What were some "food rules" you had growing up? How does it affect you, today?

KDar1988

Clean my plate. Left in the kitchen, in the dark, while the rest of the family was watching TV. I wasn't allowed to leave the table until my plate was cleaned. I remember the food...waffles. To this day, I hate waffles.

Eleniala

"Eat what's on the table". Not just "at least try it", but massive amounts. Didn't matter if I didn't like it, or I was already full, or it genuinely made me sick. I remember picking raw onions out of potato salad because they always made me sick to my stomach and gave me the worst cramps (still do) and hiding them in a napkin. My step father discovered them in the garbage the next day. He forced me to eat them straight from the trash can...and then beat me black and blue with a belt. I try not to let it effect my eating habits now because I realize it wasn't about food, but about him exercising control over me.

ogtmama

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LisaTcan

We actually had the opposite problem in my house - no food rules and no routine. My mom didn't always cook meals but just grazed and let us graze all day. It felt like we just ate all day, which probably contributed to me being 175lbs at age 10. I think these habits largely contributed to the eating disorder i struggled with from age 13 to 23. I only knew how to binge eat or starve.

With a lot of work I have normalized my eating habits and only eat at meal times except for a planned afternoon snack. I'm about to have a child and I really hope I can model flexible, healthy behaviours for her.

RainaProske

I wish I could remember what horrible habits I taught my children. Wish I'd had this thread when they were tiny. There's a lot to be learned here.

mom22dogs

I don't remember having food rules per se, but I don't ever remember being able to just go to the kitchen to get something to eat between meals if I was hungry, without asking permission first. The other thing I remember is that my dad was in construction, so he took his lunch every day, so mom always bought him chips, Little Debbie cakes, cookies, and pop. All of which was off-limits for me and my sisters. Which caused all 3 of us to sneak food/pop any chance we got. If we asked for pop, we were told no, so we learned how to sneak it and move it around in the box so it didn't look like it had been taken. Mom used to hide food from us, and we would find it, and of course sneak it.

The other thing I can remember is that we really never had a "meat, 2 vegetables, and a starch". If we were having spaghetti, that was all we had. A big dinner plate full of spaghetti and sauce. No sides. Same with tacos, or lasagna, mac and cheese. Probably 5 times the amount we should have eaten. To this day, if I make spaghetti, or a casserole, I have no idea what to make with it because we didn't have the normal sides. Same for a lot of things. So, as an adult now, I kind of eat weird combinations of food to make up a meal. I also really fight the urge to just make one thing and eat a lot of it.

We were never told to clean our plates, never had desserts except with holiday dinners. Just had food that was in the house and off-limits to us. It affected me and my sisters by making us go nuts when we moved out, eating whatever junk food we wanted, whenever we wanted. All 3 of us have had weight issues in adulthood. We also are getting much better about it.

My mom was also always trying to lose weight, and when I was 11 or 12, she was on Weight Watchers, and made me follow the diet also. Looking back at pictures of me at the time, it makes me mad because I was not fat, but it sure gave me a complex about it, and made me think I was fat. Destroyed my self-esteem. I also can remember the food exchanges, a lot of the serving sizes, etc.

My mom had a stroke about a year ago, and before she came home from the hospital, my sisters, dad and I did an inventory of their 3 freezers so dad knew what they had and how/what to cook. We all realized she is a food hoarder. She had 40 lbs of beef, about 35 lbs of chicken, 20 lbs of pork, various bags of frozen vegetables, french fries, etc. They literally had enough food to live on for probably a good year or more. She has major issues with food that she passed on to us. I think subconsciously, I knew they had a lot of food, so I don't keep much food at all. I literally will run out of food and have to go to the store if I'm going to eat my next meal.

cebreisch

Clean your plate
Eat your vegetables
Don't have too many snacks - or only try to eat at mealtimes.

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. When I went off to college, I was like, "WOOHOO - finally I can eat what I want without my family hanging over my shoulder analyzing everything I eat to the most intricate degree!!!" Within a week, I went through the cafeteria line, and all of the sudden, I went "OOOH - Broccoli! Corn! Green beans!!" It really threw me that my body was telling me it wanted better food! LOL

I still fight that all the time. Eating crap constantly to "get back" at my mother for trying to be so strict about what I was eating and when.

RainaProske

My mother was so food-nervous that when we would come to visit Mother and Father, we would bring lots of food -- more than needed for our stay. My daughter was about 11, and she was learning to cook. Even though we brought all the ingredients, Mother was very nervous about her cooking and whether or not she could. She made a wonderful fried chicken dinner with two sides, bread, and drinks. Mother couldn't even bring herself to compliment my daughter on the cooking. She didn't mean to be that rude -- she just couldn't do it.

One day, Mother was making spaghetti, and I happened to walk by the kitchen, just as she was scraping the fat from the pan, where she had cooked the hamburger, into the spaghetti. That sight gave me a lot of insight into the food she made.

She wouldn't teach me how to cook when I was growing up -- probably because she thought I would ruin it. But, then, I didn't like what she cooked anyway. Poor lady.

TonyB0588

Snipsa wrote: »

Clean plate at our home as well.

Very, very large portion sizes. We ate mostly healthy foods, especially at dinner. Ex. Dinner would be chicken, brocolli, carrots and rice. But the portion sizes would be massive. I could never understand why my friends ate soooo little when I had sleepovers at their places. Now looking back, I can freely admit it was not them eating too little, but us eating too much.

Similarly, we would very rarely get money to buy snacks at school, but would get FOUR slices of bread with peanutbutter and jam to take with to eat during break times. And then eat another two to four slices of bread when we got home! I'm certain there were days I ate 10 slices of bread - if we had bacon and eggs for breakfast, instead of regular cereals.

Never had sodas in the house as a kid. Mostly drank milk or juice. Unfortunately the soda habit did develop once I left the house...

We had starch with all meals, I'm certain there were days my carbs were over 400 grams. It took a long time to learn that starch really isn't needed with every single meal...

I can relate to your last paragraph. We basically thought the starch was the meal - rice, potato, pasta, etc.. Just a little meat with it or leftover gravy for flavour, and sometimes no veg. My wife grew up in a different culture where the meat was the meal - beef, pork, lamb, fish, chicken, etc.. Lots of veg with it, and maybe one or two potatoes.

So my wife had a big joke on me when we were first married, and I looked at the meat and veg on my plate and asked where was the "food". We had to do some retraining of the minds. Of course, now that I'm being a bit more health conscious about what I eat, we're sticking closer to the recommended plate setting - half veg, quarter meat, and quarter starch.

TonyB0588

newmeadow wrote: »

So for those of you who had to sit at the table until you finished everything on your plate - did you ever sit there until, like, 1 a.m. so your mother had to finally give in and let you go to bed? Like Dawn Weiner in Welcome to the Dollhouse?

You can be sure that in those days no parent would allow their child to win the fight by such devious means!!

TonyB0588

lemurcat12 wrote: »

ejbronte wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

No dessert unless you eat your vegetables/meat. Don't spoil your dinner with snacking (a small after school snack was okay). Fast food/pizza/going out is for special occasions. If you don't want to eat what mom makes, make your own meal, I'm not catering to you. Eat dinner with the family (unless I had a dinner date or plans with friends on a weekend).

Lots of these - though our mother was almost always willing to cater if there was time and energy for it.

Also: don't swim after eating for at least an hour.

Weekend breakfasts could take a very long time while we all gathered at the table and talked - lots of times about medieval Spanish history.

Well-composed meal consists of a meat, a vegetable and a starch. I had an internal rule about this: eat meat first, then veggies, then starch.

My father always insisted on eating slowly and "shewing" your food nicely.

No pet food for people; no people food for pets.

No reading at the table when others are there too (read away when on your own!).

Always have food in the house: you never know when company will come, and you *must* offer food to company.

Try everything - how do you know you don't like it unless you try it?

On your birthday you get to choose whatever you want for dinner.

I think these were pretty much positive reinforcements.

We had lots of these additional ones too: swimming, make up of the meal (not a rule, but that's what it was -- I always saved my favorite part for last -- usually ate the veggies first, but not if they involved some special preparation with cheese, heh), the reading one (I also read when eating on my own, can't do it now), the company, the trying things. We also were required to eat what we were offered if at someone else's house (for a meal, at least). I remember choking down some things I hated and never would have been forced to eat at home. I also have this weird hatred of cold cereal, and recall that being the one thing I hated about slumber parties or staying the night at a friend's, since EVERYONE but us seemed to love cold cereal and eat it for breakfast.

Quite the opposite for me on cereal. I always used cold milk on my cereal and remember as a child being at my cousins' during the holidays and being offered hot milk for breakfast cereal. Couldn't manage it somehow.

kommodevaran

cebreisch wrote: »

Clean your plate
Eat your vegetables
Don't have too many snacks - or only try to eat at mealtimes.

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. When I went off to college, I was like, "WOOHOO - finally I can eat what I want without my family hanging over my shoulder analyzing everything I eat to the most intricate degree!!!" Within a week, I went through the cafeteria line, and all of the sudden, I went "OOOH - Broccoli! Corn! Green beans!!" It really threw me that my body was telling me it wanted better food! LOL

I still fight that all the time. Eating crap constantly to "get back" at my mother for trying to be so strict about what I was eating and when.

Lol - this is me too, or not all that lol - this made me borderline obese and gave permanent, avoidable health issues.

This thread made me realize that I didn't want to follow the good and useful rules I learnt at home because there were bad rules too. That is just stupid. We don't agree completely with anybody, we pick and choose what suits us best, and this may also change as we go through our lives.