Unhealthy/Gross foods growing up
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We were really poor, so my parents had to get inventive sometimes. We had a side dish they made several nights a week. It was one of those packets of ramen noodles, but instead of making it a soup they would drain the water, put in some margarine, and then the seasoning packet. So, it became like a noodle side. It actually wasn’t the worst tasting thing ever, but as an adult I do not like ramen noodles (even with the broth).0
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The sugar post currently on the front page got me thinking it could be fun to start a new thread to share all the unhealthy and gross foods you had as a kid, that you now look back and shake your head at (or still have as an indulgence, we're not here to judge lol). I'm sure this has been done before, but it's still fun to share...
We had "bread and butter" with spaghetti which was just a slice of untoasted wonder/white bread with a generous slather of butter on top. It was my favorite meal as a kid just for that bread lol I know this isn't very far from garlic bread/toast, but the thought of just plain untoasted white bread makes me want to gag!
My Mimi would make me sugar grapes, which was just regular grapes wetted and rolled in sugar, as if they aren't sweet enough already lol. But it was "our thing" and I always asked her to make them for me when we would go visit.
Mine are pretty tame haha
I still love butter bread and pasta. No regrets here lol. I'm told I ate raw meat as a toddler. I'm a vegetarian.0 -
My Mom was a great cook and believed in making things from scratch. We were also quite poor growing up so we rarely ate out or bought convenience foods. That being said, I remember my brother eating ketchup sandwiches and sandwich spread sandwiches (which was like mayo with relish in it). Not a lot of protein - which was expensive. I also remember cinnamon toast and lots of white bread. To this day, my Dad only eats white bread.
My Dad is from St. John's, Newfoundland (east coast of Canada - next stop is Ireland) and we ate some foods that my friends had never heard of: boiled lima beans with salt pork and boiled potatoes; Jig's Dinner - which was boiled everything (cabbage, potatoes, turnip, carrots) with peas pudding (dried peas boiled in a cheesecloth bag in the water with all the boiled veggies and meat) and salt beef. Salt beef (beef brisket preserved in salt brine) is actually my kids' favorite and we have it every Christmas, along with turkey and all the fixings. And my Dad makes salt beef hash (so much better than corned beef hash) with all the leftovers every Boxing Day.1 -
Ha, my mum was a TERRIBLE cook, and her ideas about school lunches, awful. I was about 7 years old, opened my lunch box to find: sandwiches with a filling of sheep brains and mashed pumpkin. This was truly formative...I'm vegan now8
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MonkeyMel21 wrote: »I would have a bowl of rice crispies, pour an indeterminate amount of sugar over the whole bowl, eat the cereal then use my spoon to scoop the piles of excess sugar in to my mouth.
Yes!! I was just telling my kids about this, because now I will only sprinkle a tiny amount of sugar on their oatmeal. They couldn't believe I would actually put that much sugar on my cereal when I was young--or that my mom actually let me add my own sugar!!
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when i was a kid i'd eat beef jerky that was made for the dog2
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midlomel1971 wrote: »My mom used to make Kraft Mac n Cheese from the box...you know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure where the cheese part came in because it's nuclear-orange colored powder. And even though now I make homemade mac and cheese with real grated cheese, sometimes I love me a box of the Kraft!! Comfort food!
Yes, that was good stuff.0 -
I had forgotten this:
When I was in college (1973), the dorm where I lived sometimes served a kind of bar cookie called "Poor Richards".
Working in the cafeteria, I learned - from a full-time food service manager who hired in and refused to serve them - that they were made by taking odd-lot but not spoiled leftovers of other desserts (cakes, cookies, etc.), reducing them to crumbs, pressing them into sheet pans, sprinkling with confectioner's sugar, and serving them.
They were not popular.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »firlena227 wrote: »Can't believe no one's mentioned raw cake mix yet... sometimes my sister and I used to eat so much of the mix there wasn't really anything left to bake with! I'd 100% do the same thing now too though....
Do you mean the dry cake mix or cake batter? The first one frightens me a little
Commercial dry cake mixes didn't exist when I was growing up (as far as I know). All cake was from home made batter in a bowl.
Not sure how old you are-- cake mixes have been around since at least the 1930s but their popularity didn't really start rising until after WWII.
I'm 52, but that's why I inserted "as far as I know". Cultural and geographical differences create a lot of variation. I'm sure I never saw anything like that in my grandparents' kitchens, and they baked OFTEN. My own parents baked a bit less than the grandparents, but I still remember the mixing bowl and all the ingredients being measured in, so that wasn't boxed cake mix either.0 -
Chicken steppers - the actual feet with the toes and toe nails. Not bad tasting, but I wouldn't do it now.0
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Pickled pigs feet.....fried bologna sandwiches..........beef tongue out of the pressure cooker....
Totally nailed my childhood right there. Add in some head cheese sandwiches instead of bolonga (think whole head of some farm animal boiling on stove and gelatinizing in bread pans) and this is why I have been in therapy for years!!
And I wanted to add headcheese too. So many don't know what it is. What years were you in that food era?
70's and 80's.
By late 80's my mom switched us to really badly made tofu dishes and pounded to death venison fried in flour and butter. I cringe thinking about it. Or the 'rabbit' stew (i.e. crockpot rabbit smothered in cream of mushroom soup) that I used to be able to tolerate until I found out at one point it was actually squirrel depending on what my dad and brothers caught that day. I think that may be child abuse or animal abuse now, but who knows 0 -
Top Ramen, Hamburger Helper, banquet Hungry Man mexican dinners. Way too salty and soggy to handle now. Trix, fruit loops, cocoa puffs all too sweet.lots of things I used to like make me gag now1
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Tuna helper!! Blecchh!!!!1
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I can remember just crushing up the noodles in a packet of ramen and then using the soup base as a seasoning, and eating like chips. It was a food trend in my school. I want to die a little when I think of the sodium now.
At home we used canned "meat sauce" for spaghetti night - also crazy salty.
Kraft Dinner (Mac n cheese)
And pop/soda...so much pop.0 -
I can remember just crushing up the noodles in a packet of ramen and then using the soup base as a seasoning, and eating like chips. It was a food trend in my school. I want to die a little when I think of the sodium now.
We did this in one of the schools I went to as well. I thought it was pretty good until you got to the bottom of the bag and it was mostly seasoning and too salty to even eat.0 -
Ha, my mum was a TERRIBLE cook, and her ideas about school lunches, awful. I was about 7 years old, opened my lunch box to find: sandwiches with a filling of sheep brains and mashed pumpkin. This was truly formative...I'm vegan now
Okay, this is the first thing in this thread that really grossed me out. I thought I'd heard it all . . .0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Ha, my mum was a TERRIBLE cook, and her ideas about school lunches, awful. I was about 7 years old, opened my lunch box to find: sandwiches with a filling of sheep brains and mashed pumpkin. This was truly formative...I'm vegan now
Okay, this is the first thing in this thread that really grossed me out. I thought I'd heard it all . . .
Totally. I would have gone crying to the teachers/counselors. lol
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Pickled pigs feet.....fried bologna sandwiches..........beef tongue out of the pressure cooker....
Totally nailed my childhood right there. Add in some head cheese sandwiches instead of bolonga (think whole head of some farm animal boiling on stove and gelatinizing in bread pans) and this is why I have been in therapy for years!!
And I wanted to add headcheese too. So many don't know what it is. What years were you in that food era?
70's and 80's.
By late 80's my mom switched us to really badly made tofu dishes and pounded to death venison fried in flour and butter. I cringe thinking about it. Or the 'rabbit' stew (i.e. crockpot rabbit smothered in cream of mushroom soup) that I used to be able to tolerate until I found out at one point it was actually squirrel depending on what my dad and brothers caught that day. I think that may be child abuse or animal abuse now, but who knows
For me 60's to 70's. Sounds like you were or are southern folks. The only rabbit we had was from the store and I just couldn't put it in my mouth.
The only wild we were close to was wild collard
greens. Parents had to have stomachs pumped after they ate it...we kids did not touch that green stuff....good thing!0 -
Pickled pigs feet.....fried bologna sandwiches..........beef tongue out of the pressure cooker....
Totally nailed my childhood right there. Add in some head cheese sandwiches instead of bolonga (think whole head of some farm animal boiling on stove and gelatinizing in bread pans) and this is why I have been in therapy for years!!
And I wanted to add headcheese too. So many don't know what it is. What years were you in that food era?
70's and 80's.
By late 80's my mom switched us to really badly made tofu dishes and pounded to death venison fried in flour and butter. I cringe thinking about it. Or the 'rabbit' stew (i.e. crockpot rabbit smothered in cream of mushroom soup) that I used to be able to tolerate until I found out at one point it was actually squirrel depending on what my dad and brothers caught that day. I think that may be child abuse or animal abuse now, but who knows
For me 60's to 70's. Sounds like you were or are southern folks. The only rabbit we had was from the store and I just couldn't put it in my mouth.
The only wild we were close to was wild collard
greens. Parents had to have stomachs pumped after they ate it...we kids did not touch that green stuff....good thing!
Plenty of my relatives were eating game, including rabbits and squirrels, in rural Michigan in 1960s-70s and beyond. My dad was too soft-hearted to hunt if he didn't absolutely have to, but I occasionally ate rabbits/squirrels/deer others had shot, while growing up. I knew poor college students who ate those things in the 1970s, too. I suspect some of my rural cousins still eat small game. It was something hard-working poor and working class people did/do there.0 -
Chicken steppers - the actual feet with the toes and toe nails. Not bad tasting, but I wouldn't do it now.
Love Chinese chicken feet served for dim sum. Marinated and steamed w/salted black beans and some jalepenos. Yum but they do chop the toe nails off. LOL!
Also consider beef tongue and head cheese mentioned previously as delicacies.
Sometimes still make beef tongue but ehat use to be a very cheap throwaway piece of offal is not more expensive per # than a NY strip steak.
Don't see headcheese offered anywhere near where I live but use to eat it regularly as sandwich meat. When I see it in a deli now, it too is marked much higher than I think it's worth.
Was never a big fan of pigs feet (pickled or not) but one of the specialty winter dishes I cook is a pigs tail and black eyed pea soup, which is delish.
Nothing gross or unhealthy to me about any of these dishes but I'm sure there are those who can't fathom eating any such things.
We all have different eating preferences, based largely our upbringing and culinary experiences. So, there is no accounting for taste.
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When I was little my mom made me chocolate soup, which was just microwaved chocolate chips with cold chocolate chips added after, honestly I didn't even like it and I don't understand why my mom thought is was a good idea.1
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I don’t think anyone mentioned Sunny D yet! Omg - I can still remember the commercials!
Otherwise, gushers fruit snacks, fruit roll ups, hamburger helper, goober grape pb&j, Hershey’s syrup, and little Debbie or tastykake fruit pies... wouldn’t touch any of these again!
Thick slab of butter on plain white bread with spaghetti though... that’s legit!0 -
This souns gross but its not.
BLOODPUDDING!!
Its a Swedish thing. Soooo good.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Ha, my mum was a TERRIBLE cook, and her ideas about school lunches, awful. I was about 7 years old, opened my lunch box to find: sandwiches with a filling of sheep brains and mashed pumpkin. This was truly formative...I'm vegan now
Okay, this is the first thing in this thread that really grossed me out. I thought I'd heard it all . . .
I saw my parents eat fish eyes, but I never had any myself.0 -
Mom made me:
• Chicken Dino’s
• Bologne-mayo-Chedder-cheese sandwich
• Kraft Mac N Cheese
• Spaghettios
• Fishsticks
But she would also make amazing dishes like her homemade chili, lasagne, cornbread, coffee cake, quesadillas...
And then I would make myself awful things like:
• Wheaties with spoonfuls of sugar
• Omelettes filled with cream cheese
• Cinnamon-sugar whitebread toast
• Nachos made with whatever I could find in the house
• Hot pockets
Guess none of my stuff is as bad as what I’m reading from other people, though!0 -
Otherwise, gushers fruit snacks, fruit roll ups, hamburger helper, goober grape pb&j, Hershey’s syrup, and little Debbie or tastykake fruit pies... wouldn’t touch any of these again!
Goober was delicious!
My younger sister loved Gushers, she was obsessed with them when she was a kid, so I had them a few times back then. I bought some about a year ago to see if they’re anything like I remember them, and they’re really, really gross.
One treat we had growing up was Jos Louis cakes. My grandfather used to buy them for us when they were expired and on clearance so they were extremely stale, making a horrible cake even more horrible.0 -
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We had something called Bakes - mainly a combo of flour, sugar, and water - fried in oil.0
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