Food your parents fed you

No, people just eat food that is filled with it all day every day. It’s in everything. Stuff most people think is healthy—smoothies, wheat bread, fruit. It’s also in stuff you might not think like roasted nuts, beef jerky, pretty much every condiment, fried meat breading, etc...

 

I'd be happy if store bought tomatoes at least tasted like wood. Most have no flavor at all.

I ate all kinds of colorful sugary cereals in a great big bowl as a kid. A box would barely last me a week. I also ate all kinds of fast food for lunch too. Chef Boyardee made a lot of meals for me as well, for breakfast too. Dinner was often very fatty and sometimes greasy. I loved eating the fat on pork chops and steaks. There was lots of butter in the mashed potatoes. We also only had whole milk. Pepsi, Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper also washed down dinner sometimes. I also ate all kinds of candy and chocolate.
How the heck am I still alive, not weighing 400 pounds and not taking medicine like I was eating M&M's?

 

I definitely eat better now than when I was young and my children definitely eat better than when I was a kid. Mainly because I try to limit as much dog shit as I can that goes in them.

In fact, my 8 and 10 year old have had soda maybe 5 times in their lives. They don’t even like it. I gave them nothing but water at an early age.

 

I’ll agree with this completely but, I would consider the sugar in fruit a much safer way to get it.

 

My mother wasn't the best cook, god rest her soul, so breakfast was usually Cheerio's, fruit loops, lucky charms, and yes King Vitamin (remember that one?) Lunch in grammar school was confined to jelly sandwiches, Fluff, and an occasional bologna sandwich thrown in for good measure. It might sound like child abuse today, but looking back, I wouldn't change a thing about those times. The kid who sat directly in front of me at school ate egg salad sandwiches every single day for three straight years, to this day I will never forget that aroma.

 

I do.

 

Nothing to be ashamed about.

 

Beef tongue, beef heart, beef liver, gizzards, oysters, Rocky mountain oysters... To name a few, and I eat all of it still.

 

I was fortunate that my dad was a career firefighter and my mom didn't work, just raised us kids. That meant they were both home more than not, and family meals were regular. Junk food was exceedingly rare in our house. I didn't get to really try things like Dunkaroos, Fruit Roll Ups, Twinkies etc until I was well into my teens and more independent with my own money.

The only time sweet cereal was on the table was at birthdays. Otherwise, breakfast cereals were Cheerios, Corn Flakes or Raisin Bran. Other breakfasts were oatmeal, cream of wheat or toast with butter and jam. Weekends would see hashbrowns, bacon and eggs. Dinners were homecooked by mom every night. Water, tea, skim milk, orange juice, and apple juice were the drinks. Mom and dad don't drink coffee or alcohol.

Potato chips, cookies soda, and drinks like iced tea and lemonade were for parties and special occasions. My school lunches were usually PB&J sammiches, apple slices, carrot/celer/bell pepper sticks, maybe some whole wheat style crackers and water. We'd go to a sit in restaurant maybe a half dozen times a year, fast food maybe 3 or 4 times a year.

All in all, my parents fed us high quality, healthy food. They've always believed in a healthy lifestyle with a good diet and exercise. Much of our extended family own farms so we've harvested apples and made our own apple juice, picked blueberries and raspberries, we've butchered cattle/hogs/poultry and been part of the wheat and barley harvests on the prairies. Nearly everyone in our family with the space has a garden, knows how to bake their own bread and cook fantastic meals with wholesome ingredients.

While I love some junk food and potato chips are my kryptonite, to this day I still prefer a home cooked meal of grass fed beef served up with vegetables from the garden and homemade bread.

 

Swedish pancakes were a once a month thing growing up. Then became just a Christmas morning thing. Never any junkfood in the house like twinkies and cupcakes. Never any soda either. "You're thirsty? Water or milk."

Oddly enough I didn't have Mac N Cheese until I was in my 30s. My parents never had it in the house. I recently found out why. My dad, who is now 81, ate it almost every day when he was a child and hated the stuff, so there was no way his kids were ever going to have to eat it.

 

Actually this was the one I ate.

 

Great thread:

I grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Father usually out of town for work, Mom at home physically but not mentally.
Me and my 2 older sisters fended for ourselves quite a bit.
I learned to cook basic stove top stuff at 10 years old.

We ate a lot of bagged cereal, for more meals than breakfast.
We also ate a lot of bologna sandwiches and mac and cheese.

When my Mom did cook; I remember liver and onions, tuna casserole topped with crushed potato chips, ground beef stuffed bell peppers, meatloaf, and an occasional whole roast chicken.

I remember having and drinking watery thin powdered milk with my cereal for years and generic food from packages like this.

 

^^^ I remember this! "Plain wrap" products.

 

MMM, beef tongue! Beef tongue sandwiches slathered in horseradish mayonnaise come to mind.

 

I hated my parents when I was young, and ultimately ended up joining the Marine Corp to get away from them. I remember one of my first meals in the suck was breakfast. I grabbed a big slice of honeydew. I had never had it before. I couldn t believe how good it was.

 

I grew up on a farm. We pretty much ate what was available at that time of year. I was the only kid, so I did most of the work a tractor couldn't do. No complaint's though. We ate good!

 

Oh wow, I remember my parents buying those plain black and white generic brand. For you Texas people, I think this was sold at HEB. (If I remember correctly)

 

Haha... there was no such thing as HEB when I was a kid. At least not on the Gulf Coast. I think they are based in San Antonio... but are statewide now.

 

I'm 57 going on 35 right now for reference. LOL

 

I came from a family of all five boys and no girls, dinner was a ritual, we all would sit down with mom and dad and had dinner and the phone was taken off the hook, I remember eating stuff like beefaroni we used to call it barfaroni LOL, in the morning we would have toast with jelly and plain Jane cereal like Rice Krispies, no sugary stuff, we would go out and play all day long and would actually get mad when we had to come home for dinner, those were the days, The latest technology for us youngsters was 2 Dixie cups and a string HA HA

 

Mom was a great cook. But she had this weird thing with breakfast. We ate boxed cereal. But to make sure we got in protein, she would take an raw egg yoke, add a bit of sugar, stir it. I can still hear the clanging of the spoon in the cup. Then add orange juice. We had to drink it quickly or it tasted even worse.

Now when my Mom was growing up, she told me her Mom (my Grandmother) would give them a small amount of whiskey before they left for school to "keep them warm." I wonder how it would go over now if kids showed up to school with whiskey on their breath.

 

had lot of pork chops, mystey loaf ( meat loaf with god knows what random stuff from the fridge), hamburger helper things of that nature.. Grew up thinking Ramen noodles was a normal side dish. Blessed to have such a great mom in so many ways but not so much in the kitchen. But what I got out of that was the drive to learn to cook for myself at a relatively young age , experimening with seasoning and flavors. Now I cook for my family an although far from a pro I usually get alot of compliments on my cooking from friends and family. So something good came out of it..

 

Mom was a homemaker and dad traveled a fair amount. There was 6 of us and when dad was gone we went to McDonald's. It was our favorite meal. We moved from Wisconsin to Texas in 1966 and there were no McDonald's at the time. We were all disappointed. We had to settle for Burger Chef until they built one. Mom use to make Brussel sprouts. My mom was Mensa and you could never figure her out. Only one of the 6 kids liked Brussel sprouts but she kept making them. She also thought you should but beans in chili. Beans don't belong in chili. The other thing she made that no one liked was wax beans.

 

So what goes in chili if not beans? Just ground beef and tomato sauce?

 

I’m a child of the 90s, too. Sounds like my childhood echoes a lot of you guys’. If it came in a box, I ate it. Cereal, pop tarts, granola bars, pasta and cheese, Little Debbie snacks, fruit snacks, fruit roll ups, gushers, etc. My mom never held a job outside the home at the time, but we lived on acreage that she maintained like a park, so there weren’t a lot of cooked meals, other than dinner. Lunch was usually a Lunchable, hot dogs, or a simple sandwich. Dinner was usually pasta from a box with some kind of meat. I remember a lot of top ramen and hamburger helper.

Some of you guys ate some things that raise my eyebrows...I guess we weren’t very adventurous eaters in my house. No livers, whole chickens, beef tongue...
“Meat” was always ground beef, pork chops, or chicken, like breast or legs. Some times fish sticks or chicken nuggets.

It is remarkable that as many of us from that childhood are as healthy as we are. I suppose it’ll catch up with us some day...

Edit: haven’t seen anyone mention Kool-Aid yet. Holy hell, that stuff. Mom and dad were too cheap to buy Gatorade or actual juice, we drank Kool-Aid by the gallon. I still remember watching her measure out the sugar in the sink, pouring it into an old milk jug. I used to salivate watching all that sugar fall to the bottom, and beg her to add more, MORE!

 

One of the many fallacies we've been lead to believe...along with animal fats being bad for us....
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/

 

Brussel sprouts and liver. I refuse to eat them. In fact, if I even smell them it's like a transformation of the Incredible Hulk.

 

Sounds like my childhood....except for coffee and beer...we always had those around too...

 

Since you are in Yankee land beans are acceptable. Ground venison, tomatoe sauce, stewed chili tomatoes, and spices.