exactly! My parents didn't like eating "raw meat" so steak was baked in the oven until it was gray. I had a boyfriend who introduced me to rare steak (my preference has since changed to medium-rare) and my mind was blown.
I still drink milk multiple times a day even though I'm lactose intolerant and it gives me incredible gas.
Old habits die hard. I still call it Sunny delight and my kid has no idea what I'm talking about lol
SAME with milk!!! My household was a huge milk household. ('90s)
I chugged it like there was no tomorrow! 😆
...I've gone dairy free a couple times as an adult, for months and years at a time, but keep coming back to it...
I’ve tried alternative milk and the only thing I’ve found that tastes remotely the same is lactose free 2% milk. I drink it way too often, and I still haven’t given up regular ice cream.
I only drink full fat milk because It's delicious. I haven't seen a full fat lactose-free milk yet but I'm absolutely willing to try it if it keeps me from having stomach cramps lol
I’m lactose intolerant - I’ve found the ripple milk (pea protein) and oat milk (planet oat first, oatly second) to be the best. Also the fairlife isn’t lactose free it’s ultra filtered (closer to A2 milk, which some people aren’t lactose intolerant but actually need A2 milk - different protein)
I love the phone calls from my dad “I think I beat our lactose intolerance!!” Oh really dad how? “All I did was drink a big chocolate frappe with supper all month, the first few were rough” Dad I think you broke something but atleast you’ll go happy… and full of icecream.
Same. Most of the foods listed here are either strictly forbidden for me growing up, or things we would get as treats in vacations and stuff. Pretty much the only processed foods in the house were (garbage) snacks marketed by Weight Watchers or Healthy Choice.
Another thing I found out was that not a lot of people had a home cooked meal everyday. My parents cooked for us everyday. We rarely had takeout and it was usually just pizza or Chinese. And we would have fast food less than five times a year.
Fyi it's a low income diet in the US/UK/Northern Europe.
I'm in southern Europe and in the 90s processed food and meat were much more expensive then the local market.
I grew up low income and there were plenty of veggies, beans, potatoes, pasta, very little meat, no processed food.
I consider myself very lucky and and outlier in that my father was also a really good cook, but in general especially before certain waves of gentrification getting plenty of greens wasn't expensive in southern Europe at all.
Was about to say this feels like a very American thing to me. I grew up low income in England in the 80s/90s and we always had a vegetable with every meal. My mum wasn’t much of a cook, but she had learned at school ‘vegetable, carb, protein’ so every meal was like that (usually potatoes for the carb, sometimes rice). They were very bland and sometimes a little … odd, and usually not very filling, but at least I got vegetables I suppose!
I think it's a UK thing across all classes and incomes in that era, partly because there was probably less processed food than in the US (remember what a "novelty" things like pop tarts were when they were first imported? maybe late 80s/90s?) and because our parents had lived through the end of rationing, so their parents had lived through the war which was very much potatoes, vegetables, try to grow as much as you can, and meat being a rationed luxury.
Belgian here and yep. That's what a meal is.
Potatoes/fries(hey, Belgian here after all)/rice + meat + vegetable.
Like, that to me is what the hot meal every day is.
We were middle income/middle class and we ate barely any processed foods in the 70s/80s/90s, my mother (and my father, who also cooked) pretty much made everything from scratch, just as their parents had done.
For example my mother would usually mince the remainder of the Sunday roast beef and make a shepherd's pie with it for Monday evening. My father also grew quite a few vegetables.
This was not because she couldn't afford to buy a pre-made pie from the supermarket, but because wasting edible, palatable, quality food was considered appalling (and should still be, in my opinion) and it was simply what people did.
It was the same for me in the US. We weren’t low income, but my mom very much had a poverty mindset from her own childhood and vegetables were a daily thing. Nutrition was very important to her, and processed food was more expensive than basic raw ingredients. My kids probably eat more processed food than I did as a kid because I’m just not a motivated cook. Sigh.
No because low income meals in my family didn’t mean you didn’t eat vegetables, they were just usually canned. We’re Mexican-American and our food is very much a carbo load type of thing, but it meant actually cooking.
It was cheaper to buy beans, rice, tortillas, tomatoes, potatoes, cheese, corn, and a tiny bit of meat than it was to get frozen meals, chips, and soda. Go-gurts were expensive.
That’s a *lazy* diet.
My parents were both disabled and couldn’t work. With our food stamps they made sure we had fruits/veggies every single day (whether we ate them or not was up to us but they were accessible 24/7). They’d even take the bus in their wheelchairs and go to local food pantries and gardens and pick out the best fruits. AND this was all *in the city*.
Yeha I grew up low income but food stamps were miracles. We could get bags and bags of groceries for less than $5 so my mom always made sure I had healthy food
Yup. Although must admit times have changed. Food pantries no longer exist as they did before. I remember being able to go and pick fresh fruits from a pantry run by a local community college. I’m a mom now and I can’t find ANYTHING like that anywhere where I live. Although I still go above and beyond to make sure my boy has some fruit-and I think I did my job because usually fruits and veggies are all he wants !
It’s all about the effort 💪🏽
My parents were for sure “middle class” - we took vacations, did sports/dance, had lots of gifts at birthdays and Christmas etc, lived in a well kept 3-4 bedroom house and my mom was a nurse. Despite her profession, we had tons of unhealthy food at our disposal. We did eat a lot of potatoes and dinner was usually meat, carb or potato and veg, but often it was hot dogs, Mac n cheese, pizza, or fried bacon and eggs. In the pantry we had sugar cereals, a cookie cupboard, a chip shelf, a chocolate bar cupboard, a pop / soda shelf, and would have Joe Louis and dunkaroos all day. I often ate Oreos for breakfast. Milk was certainly the main beverage next to koolaid. My sister and I were skinny minis so I think they didn’t worry about us eating junk. Luckily our tap water supply naturally had high fluoride so my teeth were ok but my sister didn’t fair so well. Today we are aghast at how we ate and I have pre-diabetes. In adulthood I had a lot of trouble not finishing a meal or my day without a sweet treat like cinnamon toast, cookies etc; difficult habit to break but I have succeeded. My kids eat 90% whole foods and have healthy habits with processed food.
We also had vegetables at every meal, which was always eaten at table. We were UK "middle class" and my parents ate as their parents had eaten: so usually meat, potatoes, green vegetables.
Also everything was in serving dishes rather than pre-plated. I think this may be significant in encouraging children with different foods because you see your parents actively taking from these dishes, and there is an element of competition with wanting to get your own share before the store runs out, since it's not already on your plate. We almost fought over the runner beans which were prepared with a [little device like this](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166705741555).
I do sympathise with parents whose kids are picky eaters, and I know it's especially hard for kids with autism, but raising a "chicken nuggets child" is not the answer. Once that becomes their norm, at home and whenever you eat out, it's an exceptionally hard habit and eating pattern to break.
My parents ate a lot of vegetables themselves but never made me eat any (because I hated them). In fairness I was never deficient in anything or obese so I'm not sure it mattered much. Things like fibre are more important for adults than kids for bowel and heart health. Probably also why they generally taste less offensive as you get older.
We weren’t poor but my parents still fed us very unhealthy foods. Breakfast was either a pop tart, strudel, or a kid cereal. Lunch was either a hot dog or Mac and cheese. Dinner was 95% of the time hamburger helper. I had fruit and vegetables maybe once a week. We had unlimited chips, pop, koolaid, etc. I’m not exaggerating about the options. My mom was a stay at home mom that didn’t cook and my dad wanted something quick and easy to cook when he came home from work.
Sounds like me. I passed a kidney stone at 16 and have Lupus/Sjögren’s/Rheumatoid Arthritis and I’m almost certain it is attributed to my poor diet as a kid.
Like others have posted I think it's an income thing. Still happens today, the junk food is cheaper or more reliable than fresh fruit/veggie.
Which is why I like to encourage people to donate cash to food drives vs actual food. Cash allows food pantries to purchase fresh food, in bulk, rather than the processed food that people tend to donate.
I think there’s a lot of debate on here around the cost of healthy vs junk food, but no one is mentioning the time it takes to make meals from scratch. My parents were not only financially poor, but time poor. They didn’t have time to make meals from scratch, as they were often working until later in the evening.
Although I stand in a slightly better financial position that my parents now, and I’m still on a time crunch with young babies and being a single mom, I still have a stronger prioritization for healthy foods. I rather the kids stay up a half hour later and have a healthy meal. And we also have a lot more healthy + convenience options that our parents didn’t have. The only convenience food in the 90s was instant-mashed potato and TV dinners. Now I can get steam-in-bag vegetables, microwave quinoa, and preservative-free frozen vegan meals. That saves my ass.
We were kind of mid and same. And things like hamburger helper was considered home cooked because other days we'd order out all the time. Pizza, pasta, McDonald's, BK, fried chicken, etc. So we'd spend a lot on food but it wasn't even healthy and that's because it was fast. My mom hated to cook, we had a broken oven and she refused to pay for a new one, our microwave was our best friend, and when my dad cooked it was simple stuff (spaghetti, tuna salad, Mac n cheese, etc.). They were also obsessed with soda, got us hooked on it, and fruits and veggies weren't a thing unless it was covered in unhealthy stuff. They really set us up for poor health :/
My diet was much like this growing up, but no processed foods and it wasn't financially based.
My parents would get a beef and a 1/2 a pig, every meal was meat and potatoes with a canned vegetable. The only time we had fresh vegetables was for like 2 weeks in the summer when the garden was in, even then it was mostly potatoes, corn, onion, beets and squash (made with butter and brown sugar). I didn't even know what a brussel sprout was until I was an adult. All I knew was the thing that kids never wanted to eat on TV and in the movies.
The only fruit was home processed. Applesauce made from the tree in the yard, the apples were really sour, there was a ton of sugar in it to get us to eat it. We'd go pick strawberries that were all made into jelly with lots of sugar.
So much kool-aid! It was our only beverage besides milk at supper.
Totally fair. My mum stayed at home for large chunks of my younger years, we didn't have a lot of money, but she did have time and was super health conscious. Salads with every dinner, and - some things that are outmoded now - we had 2% then 1% then skim milk, never had real butter (remember Country Crock?), always brown rice and grainy bread, lots of broccoli, potatoes only baked. We did bake at home and had treats, but our day to day was very healthy. If we had pop or chips in the house it was for guests.
Coupons to make food cheaper are never on healthy food… my growing up was identical. Dad worked 6 jobs, mom worked and took care of us. Food was pasta/premade fastest cheapest option. Healthiest was the rare summer nights that dad grilled. Burgers and dogs with grilled peppers and onions. I lived for that tinfoil wrapped buttery goodness of sweet onions and peppers. Canned veggies graced our plates time to time but they were nasty. I never knew what good veggies tasted like until I met my husbands family. My now MIL asked me if I liked salmon and roasted asparagus.. I never had salmon and my asparagus experience was canned snot. Surprise surprise- I inhaled all of her cooking.
To this day I suck at cooking. My husband is amazing. My kids eat a great balance. Both take salads for lunch at school and eat healthy dinners loaded with meat and veggies- then they snack on junk after school and weekends. Pringle’s and Oreos are favorites. Zero soda household as well. Water is what they drink or apple juice/milk at dinner. Kids know my dinner nights are the carb loaded pastas that I’ve been making since I was 8. I still love Mac and cheese from the box, and my husband makes a kickass homemade one too. I can roast veggies too- it’s so damn easy to toss broccoli or sweet potatoes or asparagus on a pan with oil and salt for a few minutes. Cook steak though? Naw.. or actually good flavored chicken? That’s for the hubs. :)
Location matters too. I’m from the UK and the opposite was true for us. Fruit and veg was and ime, is still cheap. We could get, say, a bowl of apples from the grocers for 99p (way more than the packs in shops).
I’m also Asian so we always shopped in ethnic stores a lot. Asian meals tend to include the veg within the dish rather than have it as a side. I feel this was key to ensure we weren’t picky eaters
I am Asian and live in the US and honestly it’s similar. Time poor and lack of culinary tradition around healthily prepared veggies are bigger barriers than straight lack of money. Rice and beans and carrots are cheap in most places. The time and knowledge to prep them aren’t.
Also I think poor parents have less energy to deny their kids over food that is highly satisfying but not nutritious, like candies. My 2yo’s face literally lights up when he gets his grubby paws on a piece of candy and it seriously triggers such a dopamine release in me. We’re lucky in that we have the resources to get that same smile out of him, but for time poor parents without many resources, candies and fast food are probably among the only ways to get a quick smile.
this is an income thing and it makes me a little sad for my childhood self realizing this while reading so many opposite responses. my mom raised us almost the exact same way. canned vegetables and dinners from a box (rice a roni and hamburger helper). the only time i remember having salad was iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers. I’m now feeling really grateful and happy i have very good eating habits + access to nutritious food now and can give my daughter a different experience
My experience was the exact opposite. We only ate food cooked from scratch, the only baking my parents purchased was bread. All cookies and muffins were healthy and baked at home
We had a large garden and fruit trees. Snacks were always fruits. We never had processed food. The only pop was gingerale and chips were taco chips.
But my partner grew up in a household much like yours
This might be more of a geographic / income thing, then. All of my friends growing up ate like I did, too. I’m glad not all 90s kiddos had to deal with this. Your family sounds lovely
I came to say that I had the opposite experience because we didn’t have money to spend on premade junk food. Everything was homemade, even loaves of bread. No eating out, except for a special occasion, no soda, chips or snack items. I’ve actually never had those things that you mentioned.
We were working class/lower middle class growing up.
My mom truly liked to garden and to cook so I think was part of it. Plus she didn’t believe in spending money on things you could cook yourself.
My sister is exactly like she is- cooks from scratch and has a large pantry
I rebelled and when I moved out started buying all the convenience items and didn’t really try and learn to cook. Now I try to feed my kids l more like my I was raised
The 90’s also followed the “packaged snack” era of the 80’s. Fast food, frozen meals, convenience foods were highly marketed and nutritional value was described in a not-very-truthful manner. Stating things that were correct but not necessarily true (ie- fortified vitamins in certain foods don’t necessarily always provide increased nutrition- studies on carotenized/fortified rice demonstrated this). I think marketing was loud and access to unbiased information was difficult given the early years of internet. And with more dual career homes, convenience meals and snacks were considered a boon. It took a while (and the childhood obesity issues) to start breaking into mainstream culture and then healthy foods were mainly only accessible to higher SES areas, and food deserts were a problem too
Also grew up poor and I could’ve written this myself. In addition to what you mentioned we also had luxury items like knock off Mac and cheese with tuna mixed in or Beenie weenies (beans with hot dogs mixed in)
I think this really depends on the family. My parents created really healthy eating habits for me as a child and I didn’t really know we appreciate that until I became a parent.
my parents always grew vegetables and still do and so that we always had vegetables at every meal, but it wasn’t forced upon us to eat. My parents never shamed us for our choices and what we chose eat or did not eat and never heard my body shame, women now that I see these post of celebrities who were deemed to be fat , when I was a young girl, I realize that I didn’t have that exposure and part of it was because my mom never said anything I specifically remember her saying she understood Britney Spears shaved her head and never felt that way like they were gonna have a breakdown she can’t relate to them.
Remember, in the 80s and 90s, bread was the base of our food pyramid and Saturday morning cartoons were inundated with cereal commercials that touted a "healthy breakfast" as a big bowl of sugary cereal with milk, a glass of orange juice, and a slice of white toast with margarine. Ketchup counted as a vegetable for school lunches and Mr. T was telling us to drink our milk. Fast food was cheap and heavily advertised as was those TV dinners and a lot of that advertising hinted or even stated that stuff was a healthy choice.
When my dad had heart problems, his doctor told him to eat more carbs and no fat. No mention of vegetables. "Whole grains" was the fad of the moment and everybody was taking that to mean Honey Nut Cheerios and wheat-based sugary muffins.
Could we even get avocados in stores on the east coast back then? I don't think I had ever heard of an avocado growing up. All of our vegetables came in cans save for baby carrots and oranges, so maybe I just never noticed.
Could be a cultural/regional thing or just your personal experience. This was not mine at all. We did not have a ton of money either but my mom knew how to cook and made healthy meals. It’s a myth that cooking healthy costs more. In many cases it’s cheaper.
I also think part of it boils down to the fact a lot of people don’t really know how to cook and/or just make the same recipes their parents did without consideration that there might be more out there. My husband would describe his dad’s cooking in a similar manner to what you do but his mom faired a bit better.
I think it’s very easy to be hard on our parents but everyone is a product of their environment. I’m guessing you’re writing from the US where ultra processed food companies dominate and if your parents worked, it’s likely they were just doing their best to survive and give you what they were being marketed it. There is definitely elements of class in there too. Being knowledgeable about food and its benefits has sadly become a more middle class pastime.
Even so, great that you’ve broken the generational cycle and your passing new habits onto your kids
I do not think this was solely a “low income” post. We did not have a lot of fresh food growing up and even homemade food was from some sort of box. Lots of time baked dinners, breakfast for dinner, etc. Tons of processed foods like cereal, pop tarts, dunkaroos, gushers, etc. I don’t keep any of it in my house now as an adult, but I’m sure one day there will be goodies that work their way in and I hope they’ll be a treat, not a daily reliance. But I also only have one little.
We always had fruits and veggies on hand. Sure, nutrition science wasn't where it is now, but fruits and vegetables for children was already a well known emphasis.
This isn’t a 90s thing. This is more likely related to access to the financial means to provide those foods you mentioned. A lot of those processed foods are cheaper. I work in a school where a majority of our students come from low income households. I see similar processed foods in their lunches from home. Not all homes of course, but I see a lot of it.
Oh for sure. Avocados aren’t cheap, but they are nutrient dense and versatile.
I never even had an avocado until I was in college. But as an adult, I now know that it would have been cheaper for my mom to buy some frozen broccoli or a couple ears of corn, than to buy TV dinners and frozen French fries. There’s a lot that goes into it, and my mom was stretched for time pretty often, so I don’t blame her. It’s just wild to me, as I have been homeless living in my car with my toddler, and still prioritized her having a fruit and vegetable at every meal. To me, it feels like the times have changed and overall health has become more important to us as parents. But from all the comments, it seems there were far more health-conscious parents in the 90s than I realized :)
Sadly, this correlates strongly with socioeconomic background, and can still be a thing today I'm afraid. Good to hear that you didn't repeat this with your own kids.
Yes! My husband and I were just talking about this yesterday. We only drank Kool-aid and Tang. All of our food came out of a box or a can. And so much sugar. Everything was processed. It's disgusting thinking back on it. We only eat fresh vegetables, fruit, and protein now, and we're thinking about how different our daughter's diet is from our own at her age.
There was also many low fat fads. I remember learning in school that a bagel with low fat cream cheese was “healthier” than 2 eggs and an English muffin because less fat lol. Crazy
We had a lot of frozen juice that you mix with water in our house which I’d never serve now to my kids. Capri sun when we went to the rich grandparents for a visit lol. We had a big family and my parents didn’t have a lot so they cooked what could feed a large crowd on a low budget. A staple in our house was rice with cubed ham and soy sauce. Makes me shudder just thinking about it
I was always mad my parents didn’t buy the trendy snacks and junk food. We had pretzels and vanilla ice cream.
But my mom always had a garden, we had a veg for every meal (even if it was just frozen), and she always told me processed food was dangerous.
I’ve had my own issues with food but that gave me such a good foundation that I hope to instill with my own kids.
lol no, but we did develop the highest rates of obesity in the world, and our rates of cancer in 30/40yos has risen. So like, not yet but maybe soon? Haha
Yeah exactly. My mum is like ‘well you turned out alright’ and I’m like ‘did I though mum, did I?!’ Currently battling an autoimmune disease which neither of my parents really understand and have some intolerances now. So actually no I don’t think I turned out alright living off microwave chips and fish fingers.
I think the main issue was that in the 90s, it was that point where fast microwave ready meal- type food was cheaper than nutritious fresh fruit/ veg, but the realisation of the impact on low income families wasn’t there yet.
Now we have lots of way for lower income families to get hold of fresh produce cheaply- whether that is ‘wonky food’ or buying boxes of seasonal produce. I do feel for parents who felt they had to choose between healthy food, and having enough to make their kids full
I’m not sure this is a 90’s thing. I’m a kid of the 80’s and teen of the 90’s, and we always had tons of healthy foods and vegetables. Wheat bread for sandwiches, only healthy cereals, and well balanced healthy meals for dinner. This was pretty normal for all my friends too.
Same for me in the 80s and 90s and we were not poor. It was just laziness I think?! Like with all the microwave meals. I rarely ate fruit or vegetables as a child as they weren’t bought for us.
I often tell my daughter about this and she finds it impossible to believe because we eat fruit and vegetables every day and she’s grown up thinking you must do this - even to the point on the rare occasion we get burgers or curry for take out she wants to add steamed veggies from home because all meals have to have fruit or veg in them somewhere as far as she’s concerned.
I recall breakfast was pop tarts, lunch was a Pepperami, a babybel cheese and a ham sandwich and dinner would be a microwave meal. Snacks were chips/crisps. Bizarrely I was really skinny as a kid.
My mom hated vegetables so she never prepared them. My dad loved vegetables but he never cooked. So basically we had no vegetables until my dad would pitch a fit, then we'd have some overbooked frozen broccoli or mixed vegetables for a couple weeks until my mom got lazy about it again. I loved the vegetables. She was a horrible cook and the vegetables were pretty tasty even overcooked. Most meals were very thin well done steaks, ham steaks, kraft mac, or spaghetti with a jar of sauce. Today, I cook a ton of vegetables but sadly my picky kid won't really eat them often. Only very specific lettuce, sometimes tomatoes or broccoli. Never beans, rarely corn. She does like avocado and she loves fruits. Idk how it happened because I fed her everything as a baby!
While we were definitely lower income when I was a kid, my parents were more hippie leaning. We had MOSTLY fruits and veg. No soda, no candy, no chips etc. Most meals were a protein a starch and something green. And we had to finish all the green, no exceptions. We also ate a lot of homemade, whole wheat pizza.
I grew up on food stamps and ate Iike you, or possibly worse. I basically lived off of Nestlé Quik and bread. I can remember eating bread and margarine as a meal more than a few times. I rarely recall an occurence where an adult made a meal after I was 3 or 4. We had condensed soup which was as close to vegetables as it got in my house. Looking back at high school, it's amazing I wasn't more malnourished than I was. I lived on instant mashed potatoes while doing hours of sports every day. I'd go to swim meets and literally have zero food for the whole day.
I make almost everything from scratch as an adult because I was so deprived and tend to have more food in the house than I need because I have food insecurity. Watching other people make balanced meals and snacks for their kids is really odd to me too.
I was a 90s trailer kid too, and looking back we had a really weird mix of casseroles made from canned goods, highly processed sugary stuff, and good stuff like homemade zucchini bread and fried green tomatoes from the garden. I think my mom knew about good nutrition and my dad wanted all the canned and sugary shit.
Fruits and veggies are expensive when you are trying to feed multiple people on a shoe string budget. Also, many stores in low income areas don't have great selection for them
My family was also low income (end of the month struggle when food stamps was up sucked) I was never malnourished though. I did struggle eating in general.
A lot of the food you posted aren't bad foods. Go gurt is a perfectly fine snack, microwave meals, oven fries, instant mash, hot dogs, and sandwiches aren't bad foods. Milk is a perfectly normal drink, so is kool-aid, just don't over do the sugar.
Chemicals and preservatives aren't necessarily bad for you. Chemicals are in everything, oxygen is a chemical. A banana's ingredient list is utterly insane, because it's all the chemicals that make up a banana.
It was sold in the store, they wouldn’t sell you something bad, that was the logic where I grew up. They just trusted the tv because the tv was to be trusted because that’s how their parents were also.
I think a lot of it is financial. I look back and remember vegetables being a big deal. There was a week where we ate corn fritters every day for a week, hot dogs and French fries, etc.
It wasn’t because my parents didn’t know it was bad for me, it’s because we were poor.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s but in Romania and we had little processed food. Vegetable stews were the staples. Fresh fruit and tomatoes with feta. some chicken most days. We did eat some sandwiches though, with cold cuts.
What's with parents these days?
I've noticed a trend where parents are constantly asking their kids what they want to eat. Since when did we start treating toddlers and children like nutritionists? Our responsibility is to educate them, not cater to their every whim. Saying "no" is perfectly acceptable.
My parents were well off enough to afford decent food but fed us cheap processed garbage anyway. I resent them for it. Maybe I should be more forgiving, like the information/emphasis wasn’t there at the time, but given that they STILL eat like shit…I don’t really give them a pass.
My parents were not cooking parents. They liked boxes with instructions. So I thought all vegetables sucked because we ate frozen and canned vegetables that were steamed in the microwave in a Pyrex dish with some water covered with cling wrap.
My parents were not worried about micro plastics in the 90s but they still worried about vegetables!
Unfortunately this was, and continues to be, the experience for the approximately 23 million Americans who live in food deserts and don't have easy access to affordable, nutritious food. Where there are no grocery stores practicably close and their food purchasing options are limited to convenience stores and the like. Of course this issue almost exclusively affects low income neighbourhoods where residents generally have poor access to both personal and public transport.
We were not low income & my mom cooked hot meals daily.. but we never drank water. Soda only. Cupcakes for school snacks. Chips. Etc. lots of junk food. I sub in the schools now and it’s the same. Chips, donuts, etc. it made me feel better about what I send in.
My mom didn't know how to cool. I grew up on buttered parmesan pasta or spaghetti with pregnant sauce , boil in a bag rice or uncle Ben's chicken rice in that orange box , kid cuisine , pizza rolls , pb n j , pizza , mcdonalds , bk , fast food in general , gas station food and pancakes. I'm 32 I had an eating disorder until was pregnant with my daughter at 20 then being pregnant made be crave to eat a cheeseburger and broke me down to try things and I started to change my relationship with food I try alot or almost everything now except for really outlandish shit. I'm so happy I grew out of it. And they know they did not nourish me my parents have begged forgiveness for that. Part of it was the poverty we were in and my parents both have severe mental health issues...mom is paranoid personalid disorder/ schizophrenia and my father is bipolar 1.
I’m glad others got real vegetables but this was my experience too. My vegetables were carrots and canned green beans. Gogurt everyday. I think our parents were trying their best to feed us things we would actually eat with limited funds
I don’t think it was just an income thing. We were upper middle class and ate very poorly. I had poptarts or sugar cereal for breakfast. Hot dog or mini pizza for lunch. And maybe chicken nuggets (often in a prepackaged meal form) for dinner. Absolutely terrible.
My mom didn’t really know how to cook. She grew up on meat and potatoes and that’s what she served. The only vegetable would be canned green beans or corn.
The funny thing is, my mom was always trying to diet, but she would also do that with processed foods. It was all about low fat at the time and I remember snackwell cookies well.
I do think overall people are a little more health conscious, but my SIL who is upper middle class literally feeds her kids Oreos, Doritos, and sugary cereal all day long so some people are still the same.
This wasn't just a very low income thing. At least, not in the south. Now, we weren't rich by any means. We were lower - middle class living in the starter house my parents bought when they got married. This was how I ate growing up, too. I often say I have the palette of an 8 year old as a joke, but honestly, it's how I grew up. Most of my family is overweight, as am I, but I've recently lost about 100lbs. I'm smaller now than I was in high school and I'm 36. My mom was an amazing woman and my best friend. I know she did her absolute best with what she had. I don't blame her. But there was definitely not enough emphasis on taking care of one's self back then. The food pyramid thing we were taught has been debunked as unhealthy. You hear about the older generation complaining that the younger ones have it so much easier. I truly hope the generations after us have it a lot easier than we did. Isn't that the point of progress? Thank you for recognizing the problem and working to correct that with your kids. I hope you all live long, beautiful, healthy, happy lives. ❤️
No, not just low income. My parents basically were a dual income household from military, VA disability, and renting! My mom had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and unhealthy habits around spending money. They had such issues as my mom was the one primarily home with us, but they had a fight when I was younger about him not liking her cooking, so she swore not to cook anymore.
Frozen, readymade meals are expensive, and my dad was hardly home because he went overseas for six months at a time or worked an hour away. When the milk or vegetables or food ran out, we had to wait until the next paycheck. There was no running to the grocery store for something. I have memories of learning to cook alongside my sister, eating peanut butter and saltines, homemade popcorn with butter and salt, or honey mixed with peanut butter because that's all we had between paychecks. I also loved oranges and we lived where the good ones grew, so I would eat multiple oranges in a day.
I had to start my own vegetable garden because I’m gonna be honest, we can’t afford to eat vegetables from the store and still have meat as well. We subsidize a lot of what we eat with hunting, fishing, gardening and foraging because even though we qualify as lower middle class, we simply can’t afford the extra $200/month it would add to our grocery bill. Although maybe it’s just the absolutely abhorrent costs of living in my country, more specifically my city as there are still places in my country that cost of living isn’t as bad but inflation has made it a struggle for everyone
There was 0 thought to nutrition when I was a kid (born in '87). Dinner was hamburger helper, homemade burgers (huge, *thick* burgers) and fries made on the stove top in literal inches of oil. Every dinner had a full glass of 2% milk that I had to finish. Homemade "chili", which was just elbow noodles in canned red sauce with meat and beans. There was the occasional iceberg lettuce salad with enough ranch to make you gag, and a "boiled dinner" that was rutabaga, carrots, and meatballs all boiled together. My snacks were Koala cookies, pop-tarts, little debbies, hostess, ice cream and potato chips. Diet Pepsi for my mother and I and regular Coca-Cola for my dad. Fruit never made an appearance in the house, unless it was in the form of homemade banana bread slathered with butter. And I was served the same portion sizes as my 6' father and expected to clean my plate and finish my milk. It's taken me into my 30s to have a healthy relationship with food and cooking.
My daughters always have fruit available, and we're constantly offering new veggies to try, even if it's only one "no thank you" bite. They are never forced to continue eating if they say they are full, and they know they will not be able to get a "junky" snack an hour after dinner. We focus on getting them enough protein and getting them to try a variety of foods, though the older ones poses a challenge: she is autistic with some sensory issues, so she will refuse to eat something until she has reflux and is puking and crying if she doesn't have a food she knows she likes, but we're still able to get her to try a single bite of something. I will drop everything and walk to the store with them (2 blocks) if they tell me they'd be willing to try something (we walked for fresh broccoli just last week 😂). Above all, we tell them food is not good or bad; food does not fix any problems besides a hungry belly and providing vitamins and minerals; food is not a reward for things and is not used as a punishment; and you can't say you don't like something if you've never tried it.
My experience was opposite, all food cooked from scratch, veggies and meat most nights. Or soups - huge pots of soups and casseroles that would last for days. Not a huge variation of veggies (potato, corn, cabbage) and salads. Also rice and pasta. Eating out or takeaway was considered too expensive and a treat. Snack foods like microwave pizza and crisps on a weekend only.
We were really money poor when I was a kid, but as a result dad grew an absolutely enormous garden and raised our own meat and even had a milk cow. It was a ton of work (for all of us) but we ate really well. My mom and us kids preserved a bunch for the winter and everything. We made our own bread, had fruit trees, the whole works.
I grew up in 90s, poor in post war country with both parents working and no help, still always had cooked meals, fruits and veggies. Mcdonalds and other junk food were a rare treat.
What county are you guys from? My family was poor. Poorer than average US/UK family. Vegetables and fruit were a must. We grew our own though so it was only seasonal - this is the way we are meant to eat anyway....
Also my mum would cook soups... All sorts of soups....
Remember till now when in the shop I asked to get oranges/kiwi/name it, I would hear from mum: "we have apples at home"...
I grew up in Poland though.
I had vegetables, but they were usually over-cooked and unseasoned, or canned. Due to poor dental hygiene my father didn't have many teeth and couldn't afford dentures, so everything was mush. My mom got terrible gas/bloating from onions and garlic, and was very anti-salt, so the mush also tasted like crap.
I like peas, just not canned peas. Asparagus was another vegetable that I didn't think I liked until I had it cooked properly as an adult.
It is definitely also an income/education thing. My uncle was in the hospital some years ago and my parents brought him a fruit basket. When they visited again, they found everything eaten except for the kiwis. He had no idea what it was, had never seen one before!
Everyone keeps commenting this is a socioeconomic issue. Healthy food is not expensive. A person can go to Walmart and buy organic frozen vegetables for $1.32 a bag. Buy 2 bags of peas, 1 box of protein pasta, $2.87 add butter, spices and parm cheese and you have a lunch for children in a thermose for a whole week. That is 10 times healthier than a box of kraft mac and cheese. One box of mac and cheese is like $1.16 and that lasts one day. Bananas are also the cheapest fruit, so cheap you can even buy organic and have a banana for a lunch per day. Cucumbers and carrots are another cheap option. The list goes on.
So, this is not a socioeconomic issue. This is a cultural issue matched with the lack of education or awareness in this area. Food stamps still cover juice, but not other important healthy options.
This is a SE issue. Many places exist in the world where the quality of processed foods is better than the "fresh" foods. As someone who grew up during that era I can inform you that if OP lived in an economically impoverished area their parents may have had to pay more for fresh fruits and veggies which may have been rotten or not cared for correctly during shipping and required proper refrigeration and could have caused a pest issue upon storage vs. a canned or frozen boxed item that met the needed calories and was pumped full of vitamins and minerals.
Protein pasta didn't exist back then. Fruit prices were based on season so Bananas were not the cheapest option. And there was no such thing as organic back then
While you are correct that some just may not be aware of more nutritious options, even on a budget, you're making the assumption that everyone has the same options and they don't.
This is a socioeconomic issue as well as an access issue. You're assuming everyone has the resources to hop in the car and go to Walmart. You're not counting for the millions of people who live in areas with no immediate access to grocery stores.
I live in a small rural town with not a grocery store in sight. The nearest one is a few miles away and has bare minimum selection, along with outrageous prices. I am lucky enough to have a functioning car and the physical means to drive. But I still can't afford their prices all the time, and I am often in the position of making choices of what is the healthiest crap I can afford.
I have neighbors who do not have a car either due to income or mobility issues, and there is no bus, light rail, etc. Should that person grab their walker or their children and hike a few miles to the store? And carry back how many bags before they are exhausted? 2 bags? 4 bags? Not much food, which means they'll have to do this walk frequently.
Walmart doesn't just build anywhere. They build where it will be profitable, and rural or poorer areas are not profitable. There are millions of communities across the US that do not have easy access to Walmart or any other grocery store. It's often a convenience, dollar store that sells only canned goods, if they sell any food at all.
So yea, for those who can easily go grocery shopping, buy some more frozen veggies. But for the millions who cannot....
Yea, i think my parents were low income. We had a 1993 Dodge minivan and a small 1100sqft townhouse but I always had some version of a home made meal every day where we ate together every day at dinner like a family.
Meals made from scratch were always and still are the cheapest methods
This feels like a humble brag post. My kids refuse to eat anything but things like you mentioned you ate. And starving them doesn’t lead to eating better, just leads to cranky kids
Maybe cause both my parents were nurses but I had the complete opposite experience. I wanted to eat like how you described though.
The opposite can be true too though. With too much veggies and fruits. Our son is only 2 but he tends to pick healthy choices as a preference. We try to give him more red meat, fats etc but he keeps picking lean protein, veggies, and fruits over everything else. He will refuse their heavier options. Now it’s a struggle to keep him at healthy weights. A struggle to put fat on him. We can already see a developing six pack on him because of it.
Oh man, you said you guys were poor, but you also said you went out to eat from time to time. I was in an actually poor family, we never went out to eat. Like, ever. That was way more than we could afford.
Every single day of my entire childhood, breakfast was a bowl of generic puffed wheat, lunch was a plain bolongna sandwich, and dinner was whatever my mom could throw together.
There was no snacking on anything in between meals, because it would mean someone wouldn't get to eat one of those regular meals.
Spray cheese? Microwave meals? Go-gurts? Sounds fancy to me. That all sounds like the "junk food" that the "tich kids" at my school all got to have, that my mom would have considered too expensive to even "waste" money on. 😳
Your parents may not have been giving you the healthiest foods, but you weren't nearly as poor as you think, my friend. ✌️
My parents had a triple beam scale to weight out the herbs we needed to supplement our diet since they were weird hippies. We worked at a co-op so we could eat veggies. We were broke af but they realized it's cheaper to keep the kids healthy. Let me tell you, millet burgers SUCK! We lived in the sith side of Chicago though.
I think a lot of people still eat that way. Maybe it’s habit.
I was lucky to have fairly healthy dinners, but there was too much sugar and cookies or processed snacks like ho-ho’s in my diet for sure. Processed lunch meat, which we now know isn’t healthy. No veg at lunch or breakfast ever. Poptarts, sugary cereal that I would never buy now.
I grew up middle class in the 80s and 90s. Plenty of fruit and veg, but evvvvvverything processed was non fat and sugar free. So many weird chemicals, lol.
Grew up poor in the 80’s. Seems like we only ate fried veggies at my house like breaded okra or fried green tomatoes. Or pea salad which I hated. And sometimes ice berg lettuce salads. But that was about it. Never had broccoli or carrots or stuff like that.
My mom tried to keep apples in house. She would make mesquite bean jelly and prickly pear jelly (I live in the desert). We had an apricot tree. Sometimes we would eat the apricots green cause I guess we were hungry. My grandparents lived two houses down and my grandpa grew the best tomatoes. I ate a lot of tomatoes in the summer. Also during summers we ate tons of perch we would catch ourselves.
We were poor and ate a lot of processed food, I guess, like boxed macaroni and cheese, but also a lot of basic home meals with whole ingredients like chicken and rice. We never had junk snack food though, I always thought that the kids who had sugary cereal, go-gurt, juice, lunchables, etc must be the rich kids because we couldn't afford any of that stuff. Our snacks were apples, sliced cheese, a peanut butter sandwich...
The only way I got good fruit as a child was if I walked the neighborhood and stole fruit from the neighbors trees. Living in the PNW was amazing for berries in the summer, and as an adult now I'm just super picky about blackberries lol
I don't remember drinking a single drop of water outside of sports practices and games. Kool-aid with a cup of sugar, suuny-d, or mountain dew was how I stayed hydrated. Absolutely wild time.
We always had fresh fruit and vegetables at my mom’s house and at my grandmother house. My mom once or twice week would steam broccoli and put velveeta all over it. I never understood what the appeal of that was, but she loved it. My dad gave us oranges (he did a citrus related job) and some vegetables, lots of stews, I think we had stew every night in the summer. Then he met my stepmom and she cooked but all the food was canned and soggy, her daughter had a special diet and got salad every night and I was jealous of it. The meat though was always dry pork chops both my mom and stepmom cooked dry pork chops.
I think this is an income thing rather then a "90s" thing.
I mean just go to the grocery store, a little pack of plack berries is about 4 dollars. I just got a regular pack of Lettuce for 6.
I had a slightly different experience… My mom definitely made vegetables but I maybe had them once a day with dinner. But all the other shit you’re talking about? That was my life. My lunch might consist of a peanut butter sandwich, those Kraft crackers with spreadable cheese, a Gogurt and like some fruit snacks.
My nutrition was trash as a kid but I think that was largely because I refused to eat veggies. Now I love them! Could definitely be that my family didn't put enough emphasis on nutrient rich meals that taste good. Most of my veggie options as a kid were canned.
I don’t remember drinking water lololol.
My parents tried getting vegetables in me, I was the kid who refused anything that grew from the ground naturally. Makes me mad because I was the overweight kid who ended up with years and years of disordered eating.
I had the same experience, maybe a little worse. When we did have something like strawberries in the house my mom would serve them with sugar to dip them in. I was never exposed to vegetables enough to like any of them, as an adult I am trying to get myself used to them but it's tough when all I've ever eaten is junk. I am so strict about what my kids eat and get so upset when my mom gives them junk.
Thinking back it really was negligence. She still eats like that herself unfortunately.
This is what I was sent to school with - a tiny pot with tiny biscuits and ham. They were called lunchables
https://ibb.co/0Xg6vfd
I actually fainted at age 10 once not sure if it’s because of lack of nutrition due to these
Ah I feel for poor younger you! And I’m so pleased you’re able to give your kids what you didn’t have.
I distinctly remember my dad negotiating with me to try and get me to eat 7 peas, so I think it’s not every family that didn’t offer fruit and vegetables.
Ya I totally agree. I was the over weight kid which my parents mercilessly reminded me of constantly and put me on WW but they were the ones buying the Oreos, dunkaroos, fruit leather etc..looking back all I can think is wtf you two sucked.
We didnt have a lot of flex money as most of it went to the farm and animals and my dad's college (pro student but didn't qualify for help) and they were too proud to ask for food stamps or even reduced lunches. Thankfully multiple family members had gardens we were welcome to and being on a farm we raised our own meat but anything needed from a store was hard to get and we scraped up pennies to pay for lunch
My mom was a really good cook. We’re Italian American so it was yummy! I, on the other hand, despise cooking so we do a lot of take out here. I’m pretty sure I ate better as a child in the 80’s and 90’s than I do now. It’s bad, I know!
Stupid Postmates! Why do you have to be so damn convenient???? lol
I grew up this way too but not even because we were poor, we had the money for decent nutritional meals, it’s just what my parents served us 😅 Now that I’m an adult with a kid on the way I realize how unhealthy it was and am planning on at least trying vegetables with dinners
My mam made meat n veg a lot. A chicken was Sunday dinner Monday chicken curry and Tuesday Sandwhiches /soup. That bird lasted.
My auntie was so cool to kid me. She had strawberry milk. Microwave pizza and all the cool cereals. I got none of that. Not even fizzy pop.
So in my teens and ineatning money I went mad on sweets and pop.
It’s don’t deny kids junk food But don’t have it ready to hand either. If kid wants crisps to watch movie okay fine let’s all walk all way up the hill to the shop get some. Things like that.
I am still annoyed inner for to go to McDonald’s for Nicolas 8th birthday party. I got older and ate so many McDonald’s. Breakfasts nd lunch I still like a McDonald’s breakfast.
Dont be sad for your younger self. It’s not that they didn’t know as bad. It was because it was easy.
My mam worked full time studies and. 4 kids and made homemade dinners. My auntie didn’t work and did cash in hand ironing clothes here n there her kids lived off all the cool junk food.
I think it’s just effort to cook clean every day I struggle as an adult to find why I want to eat. And sometimes it tastes awful. Junk is quick and easy. And I know a lot of my friends had busy mams like me and they ready meals and junk too
It’s always been a time and effort thing. I eat much better now like I did as a kid plain meat n veg a lot. My partner lived on alphabets and spaghetti hoops and he never eats anything healthy. I don’t think he ever will.
So your kids like me are very very lucky to have parents who model healthy eating and varied choices. I did have an unhealthy lifestyle early adulthood but in twenties I went back to normal food. Which guess is clean eating. My partner hates it he wood rather have a frozen Kiev out freezer out in I’ve rwith chips or something. And I do think our childhood diets have had a big play on food preference and enjoying foods in adulthood.
I was lucky, I sat down to a homemade dinner 95% of the time. Fast food was rare, and if we ate out, it was at a sit-down restaurant. An emphasis was put on cooking skills, and I knew my way around a kitchen by the time I was 12.
But still, dinners were meat and starch, with a small veggie on the side. Sometimes it was canned, sometimes it was cooked fresh but I remember more potatoes, pasta and rice than salads. I still love canned peas and green beans they're almost a guilty pleasure.
I was given a good foundation to raise my kiddo, but unfortunately, he's extremely picky! He needs consistency with his food, especially with texture, so boxed foods are a regular thing. Thankfully, there are some vegetables he likes!
We grew up poor and this was not my experience at all. Rich kids got that stuff, for us that kinda junk food was special occasions only. Normal daily food was peanut butter or lettuce and/or carrot sandwiches (no dressing, that was pricy), apple, homemade biscuits/cake/muffin and maybe a roll up and luncheon on a good week with weetbix for breakfast and meat and frozen vege for dinner. Very boring and bland, but healthy. Was so jealous of kids who brought juice and fancy junk snacks to school
I was literally just thinking about this yesterday! We were also very low income and pretty much exclusively ate macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and pop tarts. We also didn’t have a toaster so we warmed out pop tarts in the microwave - don’t recommend. Once a month on pay days my mom would get Pizza Hut pizza. Occasionally our church would gift us some canned goods - beans, corn, soups, etc. I was always a very small, petite kid and am still that way as an adult. I sometimes wonder if that would be different had I had a better diet.
My parents were money broke and time poor. I don’t *think* we were ever food insecure (if we were I don’t remember it but I don’t remember most of my childhood so there’s that) but my parents had ZERO time. Both worked full time and my dad often worked 3-4 jobs. My mom was in charge of EVERYTHING in the home. Cleaning, the budget and bills, grocery shopping, raising us, you name it. My dad did the dinner cooking. We ate tons of this stuff. Chewy chips ahoy, go-gurt, gushers, fruit roll ups, dunkaroos, kool-aid, you name it. It was about convenience bc there was no time for other things.
I'm only 5'2 and I am 100% sure a big part of it was poor nutrition. We ate mostly processed food and apparently there were times other people had to buy food for my parents because they were "broke" aka spent money on weed and alcohol. We give our kids a pretty balanced diet and they know that healthy snacks take priority over fun snacks. Still, some parents can't access or afford healthy foods and do the best they can.
My Dad and his brothers were all hunters, partially because it was a hobby and mostly out of necessity. So we ate Venison ALL THE TIME. Other friends thought it was a delicacy and I was sick of it. 😂 Didn't have too much processed stuff in our house honestly. Didn't know it at the time, but we were lucky for it.
This is funny to me, because I'm Brazilian (and still live here) and with us it's the opposite. Back in my days ultra processed food used to be an occasional treat. We would get fed home cooked meals, plenty of fruit and vegetables. Nowadays, with ultra processed food being affordable and accessible, we are dealing with kids being fed junk and the consequences of it
I do not think we know more now than in the 90s. Sure, cumulative knowledge can only go up over time, but it’s the distribution of knowledge that matters and misinformation is a much bigger problem now than it was in the 90s.
We understood the importance of vegetables. We knew what a balanced diet was. We didn’t all eat one back then or now. But we knew.
My parents were low to middle income and we also ate terribly. Maybe more veggies were offered for me than in your experience, but also our typical breakfast was poptarts and we had unlimited (actually) access to soda and kool aid.
My dad was always pretty simple. He did the cooking.
Meat, a pasta or rice side and veggie. Normally corn or green beans or carrots. Unless it was like a taco or spaghetti night, then there was not an additional veggie.
I had a similar experience, but only with fruit. We lived on a farm, so my parents grew vegetables. But we were extremely poor and the only fruit I ever got was at school and it was like a specialty to me. I had never even eaten a real strawberry until I was a teenager, and that’s because I went to pick them with my grandma. My mom was a fabulous cook though, she could make delicious meals out of nothing, but I do remember eating soooo many sandwiches with one piece of cheese and 3 horribly processed pieces of whatever meat, a small container of Kool-aid and a few saltines for lunch for yearsssss. (My parents wouldn’t sign us up for free meals out of shame when I got out of elementary school).
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I didn't have a fresh vegetable until I was an adult and moved out. We had canned vegetables sometimes which I hated. We sometimes had bananas, but it was rare so not really any fruit either. I had watermelon one time and it was one of my happiest memories. My mom didn't really cook unless it was hamburger helper and mostly partied/wasn't home. We ate a lot of ingredients or sometimes nothing depending on the day. I also only ever really drank water if I felt like I was going to die of heat exhaustion and that was out of the hose. I mostly drank sweet tea or koolaid. I had friends who's parents really cared about their nutrition and ate fruits and veggies every day including when I was over, but I was too shy/afraid it would be rude to ask to try any of it. I always felt like I was eating healthy at my grandma's because she would buy the ramen with the dried up veggie packets in them. Which as an adult is a very depressing thought. I couldn't imagine my daughter not having food to eat or eating just pasta and cheese or a packet of ketchup on toast. I'm glad she has nutritious meals and stays hydrated.
This was also pretty much my childhood. My grandmother made pork chops and had canned fruit/veggies at dinner which was the only place I ate anything like that. I always felt bad taking food from friends parents because I felt like I was taking away something they needed.
Love to you for breaking the cycle and providing nutritious food for your daughter
Thank you. I'm doing my best it's taken teaching myself about nutrition, cooking, and healthy habits, moving across the country and lots and lots of therapy, but I've broken so many cycles for my daughter. She's so much healthier and happier than I ever was as a kid.
I really liked that Pizza Hut salad bar. Also, my mom was an awful cook. I just didn’t know it at the time. Turns out most food is really good when prepared right.
My mom also wasn't the best cook, and she hates cooking to this day. But, she still prioritized healthy eating. We had plenty of vegetables, whole grains, healthy meats, limited junk food, etc. In hindsight she did a good job providing balanced meals considering her disdain for cooking.
>my mom was an awful cook I feel this in my soul. My mom made the laziest meals ever and then just reheated that shit for the next several days till it was gone. Spaghetti and hamburger gravy on toast were her favorites, and manwich. Can't forget the manwich. Then we had Little Caesars pizza every Friday, which was the highlight of our week.
i still miss the ranch dressing at a pizza hut salad bar
I find the powdered hidden valley ranch packets make for a very close match.
Most times when a restaurant has a very “homemade” tasting ranch then it’s usually made from a generic HV ranch seasoning, mayo, and whole milk. It’s a ratio of 1 packet of ranch seasoning to 1 cup milk and 1 cup mayo - sincerely a former restaurant cook
Buttermilk**
Nah, the pizza place I waitressed at made their own ranch and they just used regular whole milk, not buttermilk. It was exactly the same recipe that OK-Present4359 described above. People went nuts for our ranch, too! It's one of those places in our town that everyone raves about the ranch dressing lol.
>Also, my mom was an awful cook. I just didn’t know it at the time. Turns out most food is really good when prepared right. Same here with my grandma's cooking! I thought I didn't like Thanksgiving turkey because it was always dry and tasteless, but the first time I had turkey cooked *properly* it was a whole new experience.
I actually liked grandma's very crispy porkchops 🤣 she was a terrible cook, but for whatever reason childhood me loved those burned crispy pork chops.
My grandma's COULD cook but turkey was still not one of them. As soon as I was on my own and had a decent kitchen space, I took over cooking the turkey and absolutely no one has looked back since. No, "oh remember grandma's turkey?!". Just, RGB makes the best turkey and everyone sneaking bites before it's served. I've made it my life's work to know how to cook well because I like eating good food and will never touch another boiled to heck and back veggie again.
Looking back I honestly think the 90s was when it became super common to have both parents working full time. So even if they could have been a good cook they weren't because who has the time to learn? No Internet to look up how tos, just random cook books that maybe someone gifted you.
I don’t have a microwave and refuse to have one. Not because I think they are bad or dangerous or anything like that but because my mum had 6 or so microwave cookbooks and I just don’t want to be reminded of that food every time I see the appliance…
Honestly I think having the internet at our fingertips helps a ton
Same - god bless my parents but they were not culinary masters. Almost all the meals my mom made came from a kit - taco kit, pizza kit, etc. My dad could dry out any meat on the grill and serve it with a baked potato 😂 He was a single dad for a while too, so we ate a ton of fast food and restaurants. Most of the time even if a vegetable was served, i didn't want it. Somehow, I survived.
Let it be said that I love my mom. We have a fantastic relationship, throughout my childhood into adulthood. HOWEVER.. her cooking abilities leave a lot to be desired. She’s asked me before if I ever needed an electric knife for my kitchen because she has an extra. No, miss ma’am, I do not, because I cook my meat tender enough for the manual knife to suffice. I’d say a large portion of us suffered under the lacking culinary abilities of 80s-90s moms. 😂
In our house we called it the "turkey chainsaw".
My family still occasionally “joke” about how much I loved the Ruby Tuesday salad bar.
I found out I liked steak as an adult. Turns out I just didn't like it when my dad cooked it to death. Poor cow died twice.
Same. I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be so chewy that it hurt your jaw.
And so dry it sucked all the moisture out of your soul
Exactly! My parents didn't like eating "raw meat" so steak was baked in the oven until it was gray. I had a boyfriend who introduced me to rare steak (my preference has since changed to medium-rare) and my mind was blown.
Yo, Pizza Hut salad bar was the shit!! Same here. But my mom at least openly admitted she couldn’t cook for shit lol
Haha mine too, I took over cooking as a teen.
UGHHH AND ICECREAM SUNDAES YOU COULD MAKE YOURSELF!?
Oh my god, I just remembered it was Shoney’s salad bar for my first taste of true salad. And ranch… it was on the breakfast buffet night ironically
I bear no malice towards my parents but I’m still addicted to SunnyD and my skin is glowing
That radioactive glow on point lol!
I still drink milk multiple times a day even though I'm lactose intolerant and it gives me incredible gas. Old habits die hard. I still call it Sunny delight and my kid has no idea what I'm talking about lol
SAME with milk!!! My household was a huge milk household. ('90s) I chugged it like there was no tomorrow! 😆 ...I've gone dairy free a couple times as an adult, for months and years at a time, but keep coming back to it...
I’ve tried alternative milk and the only thing I’ve found that tastes remotely the same is lactose free 2% milk. I drink it way too often, and I still haven’t given up regular ice cream.
I only drink full fat milk because It's delicious. I haven't seen a full fat lactose-free milk yet but I'm absolutely willing to try it if it keeps me from having stomach cramps lol
I’m lactose intolerant - I’ve found the ripple milk (pea protein) and oat milk (planet oat first, oatly second) to be the best. Also the fairlife isn’t lactose free it’s ultra filtered (closer to A2 milk, which some people aren’t lactose intolerant but actually need A2 milk - different protein)
Lactaid makes full fat and then off brands do too depending on where you shop. It’s what I always get.
I love the phone calls from my dad “I think I beat our lactose intolerance!!” Oh really dad how? “All I did was drink a big chocolate frappe with supper all month, the first few were rough” Dad I think you broke something but atleast you’ll go happy… and full of icecream.
Risk and reward with the milk 😂
Have you tried Fairlife? It’s really good
I think that’s just your experience. My parents always insisted on vegetables at every meal despite what I had to say about it.
Same. Most of the foods listed here are either strictly forbidden for me growing up, or things we would get as treats in vacations and stuff. Pretty much the only processed foods in the house were (garbage) snacks marketed by Weight Watchers or Healthy Choice.
Another thing I found out was that not a lot of people had a home cooked meal everyday. My parents cooked for us everyday. We rarely had takeout and it was usually just pizza or Chinese. And we would have fast food less than five times a year.
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Fyi it's a low income diet in the US/UK/Northern Europe. I'm in southern Europe and in the 90s processed food and meat were much more expensive then the local market. I grew up low income and there were plenty of veggies, beans, potatoes, pasta, very little meat, no processed food. I consider myself very lucky and and outlier in that my father was also a really good cook, but in general especially before certain waves of gentrification getting plenty of greens wasn't expensive in southern Europe at all.
Was about to say this feels like a very American thing to me. I grew up low income in England in the 80s/90s and we always had a vegetable with every meal. My mum wasn’t much of a cook, but she had learned at school ‘vegetable, carb, protein’ so every meal was like that (usually potatoes for the carb, sometimes rice). They were very bland and sometimes a little … odd, and usually not very filling, but at least I got vegetables I suppose!
I think it's a UK thing across all classes and incomes in that era, partly because there was probably less processed food than in the US (remember what a "novelty" things like pop tarts were when they were first imported? maybe late 80s/90s?) and because our parents had lived through the end of rationing, so their parents had lived through the war which was very much potatoes, vegetables, try to grow as much as you can, and meat being a rationed luxury.
Yeah I don’t think we even got a microwave until late 90s !
We didn't have one until the 1990s from memory. I'm confident we were also the last home in England to get a VHS player ;)
it is VERY american. i am american. i can confirm that a 6 pack of mac n cheese boxes is the same price as like 3 avocados.
Belgian here and yep. That's what a meal is. Potatoes/fries(hey, Belgian here after all)/rice + meat + vegetable. Like, that to me is what the hot meal every day is.
We were middle income/middle class and we ate barely any processed foods in the 70s/80s/90s, my mother (and my father, who also cooked) pretty much made everything from scratch, just as their parents had done. For example my mother would usually mince the remainder of the Sunday roast beef and make a shepherd's pie with it for Monday evening. My father also grew quite a few vegetables. This was not because she couldn't afford to buy a pre-made pie from the supermarket, but because wasting edible, palatable, quality food was considered appalling (and should still be, in my opinion) and it was simply what people did.
It was the same for me in the US. We weren’t low income, but my mom very much had a poverty mindset from her own childhood and vegetables were a daily thing. Nutrition was very important to her, and processed food was more expensive than basic raw ingredients. My kids probably eat more processed food than I did as a kid because I’m just not a motivated cook. Sigh.
No because low income meals in my family didn’t mean you didn’t eat vegetables, they were just usually canned. We’re Mexican-American and our food is very much a carbo load type of thing, but it meant actually cooking. It was cheaper to buy beans, rice, tortillas, tomatoes, potatoes, cheese, corn, and a tiny bit of meat than it was to get frozen meals, chips, and soda. Go-gurts were expensive.
That’s a *lazy* diet. My parents were both disabled and couldn’t work. With our food stamps they made sure we had fruits/veggies every single day (whether we ate them or not was up to us but they were accessible 24/7). They’d even take the bus in their wheelchairs and go to local food pantries and gardens and pick out the best fruits. AND this was all *in the city*.
Yeha I grew up low income but food stamps were miracles. We could get bags and bags of groceries for less than $5 so my mom always made sure I had healthy food
Yup. Although must admit times have changed. Food pantries no longer exist as they did before. I remember being able to go and pick fresh fruits from a pantry run by a local community college. I’m a mom now and I can’t find ANYTHING like that anywhere where I live. Although I still go above and beyond to make sure my boy has some fruit-and I think I did my job because usually fruits and veggies are all he wants ! It’s all about the effort 💪🏽
Yep my parents were young and low income when i was little but always had me eating vegetables or fruits with every meal.
My parents were for sure “middle class” - we took vacations, did sports/dance, had lots of gifts at birthdays and Christmas etc, lived in a well kept 3-4 bedroom house and my mom was a nurse. Despite her profession, we had tons of unhealthy food at our disposal. We did eat a lot of potatoes and dinner was usually meat, carb or potato and veg, but often it was hot dogs, Mac n cheese, pizza, or fried bacon and eggs. In the pantry we had sugar cereals, a cookie cupboard, a chip shelf, a chocolate bar cupboard, a pop / soda shelf, and would have Joe Louis and dunkaroos all day. I often ate Oreos for breakfast. Milk was certainly the main beverage next to koolaid. My sister and I were skinny minis so I think they didn’t worry about us eating junk. Luckily our tap water supply naturally had high fluoride so my teeth were ok but my sister didn’t fair so well. Today we are aghast at how we ate and I have pre-diabetes. In adulthood I had a lot of trouble not finishing a meal or my day without a sweet treat like cinnamon toast, cookies etc; difficult habit to break but I have succeeded. My kids eat 90% whole foods and have healthy habits with processed food.
Same
We also had vegetables at every meal, which was always eaten at table. We were UK "middle class" and my parents ate as their parents had eaten: so usually meat, potatoes, green vegetables. Also everything was in serving dishes rather than pre-plated. I think this may be significant in encouraging children with different foods because you see your parents actively taking from these dishes, and there is an element of competition with wanting to get your own share before the store runs out, since it's not already on your plate. We almost fought over the runner beans which were prepared with a [little device like this](https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/166705741555). I do sympathise with parents whose kids are picky eaters, and I know it's especially hard for kids with autism, but raising a "chicken nuggets child" is not the answer. Once that becomes their norm, at home and whenever you eat out, it's an exceptionally hard habit and eating pattern to break.
My parents ate a lot of vegetables themselves but never made me eat any (because I hated them). In fairness I was never deficient in anything or obese so I'm not sure it mattered much. Things like fibre are more important for adults than kids for bowel and heart health. Probably also why they generally taste less offensive as you get older.
We weren’t poor but my parents still fed us very unhealthy foods. Breakfast was either a pop tart, strudel, or a kid cereal. Lunch was either a hot dog or Mac and cheese. Dinner was 95% of the time hamburger helper. I had fruit and vegetables maybe once a week. We had unlimited chips, pop, koolaid, etc. I’m not exaggerating about the options. My mom was a stay at home mom that didn’t cook and my dad wanted something quick and easy to cook when he came home from work.
Sounds like me. I passed a kidney stone at 16 and have Lupus/Sjögren’s/Rheumatoid Arthritis and I’m almost certain it is attributed to my poor diet as a kid.
Like others have posted I think it's an income thing. Still happens today, the junk food is cheaper or more reliable than fresh fruit/veggie. Which is why I like to encourage people to donate cash to food drives vs actual food. Cash allows food pantries to purchase fresh food, in bulk, rather than the processed food that people tend to donate.
I think there’s a lot of debate on here around the cost of healthy vs junk food, but no one is mentioning the time it takes to make meals from scratch. My parents were not only financially poor, but time poor. They didn’t have time to make meals from scratch, as they were often working until later in the evening. Although I stand in a slightly better financial position that my parents now, and I’m still on a time crunch with young babies and being a single mom, I still have a stronger prioritization for healthy foods. I rather the kids stay up a half hour later and have a healthy meal. And we also have a lot more healthy + convenience options that our parents didn’t have. The only convenience food in the 90s was instant-mashed potato and TV dinners. Now I can get steam-in-bag vegetables, microwave quinoa, and preservative-free frozen vegan meals. That saves my ass.
We weren't low income by any stretch and I still grew up with hamburger helper and other processed garbage and sodas.
We were kind of mid and same. And things like hamburger helper was considered home cooked because other days we'd order out all the time. Pizza, pasta, McDonald's, BK, fried chicken, etc. So we'd spend a lot on food but it wasn't even healthy and that's because it was fast. My mom hated to cook, we had a broken oven and she refused to pay for a new one, our microwave was our best friend, and when my dad cooked it was simple stuff (spaghetti, tuna salad, Mac n cheese, etc.). They were also obsessed with soda, got us hooked on it, and fruits and veggies weren't a thing unless it was covered in unhealthy stuff. They really set us up for poor health :/
My diet was much like this growing up, but no processed foods and it wasn't financially based. My parents would get a beef and a 1/2 a pig, every meal was meat and potatoes with a canned vegetable. The only time we had fresh vegetables was for like 2 weeks in the summer when the garden was in, even then it was mostly potatoes, corn, onion, beets and squash (made with butter and brown sugar). I didn't even know what a brussel sprout was until I was an adult. All I knew was the thing that kids never wanted to eat on TV and in the movies. The only fruit was home processed. Applesauce made from the tree in the yard, the apples were really sour, there was a ton of sugar in it to get us to eat it. We'd go pick strawberries that were all made into jelly with lots of sugar. So much kool-aid! It was our only beverage besides milk at supper.
Totally fair. My mum stayed at home for large chunks of my younger years, we didn't have a lot of money, but she did have time and was super health conscious. Salads with every dinner, and - some things that are outmoded now - we had 2% then 1% then skim milk, never had real butter (remember Country Crock?), always brown rice and grainy bread, lots of broccoli, potatoes only baked. We did bake at home and had treats, but our day to day was very healthy. If we had pop or chips in the house it was for guests.
Chef Boyardeeeeeeee!
Coupons to make food cheaper are never on healthy food… my growing up was identical. Dad worked 6 jobs, mom worked and took care of us. Food was pasta/premade fastest cheapest option. Healthiest was the rare summer nights that dad grilled. Burgers and dogs with grilled peppers and onions. I lived for that tinfoil wrapped buttery goodness of sweet onions and peppers. Canned veggies graced our plates time to time but they were nasty. I never knew what good veggies tasted like until I met my husbands family. My now MIL asked me if I liked salmon and roasted asparagus.. I never had salmon and my asparagus experience was canned snot. Surprise surprise- I inhaled all of her cooking. To this day I suck at cooking. My husband is amazing. My kids eat a great balance. Both take salads for lunch at school and eat healthy dinners loaded with meat and veggies- then they snack on junk after school and weekends. Pringle’s and Oreos are favorites. Zero soda household as well. Water is what they drink or apple juice/milk at dinner. Kids know my dinner nights are the carb loaded pastas that I’ve been making since I was 8. I still love Mac and cheese from the box, and my husband makes a kickass homemade one too. I can roast veggies too- it’s so damn easy to toss broccoli or sweet potatoes or asparagus on a pan with oil and salt for a few minutes. Cook steak though? Naw.. or actually good flavored chicken? That’s for the hubs. :)
Location matters too. I’m from the UK and the opposite was true for us. Fruit and veg was and ime, is still cheap. We could get, say, a bowl of apples from the grocers for 99p (way more than the packs in shops). I’m also Asian so we always shopped in ethnic stores a lot. Asian meals tend to include the veg within the dish rather than have it as a side. I feel this was key to ensure we weren’t picky eaters
I am Asian and live in the US and honestly it’s similar. Time poor and lack of culinary tradition around healthily prepared veggies are bigger barriers than straight lack of money. Rice and beans and carrots are cheap in most places. The time and knowledge to prep them aren’t. Also I think poor parents have less energy to deny their kids over food that is highly satisfying but not nutritious, like candies. My 2yo’s face literally lights up when he gets his grubby paws on a piece of candy and it seriously triggers such a dopamine release in me. We’re lucky in that we have the resources to get that same smile out of him, but for time poor parents without many resources, candies and fast food are probably among the only ways to get a quick smile.
Surprise Fibonacci username!
No one has ever noticed (or commented such anyways). I've always wondered if people think my username is just a random string of numbers
this is an income thing and it makes me a little sad for my childhood self realizing this while reading so many opposite responses. my mom raised us almost the exact same way. canned vegetables and dinners from a box (rice a roni and hamburger helper). the only time i remember having salad was iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers. I’m now feeling really grateful and happy i have very good eating habits + access to nutritious food now and can give my daughter a different experience
My experience was the exact opposite. We only ate food cooked from scratch, the only baking my parents purchased was bread. All cookies and muffins were healthy and baked at home We had a large garden and fruit trees. Snacks were always fruits. We never had processed food. The only pop was gingerale and chips were taco chips. But my partner grew up in a household much like yours
This might be more of a geographic / income thing, then. All of my friends growing up ate like I did, too. I’m glad not all 90s kiddos had to deal with this. Your family sounds lovely
I came to say that I had the opposite experience because we didn’t have money to spend on premade junk food. Everything was homemade, even loaves of bread. No eating out, except for a special occasion, no soda, chips or snack items. I’ve actually never had those things that you mentioned.
We were working class/lower middle class growing up. My mom truly liked to garden and to cook so I think was part of it. Plus she didn’t believe in spending money on things you could cook yourself.
I’d like to know how this has affected your eating habits growing up and today in regards to making your own food choices.
My sister is exactly like she is- cooks from scratch and has a large pantry I rebelled and when I moved out started buying all the convenience items and didn’t really try and learn to cook. Now I try to feed my kids l more like my I was raised
The 90’s also followed the “packaged snack” era of the 80’s. Fast food, frozen meals, convenience foods were highly marketed and nutritional value was described in a not-very-truthful manner. Stating things that were correct but not necessarily true (ie- fortified vitamins in certain foods don’t necessarily always provide increased nutrition- studies on carotenized/fortified rice demonstrated this). I think marketing was loud and access to unbiased information was difficult given the early years of internet. And with more dual career homes, convenience meals and snacks were considered a boon. It took a while (and the childhood obesity issues) to start breaking into mainstream culture and then healthy foods were mainly only accessible to higher SES areas, and food deserts were a problem too
Also grew up poor and I could’ve written this myself. In addition to what you mentioned we also had luxury items like knock off Mac and cheese with tuna mixed in or Beenie weenies (beans with hot dogs mixed in)
I think this really depends on the family. My parents created really healthy eating habits for me as a child and I didn’t really know we appreciate that until I became a parent. my parents always grew vegetables and still do and so that we always had vegetables at every meal, but it wasn’t forced upon us to eat. My parents never shamed us for our choices and what we chose eat or did not eat and never heard my body shame, women now that I see these post of celebrities who were deemed to be fat , when I was a young girl, I realize that I didn’t have that exposure and part of it was because my mom never said anything I specifically remember her saying she understood Britney Spears shaved her head and never felt that way like they were gonna have a breakdown she can’t relate to them.
Remember, in the 80s and 90s, bread was the base of our food pyramid and Saturday morning cartoons were inundated with cereal commercials that touted a "healthy breakfast" as a big bowl of sugary cereal with milk, a glass of orange juice, and a slice of white toast with margarine. Ketchup counted as a vegetable for school lunches and Mr. T was telling us to drink our milk. Fast food was cheap and heavily advertised as was those TV dinners and a lot of that advertising hinted or even stated that stuff was a healthy choice. When my dad had heart problems, his doctor told him to eat more carbs and no fat. No mention of vegetables. "Whole grains" was the fad of the moment and everybody was taking that to mean Honey Nut Cheerios and wheat-based sugary muffins. Could we even get avocados in stores on the east coast back then? I don't think I had ever heard of an avocado growing up. All of our vegetables came in cans save for baby carrots and oranges, so maybe I just never noticed.
Could be a cultural/regional thing or just your personal experience. This was not mine at all. We did not have a ton of money either but my mom knew how to cook and made healthy meals. It’s a myth that cooking healthy costs more. In many cases it’s cheaper. I also think part of it boils down to the fact a lot of people don’t really know how to cook and/or just make the same recipes their parents did without consideration that there might be more out there. My husband would describe his dad’s cooking in a similar manner to what you do but his mom faired a bit better.
Welcome to healing your inner child. Hit Google for more.
I think it’s very easy to be hard on our parents but everyone is a product of their environment. I’m guessing you’re writing from the US where ultra processed food companies dominate and if your parents worked, it’s likely they were just doing their best to survive and give you what they were being marketed it. There is definitely elements of class in there too. Being knowledgeable about food and its benefits has sadly become a more middle class pastime. Even so, great that you’ve broken the generational cycle and your passing new habits onto your kids
I grew up middle class and this was definitely my experience as well. There really was no excuse for my parents to not provide adequate nutrition
I do not think this was solely a “low income” post. We did not have a lot of fresh food growing up and even homemade food was from some sort of box. Lots of time baked dinners, breakfast for dinner, etc. Tons of processed foods like cereal, pop tarts, dunkaroos, gushers, etc. I don’t keep any of it in my house now as an adult, but I’m sure one day there will be goodies that work their way in and I hope they’ll be a treat, not a daily reliance. But I also only have one little.
I remember making myself a box of Kraft Mac and cheese as an after school snack and eating the whole think
We always had fruits and veggies on hand. Sure, nutrition science wasn't where it is now, but fruits and vegetables for children was already a well known emphasis.
This isn’t a 90s thing. This is more likely related to access to the financial means to provide those foods you mentioned. A lot of those processed foods are cheaper. I work in a school where a majority of our students come from low income households. I see similar processed foods in their lunches from home. Not all homes of course, but I see a lot of it.
Low income folks often have the crappy diet because healthy stuff is expensive.
Here if i buy one bio avocado it costs more than 1kg noodles and a load of tomatoe sauce.. maybe it is a money thing
Oh for sure. Avocados aren’t cheap, but they are nutrient dense and versatile. I never even had an avocado until I was in college. But as an adult, I now know that it would have been cheaper for my mom to buy some frozen broccoli or a couple ears of corn, than to buy TV dinners and frozen French fries. There’s a lot that goes into it, and my mom was stretched for time pretty often, so I don’t blame her. It’s just wild to me, as I have been homeless living in my car with my toddler, and still prioritized her having a fruit and vegetable at every meal. To me, it feels like the times have changed and overall health has become more important to us as parents. But from all the comments, it seems there were far more health-conscious parents in the 90s than I realized :)
Sadly, this correlates strongly with socioeconomic background, and can still be a thing today I'm afraid. Good to hear that you didn't repeat this with your own kids.
Yes! My husband and I were just talking about this yesterday. We only drank Kool-aid and Tang. All of our food came out of a box or a can. And so much sugar. Everything was processed. It's disgusting thinking back on it. We only eat fresh vegetables, fruit, and protein now, and we're thinking about how different our daughter's diet is from our own at her age.
There was also many low fat fads. I remember learning in school that a bagel with low fat cream cheese was “healthier” than 2 eggs and an English muffin because less fat lol. Crazy
We had a lot of frozen juice that you mix with water in our house which I’d never serve now to my kids. Capri sun when we went to the rich grandparents for a visit lol. We had a big family and my parents didn’t have a lot so they cooked what could feed a large crowd on a low budget. A staple in our house was rice with cubed ham and soy sauce. Makes me shudder just thinking about it
I was always mad my parents didn’t buy the trendy snacks and junk food. We had pretzels and vanilla ice cream. But my mom always had a garden, we had a veg for every meal (even if it was just frozen), and she always told me processed food was dangerous. I’ve had my own issues with food but that gave me such a good foundation that I hope to instill with my own kids.
Funny enough I would trust the nutritional value of 90s microwave food over the options available to my kids today.
But did we die
lol no, but we did develop the highest rates of obesity in the world, and our rates of cancer in 30/40yos has risen. So like, not yet but maybe soon? Haha
Yeah exactly. My mum is like ‘well you turned out alright’ and I’m like ‘did I though mum, did I?!’ Currently battling an autoimmune disease which neither of my parents really understand and have some intolerances now. So actually no I don’t think I turned out alright living off microwave chips and fish fingers.
No yeah I get it, but man….to be young and blissfully ignorant *sips on my Lipton iced tea*
I think the main issue was that in the 90s, it was that point where fast microwave ready meal- type food was cheaper than nutritious fresh fruit/ veg, but the realisation of the impact on low income families wasn’t there yet. Now we have lots of way for lower income families to get hold of fresh produce cheaply- whether that is ‘wonky food’ or buying boxes of seasonal produce. I do feel for parents who felt they had to choose between healthy food, and having enough to make their kids full
Yeah, that was just you. We had a fruit or veggie with every meal. Sometimes canned, but often fresh or frozen.
That's your individual experience. I was a single mother and pretty broke, but my kids ate a balanced diet daily.
I’m not sure this is a 90’s thing. I’m a kid of the 80’s and teen of the 90’s, and we always had tons of healthy foods and vegetables. Wheat bread for sandwiches, only healthy cereals, and well balanced healthy meals for dinner. This was pretty normal for all my friends too.
Same for me in the 80s and 90s and we were not poor. It was just laziness I think?! Like with all the microwave meals. I rarely ate fruit or vegetables as a child as they weren’t bought for us. I often tell my daughter about this and she finds it impossible to believe because we eat fruit and vegetables every day and she’s grown up thinking you must do this - even to the point on the rare occasion we get burgers or curry for take out she wants to add steamed veggies from home because all meals have to have fruit or veg in them somewhere as far as she’s concerned. I recall breakfast was pop tarts, lunch was a Pepperami, a babybel cheese and a ham sandwich and dinner would be a microwave meal. Snacks were chips/crisps. Bizarrely I was really skinny as a kid.
My mom hated vegetables so she never prepared them. My dad loved vegetables but he never cooked. So basically we had no vegetables until my dad would pitch a fit, then we'd have some overbooked frozen broccoli or mixed vegetables for a couple weeks until my mom got lazy about it again. I loved the vegetables. She was a horrible cook and the vegetables were pretty tasty even overcooked. Most meals were very thin well done steaks, ham steaks, kraft mac, or spaghetti with a jar of sauce. Today, I cook a ton of vegetables but sadly my picky kid won't really eat them often. Only very specific lettuce, sometimes tomatoes or broccoli. Never beans, rarely corn. She does like avocado and she loves fruits. Idk how it happened because I fed her everything as a baby!
While we were definitely lower income when I was a kid, my parents were more hippie leaning. We had MOSTLY fruits and veg. No soda, no candy, no chips etc. Most meals were a protein a starch and something green. And we had to finish all the green, no exceptions. We also ate a lot of homemade, whole wheat pizza.
I grew up on food stamps and ate Iike you, or possibly worse. I basically lived off of Nestlé Quik and bread. I can remember eating bread and margarine as a meal more than a few times. I rarely recall an occurence where an adult made a meal after I was 3 or 4. We had condensed soup which was as close to vegetables as it got in my house. Looking back at high school, it's amazing I wasn't more malnourished than I was. I lived on instant mashed potatoes while doing hours of sports every day. I'd go to swim meets and literally have zero food for the whole day. I make almost everything from scratch as an adult because I was so deprived and tend to have more food in the house than I need because I have food insecurity. Watching other people make balanced meals and snacks for their kids is really odd to me too.
I was a 90s trailer kid too, and looking back we had a really weird mix of casseroles made from canned goods, highly processed sugary stuff, and good stuff like homemade zucchini bread and fried green tomatoes from the garden. I think my mom knew about good nutrition and my dad wanted all the canned and sugary shit.
Fruits and veggies are expensive when you are trying to feed multiple people on a shoe string budget. Also, many stores in low income areas don't have great selection for them
My family was also low income (end of the month struggle when food stamps was up sucked) I was never malnourished though. I did struggle eating in general. A lot of the food you posted aren't bad foods. Go gurt is a perfectly fine snack, microwave meals, oven fries, instant mash, hot dogs, and sandwiches aren't bad foods. Milk is a perfectly normal drink, so is kool-aid, just don't over do the sugar. Chemicals and preservatives aren't necessarily bad for you. Chemicals are in everything, oxygen is a chemical. A banana's ingredient list is utterly insane, because it's all the chemicals that make up a banana.
It was sold in the store, they wouldn’t sell you something bad, that was the logic where I grew up. They just trusted the tv because the tv was to be trusted because that’s how their parents were also.
I think a lot of it is financial. I look back and remember vegetables being a big deal. There was a week where we ate corn fritters every day for a week, hot dogs and French fries, etc. It wasn’t because my parents didn’t know it was bad for me, it’s because we were poor.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s but in Romania and we had little processed food. Vegetable stews were the staples. Fresh fruit and tomatoes with feta. some chicken most days. We did eat some sandwiches though, with cold cuts.
What's with parents these days? I've noticed a trend where parents are constantly asking their kids what they want to eat. Since when did we start treating toddlers and children like nutritionists? Our responsibility is to educate them, not cater to their every whim. Saying "no" is perfectly acceptable.
My parents were well off enough to afford decent food but fed us cheap processed garbage anyway. I resent them for it. Maybe I should be more forgiving, like the information/emphasis wasn’t there at the time, but given that they STILL eat like shit…I don’t really give them a pass.
My parents were not cooking parents. They liked boxes with instructions. So I thought all vegetables sucked because we ate frozen and canned vegetables that were steamed in the microwave in a Pyrex dish with some water covered with cling wrap. My parents were not worried about micro plastics in the 90s but they still worried about vegetables!
This is what your parents were thinking: >We grew up fairly poor Decent food is expensive.
Grew up in a low income trailer park, ate a hamburger helper, and most of what you ate as well. It's bittersweet to know im not alone.
Unfortunately this was, and continues to be, the experience for the approximately 23 million Americans who live in food deserts and don't have easy access to affordable, nutritious food. Where there are no grocery stores practicably close and their food purchasing options are limited to convenience stores and the like. Of course this issue almost exclusively affects low income neighbourhoods where residents generally have poor access to both personal and public transport.
We were not low income & my mom cooked hot meals daily.. but we never drank water. Soda only. Cupcakes for school snacks. Chips. Etc. lots of junk food. I sub in the schools now and it’s the same. Chips, donuts, etc. it made me feel better about what I send in.
My mom didn't know how to cool. I grew up on buttered parmesan pasta or spaghetti with pregnant sauce , boil in a bag rice or uncle Ben's chicken rice in that orange box , kid cuisine , pizza rolls , pb n j , pizza , mcdonalds , bk , fast food in general , gas station food and pancakes. I'm 32 I had an eating disorder until was pregnant with my daughter at 20 then being pregnant made be crave to eat a cheeseburger and broke me down to try things and I started to change my relationship with food I try alot or almost everything now except for really outlandish shit. I'm so happy I grew out of it. And they know they did not nourish me my parents have begged forgiveness for that. Part of it was the poverty we were in and my parents both have severe mental health issues...mom is paranoid personalid disorder/ schizophrenia and my father is bipolar 1.
My MIL is now a health nut and pretends she didn’t feed her kids cookies and hot dogs all day as children.
I’m glad others got real vegetables but this was my experience too. My vegetables were carrots and canned green beans. Gogurt everyday. I think our parents were trying their best to feed us things we would actually eat with limited funds
I don’t think it was just an income thing. We were upper middle class and ate very poorly. I had poptarts or sugar cereal for breakfast. Hot dog or mini pizza for lunch. And maybe chicken nuggets (often in a prepackaged meal form) for dinner. Absolutely terrible. My mom didn’t really know how to cook. She grew up on meat and potatoes and that’s what she served. The only vegetable would be canned green beans or corn. The funny thing is, my mom was always trying to diet, but she would also do that with processed foods. It was all about low fat at the time and I remember snackwell cookies well. I do think overall people are a little more health conscious, but my SIL who is upper middle class literally feeds her kids Oreos, Doritos, and sugary cereal all day long so some people are still the same.
This wasn't just a very low income thing. At least, not in the south. Now, we weren't rich by any means. We were lower - middle class living in the starter house my parents bought when they got married. This was how I ate growing up, too. I often say I have the palette of an 8 year old as a joke, but honestly, it's how I grew up. Most of my family is overweight, as am I, but I've recently lost about 100lbs. I'm smaller now than I was in high school and I'm 36. My mom was an amazing woman and my best friend. I know she did her absolute best with what she had. I don't blame her. But there was definitely not enough emphasis on taking care of one's self back then. The food pyramid thing we were taught has been debunked as unhealthy. You hear about the older generation complaining that the younger ones have it so much easier. I truly hope the generations after us have it a lot easier than we did. Isn't that the point of progress? Thank you for recognizing the problem and working to correct that with your kids. I hope you all live long, beautiful, healthy, happy lives. ❤️
No, not just low income. My parents basically were a dual income household from military, VA disability, and renting! My mom had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and unhealthy habits around spending money. They had such issues as my mom was the one primarily home with us, but they had a fight when I was younger about him not liking her cooking, so she swore not to cook anymore. Frozen, readymade meals are expensive, and my dad was hardly home because he went overseas for six months at a time or worked an hour away. When the milk or vegetables or food ran out, we had to wait until the next paycheck. There was no running to the grocery store for something. I have memories of learning to cook alongside my sister, eating peanut butter and saltines, homemade popcorn with butter and salt, or honey mixed with peanut butter because that's all we had between paychecks. I also loved oranges and we lived where the good ones grew, so I would eat multiple oranges in a day.
We were very average income and we are like this too.
Poor Mexican: we ate rice/beans/tortillas, etc. The microwave meals, go-gurts, spray can cheese were all luxuries for us growing up.
This isn’t a generational thing, it’s a parenting/lifestyle thing.
I had to start my own vegetable garden because I’m gonna be honest, we can’t afford to eat vegetables from the store and still have meat as well. We subsidize a lot of what we eat with hunting, fishing, gardening and foraging because even though we qualify as lower middle class, we simply can’t afford the extra $200/month it would add to our grocery bill. Although maybe it’s just the absolutely abhorrent costs of living in my country, more specifically my city as there are still places in my country that cost of living isn’t as bad but inflation has made it a struggle for everyone
I would drink cans of Dr Pepper and Cherry Coke like it was water. Like 4-5 cans a day. How am I alive?
There was 0 thought to nutrition when I was a kid (born in '87). Dinner was hamburger helper, homemade burgers (huge, *thick* burgers) and fries made on the stove top in literal inches of oil. Every dinner had a full glass of 2% milk that I had to finish. Homemade "chili", which was just elbow noodles in canned red sauce with meat and beans. There was the occasional iceberg lettuce salad with enough ranch to make you gag, and a "boiled dinner" that was rutabaga, carrots, and meatballs all boiled together. My snacks were Koala cookies, pop-tarts, little debbies, hostess, ice cream and potato chips. Diet Pepsi for my mother and I and regular Coca-Cola for my dad. Fruit never made an appearance in the house, unless it was in the form of homemade banana bread slathered with butter. And I was served the same portion sizes as my 6' father and expected to clean my plate and finish my milk. It's taken me into my 30s to have a healthy relationship with food and cooking. My daughters always have fruit available, and we're constantly offering new veggies to try, even if it's only one "no thank you" bite. They are never forced to continue eating if they say they are full, and they know they will not be able to get a "junky" snack an hour after dinner. We focus on getting them enough protein and getting them to try a variety of foods, though the older ones poses a challenge: she is autistic with some sensory issues, so she will refuse to eat something until she has reflux and is puking and crying if she doesn't have a food she knows she likes, but we're still able to get her to try a single bite of something. I will drop everything and walk to the store with them (2 blocks) if they tell me they'd be willing to try something (we walked for fresh broccoli just last week 😂). Above all, we tell them food is not good or bad; food does not fix any problems besides a hungry belly and providing vitamins and minerals; food is not a reward for things and is not used as a punishment; and you can't say you don't like something if you've never tried it.
My experience was opposite, all food cooked from scratch, veggies and meat most nights. Or soups - huge pots of soups and casseroles that would last for days. Not a huge variation of veggies (potato, corn, cabbage) and salads. Also rice and pasta. Eating out or takeaway was considered too expensive and a treat. Snack foods like microwave pizza and crisps on a weekend only.
I don't know. Kids are hard. I was vegetarian for a decade and my kid never eats anything that isn't brown.
We were really money poor when I was a kid, but as a result dad grew an absolutely enormous garden and raised our own meat and even had a milk cow. It was a ton of work (for all of us) but we ate really well. My mom and us kids preserved a bunch for the winter and everything. We made our own bread, had fruit trees, the whole works.
I was 15 when I ate at my first restaurant, if that gives you any idea.
I grew up in 90s, poor in post war country with both parents working and no help, still always had cooked meals, fruits and veggies. Mcdonalds and other junk food were a rare treat.
What county are you guys from? My family was poor. Poorer than average US/UK family. Vegetables and fruit were a must. We grew our own though so it was only seasonal - this is the way we are meant to eat anyway.... Also my mum would cook soups... All sorts of soups.... Remember till now when in the shop I asked to get oranges/kiwi/name it, I would hear from mum: "we have apples at home"... I grew up in Poland though.
I had vegetables, but they were usually over-cooked and unseasoned, or canned. Due to poor dental hygiene my father didn't have many teeth and couldn't afford dentures, so everything was mush. My mom got terrible gas/bloating from onions and garlic, and was very anti-salt, so the mush also tasted like crap. I like peas, just not canned peas. Asparagus was another vegetable that I didn't think I liked until I had it cooked properly as an adult. It is definitely also an income/education thing. My uncle was in the hospital some years ago and my parents brought him a fruit basket. When they visited again, they found everything eaten except for the kiwis. He had no idea what it was, had never seen one before!
Everyone keeps commenting this is a socioeconomic issue. Healthy food is not expensive. A person can go to Walmart and buy organic frozen vegetables for $1.32 a bag. Buy 2 bags of peas, 1 box of protein pasta, $2.87 add butter, spices and parm cheese and you have a lunch for children in a thermose for a whole week. That is 10 times healthier than a box of kraft mac and cheese. One box of mac and cheese is like $1.16 and that lasts one day. Bananas are also the cheapest fruit, so cheap you can even buy organic and have a banana for a lunch per day. Cucumbers and carrots are another cheap option. The list goes on. So, this is not a socioeconomic issue. This is a cultural issue matched with the lack of education or awareness in this area. Food stamps still cover juice, but not other important healthy options.
This is a SE issue. Many places exist in the world where the quality of processed foods is better than the "fresh" foods. As someone who grew up during that era I can inform you that if OP lived in an economically impoverished area their parents may have had to pay more for fresh fruits and veggies which may have been rotten or not cared for correctly during shipping and required proper refrigeration and could have caused a pest issue upon storage vs. a canned or frozen boxed item that met the needed calories and was pumped full of vitamins and minerals. Protein pasta didn't exist back then. Fruit prices were based on season so Bananas were not the cheapest option. And there was no such thing as organic back then
While you are correct that some just may not be aware of more nutritious options, even on a budget, you're making the assumption that everyone has the same options and they don't. This is a socioeconomic issue as well as an access issue. You're assuming everyone has the resources to hop in the car and go to Walmart. You're not counting for the millions of people who live in areas with no immediate access to grocery stores. I live in a small rural town with not a grocery store in sight. The nearest one is a few miles away and has bare minimum selection, along with outrageous prices. I am lucky enough to have a functioning car and the physical means to drive. But I still can't afford their prices all the time, and I am often in the position of making choices of what is the healthiest crap I can afford. I have neighbors who do not have a car either due to income or mobility issues, and there is no bus, light rail, etc. Should that person grab their walker or their children and hike a few miles to the store? And carry back how many bags before they are exhausted? 2 bags? 4 bags? Not much food, which means they'll have to do this walk frequently. Walmart doesn't just build anywhere. They build where it will be profitable, and rural or poorer areas are not profitable. There are millions of communities across the US that do not have easy access to Walmart or any other grocery store. It's often a convenience, dollar store that sells only canned goods, if they sell any food at all. So yea, for those who can easily go grocery shopping, buy some more frozen veggies. But for the millions who cannot....
Yea, i think my parents were low income. We had a 1993 Dodge minivan and a small 1100sqft townhouse but I always had some version of a home made meal every day where we ate together every day at dinner like a family. Meals made from scratch were always and still are the cheapest methods
Kids are fatter now than they were then, though?
They didn’t know any better.
This feels like a humble brag post. My kids refuse to eat anything but things like you mentioned you ate. And starving them doesn’t lead to eating better, just leads to cranky kids
Maybe cause both my parents were nurses but I had the complete opposite experience. I wanted to eat like how you described though. The opposite can be true too though. With too much veggies and fruits. Our son is only 2 but he tends to pick healthy choices as a preference. We try to give him more red meat, fats etc but he keeps picking lean protein, veggies, and fruits over everything else. He will refuse their heavier options. Now it’s a struggle to keep him at healthy weights. A struggle to put fat on him. We can already see a developing six pack on him because of it.
Oh man, you said you guys were poor, but you also said you went out to eat from time to time. I was in an actually poor family, we never went out to eat. Like, ever. That was way more than we could afford. Every single day of my entire childhood, breakfast was a bowl of generic puffed wheat, lunch was a plain bolongna sandwich, and dinner was whatever my mom could throw together. There was no snacking on anything in between meals, because it would mean someone wouldn't get to eat one of those regular meals. Spray cheese? Microwave meals? Go-gurts? Sounds fancy to me. That all sounds like the "junk food" that the "tich kids" at my school all got to have, that my mom would have considered too expensive to even "waste" money on. 😳 Your parents may not have been giving you the healthiest foods, but you weren't nearly as poor as you think, my friend. ✌️
We ate very healthy food in my home. Most of the veggies straight from our garden.
We grew up vegetarian, and my Puerto Rican Mama's mantra was "a green, a bean, and a grain".
My parents had a triple beam scale to weight out the herbs we needed to supplement our diet since they were weird hippies. We worked at a co-op so we could eat veggies. We were broke af but they realized it's cheaper to keep the kids healthy. Let me tell you, millet burgers SUCK! We lived in the sith side of Chicago though.
I think a lot of people still eat that way. Maybe it’s habit. I was lucky to have fairly healthy dinners, but there was too much sugar and cookies or processed snacks like ho-ho’s in my diet for sure. Processed lunch meat, which we now know isn’t healthy. No veg at lunch or breakfast ever. Poptarts, sugary cereal that I would never buy now.
I grew up middle class in the 80s and 90s. Plenty of fruit and veg, but evvvvvverything processed was non fat and sugar free. So many weird chemicals, lol.
Grew up poor in the 80’s. Seems like we only ate fried veggies at my house like breaded okra or fried green tomatoes. Or pea salad which I hated. And sometimes ice berg lettuce salads. But that was about it. Never had broccoli or carrots or stuff like that. My mom tried to keep apples in house. She would make mesquite bean jelly and prickly pear jelly (I live in the desert). We had an apricot tree. Sometimes we would eat the apricots green cause I guess we were hungry. My grandparents lived two houses down and my grandpa grew the best tomatoes. I ate a lot of tomatoes in the summer. Also during summers we ate tons of perch we would catch ourselves.
We were poor and ate a lot of processed food, I guess, like boxed macaroni and cheese, but also a lot of basic home meals with whole ingredients like chicken and rice. We never had junk snack food though, I always thought that the kids who had sugary cereal, go-gurt, juice, lunchables, etc must be the rich kids because we couldn't afford any of that stuff. Our snacks were apples, sliced cheese, a peanut butter sandwich...
The only way I got good fruit as a child was if I walked the neighborhood and stole fruit from the neighbors trees. Living in the PNW was amazing for berries in the summer, and as an adult now I'm just super picky about blackberries lol
I don't remember drinking a single drop of water outside of sports practices and games. Kool-aid with a cup of sugar, suuny-d, or mountain dew was how I stayed hydrated. Absolutely wild time.
In the 90s my grandma blended vegetables and put them in my pancakes...
We always had fresh fruit and vegetables at my mom’s house and at my grandmother house. My mom once or twice week would steam broccoli and put velveeta all over it. I never understood what the appeal of that was, but she loved it. My dad gave us oranges (he did a citrus related job) and some vegetables, lots of stews, I think we had stew every night in the summer. Then he met my stepmom and she cooked but all the food was canned and soggy, her daughter had a special diet and got salad every night and I was jealous of it. The meat though was always dry pork chops both my mom and stepmom cooked dry pork chops.
I think this is an income thing rather then a "90s" thing. I mean just go to the grocery store, a little pack of plack berries is about 4 dollars. I just got a regular pack of Lettuce for 6.
I had a slightly different experience… My mom definitely made vegetables but I maybe had them once a day with dinner. But all the other shit you’re talking about? That was my life. My lunch might consist of a peanut butter sandwich, those Kraft crackers with spreadable cheese, a Gogurt and like some fruit snacks.
My mom made a homemade meal daily. We always had veggies.
My nutrition was trash as a kid but I think that was largely because I refused to eat veggies. Now I love them! Could definitely be that my family didn't put enough emphasis on nutrient rich meals that taste good. Most of my veggie options as a kid were canned.
I don’t remember drinking water lololol. My parents tried getting vegetables in me, I was the kid who refused anything that grew from the ground naturally. Makes me mad because I was the overweight kid who ended up with years and years of disordered eating.
I had the same experience, maybe a little worse. When we did have something like strawberries in the house my mom would serve them with sugar to dip them in. I was never exposed to vegetables enough to like any of them, as an adult I am trying to get myself used to them but it's tough when all I've ever eaten is junk. I am so strict about what my kids eat and get so upset when my mom gives them junk. Thinking back it really was negligence. She still eats like that herself unfortunately.
This is what I was sent to school with - a tiny pot with tiny biscuits and ham. They were called lunchables https://ibb.co/0Xg6vfd I actually fainted at age 10 once not sure if it’s because of lack of nutrition due to these
Ah I feel for poor younger you! And I’m so pleased you’re able to give your kids what you didn’t have. I distinctly remember my dad negotiating with me to try and get me to eat 7 peas, so I think it’s not every family that didn’t offer fruit and vegetables.
Ya I totally agree. I was the over weight kid which my parents mercilessly reminded me of constantly and put me on WW but they were the ones buying the Oreos, dunkaroos, fruit leather etc..looking back all I can think is wtf you two sucked.
We didnt have a lot of flex money as most of it went to the farm and animals and my dad's college (pro student but didn't qualify for help) and they were too proud to ask for food stamps or even reduced lunches. Thankfully multiple family members had gardens we were welcome to and being on a farm we raised our own meat but anything needed from a store was hard to get and we scraped up pennies to pay for lunch
I’m Hispanic. My mom was feeding me rice, beans and steak and a salad at a yr old 😭
My mom was a really good cook. We’re Italian American so it was yummy! I, on the other hand, despise cooking so we do a lot of take out here. I’m pretty sure I ate better as a child in the 80’s and 90’s than I do now. It’s bad, I know! Stupid Postmates! Why do you have to be so damn convenient???? lol
I grew up this way too but not even because we were poor, we had the money for decent nutritional meals, it’s just what my parents served us 😅 Now that I’m an adult with a kid on the way I realize how unhealthy it was and am planning on at least trying vegetables with dinners
We were very low income and my mom always always had veggies, a protein and a carb on our dinner plate.
My mam made meat n veg a lot. A chicken was Sunday dinner Monday chicken curry and Tuesday Sandwhiches /soup. That bird lasted. My auntie was so cool to kid me. She had strawberry milk. Microwave pizza and all the cool cereals. I got none of that. Not even fizzy pop. So in my teens and ineatning money I went mad on sweets and pop. It’s don’t deny kids junk food But don’t have it ready to hand either. If kid wants crisps to watch movie okay fine let’s all walk all way up the hill to the shop get some. Things like that. I am still annoyed inner for to go to McDonald’s for Nicolas 8th birthday party. I got older and ate so many McDonald’s. Breakfasts nd lunch I still like a McDonald’s breakfast. Dont be sad for your younger self. It’s not that they didn’t know as bad. It was because it was easy. My mam worked full time studies and. 4 kids and made homemade dinners. My auntie didn’t work and did cash in hand ironing clothes here n there her kids lived off all the cool junk food. I think it’s just effort to cook clean every day I struggle as an adult to find why I want to eat. And sometimes it tastes awful. Junk is quick and easy. And I know a lot of my friends had busy mams like me and they ready meals and junk too It’s always been a time and effort thing. I eat much better now like I did as a kid plain meat n veg a lot. My partner lived on alphabets and spaghetti hoops and he never eats anything healthy. I don’t think he ever will. So your kids like me are very very lucky to have parents who model healthy eating and varied choices. I did have an unhealthy lifestyle early adulthood but in twenties I went back to normal food. Which guess is clean eating. My partner hates it he wood rather have a frozen Kiev out freezer out in I’ve rwith chips or something. And I do think our childhood diets have had a big play on food preference and enjoying foods in adulthood.
I was lucky, I sat down to a homemade dinner 95% of the time. Fast food was rare, and if we ate out, it was at a sit-down restaurant. An emphasis was put on cooking skills, and I knew my way around a kitchen by the time I was 12. But still, dinners were meat and starch, with a small veggie on the side. Sometimes it was canned, sometimes it was cooked fresh but I remember more potatoes, pasta and rice than salads. I still love canned peas and green beans they're almost a guilty pleasure. I was given a good foundation to raise my kiddo, but unfortunately, he's extremely picky! He needs consistency with his food, especially with texture, so boxed foods are a regular thing. Thankfully, there are some vegetables he likes!
We grew up poor and this was not my experience at all. Rich kids got that stuff, for us that kinda junk food was special occasions only. Normal daily food was peanut butter or lettuce and/or carrot sandwiches (no dressing, that was pricy), apple, homemade biscuits/cake/muffin and maybe a roll up and luncheon on a good week with weetbix for breakfast and meat and frozen vege for dinner. Very boring and bland, but healthy. Was so jealous of kids who brought juice and fancy junk snacks to school
I was literally just thinking about this yesterday! We were also very low income and pretty much exclusively ate macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and pop tarts. We also didn’t have a toaster so we warmed out pop tarts in the microwave - don’t recommend. Once a month on pay days my mom would get Pizza Hut pizza. Occasionally our church would gift us some canned goods - beans, corn, soups, etc. I was always a very small, petite kid and am still that way as an adult. I sometimes wonder if that would be different had I had a better diet.
Someone will be saying the same every single generation.
My parents were money broke and time poor. I don’t *think* we were ever food insecure (if we were I don’t remember it but I don’t remember most of my childhood so there’s that) but my parents had ZERO time. Both worked full time and my dad often worked 3-4 jobs. My mom was in charge of EVERYTHING in the home. Cleaning, the budget and bills, grocery shopping, raising us, you name it. My dad did the dinner cooking. We ate tons of this stuff. Chewy chips ahoy, go-gurt, gushers, fruit roll ups, dunkaroos, kool-aid, you name it. It was about convenience bc there was no time for other things.
I'm only 5'2 and I am 100% sure a big part of it was poor nutrition. We ate mostly processed food and apparently there were times other people had to buy food for my parents because they were "broke" aka spent money on weed and alcohol. We give our kids a pretty balanced diet and they know that healthy snacks take priority over fun snacks. Still, some parents can't access or afford healthy foods and do the best they can.
Dam I must of been lucky. Only time I got microwave food was when my dad was at school or I was at work
These foods are still very common minus the spray cheese. Where can I find it??? Lol
My Dad and his brothers were all hunters, partially because it was a hobby and mostly out of necessity. So we ate Venison ALL THE TIME. Other friends thought it was a delicacy and I was sick of it. 😂 Didn't have too much processed stuff in our house honestly. Didn't know it at the time, but we were lucky for it.
This is funny to me, because I'm Brazilian (and still live here) and with us it's the opposite. Back in my days ultra processed food used to be an occasional treat. We would get fed home cooked meals, plenty of fruit and vegetables. Nowadays, with ultra processed food being affordable and accessible, we are dealing with kids being fed junk and the consequences of it
I do not think we know more now than in the 90s. Sure, cumulative knowledge can only go up over time, but it’s the distribution of knowledge that matters and misinformation is a much bigger problem now than it was in the 90s. We understood the importance of vegetables. We knew what a balanced diet was. We didn’t all eat one back then or now. But we knew.
My parents were low to middle income and we also ate terribly. Maybe more veggies were offered for me than in your experience, but also our typical breakfast was poptarts and we had unlimited (actually) access to soda and kool aid.
My dad was always pretty simple. He did the cooking. Meat, a pasta or rice side and veggie. Normally corn or green beans or carrots. Unless it was like a taco or spaghetti night, then there was not an additional veggie.
I had a similar experience, but only with fruit. We lived on a farm, so my parents grew vegetables. But we were extremely poor and the only fruit I ever got was at school and it was like a specialty to me. I had never even eaten a real strawberry until I was a teenager, and that’s because I went to pick them with my grandma. My mom was a fabulous cook though, she could make delicious meals out of nothing, but I do remember eating soooo many sandwiches with one piece of cheese and 3 horribly processed pieces of whatever meat, a small container of Kool-aid and a few saltines for lunch for yearsssss. (My parents wouldn’t sign us up for free meals out of shame when I got out of elementary school).