What kinds of food were you fed growing up?

jeneey

My mother is 2nd generation off the boat from Italy, my grandparents right from Italy in their teens. NOTHING in my house growing up was processed or prepackaged. Our "treat" was 1 box of sugar cereal. Everything else was prepared fresh, from unprocessed food. And they ate some pretty out of the ordinary things. I didn't know what Kraft Mac & Cheese was until I moved out when I was 18. .

Childhood food memories... lasagna, lots of pasta in general, lots of fish, meat, veggies and fruit.. simple dishes made into a meal. Grew up on things like calamari, octopus, artichokes, capers, spinach, and all sorts of things. I am thankful for this to this day since I attribute it to the fact that I will eat nearly anything, there are only a handful of things I don't like (beets and cottage cheese are the only things I can think of right now). As a result, I do the same thing in my adult like.. many things are unprocessed and meals are cooked from whole, clean foods

BUT... having the heavy Italian background.. I do LOVE cheese and bread, and wine.. in fact those would be my "desert island staples". :laugh:
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My nana was from Italy and I grew up the same as you. I'm trying to figuare out how to "quote"... didn't mean to steal your words!

rosebarnalice

Because my Dad tended towards the heavy side and both me and my brother did too, my mom was actually a pretty good creatively healthy but budget-minded cook.

There was a lot of roast chicken, one-pot casseroles, and always a green salad and a side vegetable every night at dinner (to this day I shiver at the sight of canned green beans!) We were a Navy family, and Mom always liked to learn about the local cuisine wherever we lived, and then adapt the recipes to be cheap and healthy-- southwestern and cajun/creole are among my favorites today!

But I would sneak food behind her back. Among my worst offenders were butter-and sugar sandwiches, and handfuls of frosted miniwheats.

asj0901

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This is what caused me to go NUTS when I moved out. I gained weight when I was on my own...finally able to eat the foods I was never allowed.

My kids get balanced meals and junk in moderation.
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(the above was a intended to be a quote from That_Girl. Sorry I have no idea how I messed up the quote process)
Good Job!!! My kids only get junk once in a while so they don't think they are missing "the greatest thing ever" but they know its junk. My six year old will tell my three year old "if we get a candy today we cant ask for anything else that is junk for the whole week" That thought usually last until we reach the checkout stand and she wants everything under the sun, but I know she is thinking about it.

mbrown82314

My whole family ate horribly growing up, but not all of us had a weight problem so for some reason my mom found it okay for all of us to eat bad! I would say most meals were fast food, or anything that was "easy". It makes me sad that I was not brought up with proper eating habits...I sometimes think I wouldn't be where I am now if I was taught better when I was younger!

marji4x

My mom was pretty health-conscious but I do remember having Nutella sandwiches when we briefly lived in Germany

1113cw

My mother is 2nd generation off the boat from Italy, my grandparents right from Italy in their teens. NOTHING in my house growing up was processed or prepackaged. Our "treat" was 1 box of sugar cereal. Everything else was prepared fresh, from unprocessed food. And they ate some pretty out of the ordinary things. I didn't know what Kraft Mac & Cheese was until I moved out when I was 18. .

Childhood food memories... lasagna, lots of pasta in general, lots of fish, meat, veggies and fruit.. simple dishes made into a meal. Grew up on things like calamari, octopus, artichokes, capers, spinach, and all sorts of things. I am thankful for this to this day since I attribute it to the fact that I will eat nearly anything, there are only a handful of things I don't like (beets and cottage cheese are the only things I can think of right now). As a result, I do the same thing in my adult like.. many things are unprocessed and meals are cooked from whole, clean foods

BUT... having the heavy Italian background.. I do LOVE cheese and bread, and wine.. in fact those would be my "desert island staples". :laugh:

My nana was from Italy and I grew up the same as you. I'm trying to figuare out how to "quote"... didn't mean to steal your words!
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LOL.. this is a great post.. I remember growing up wondering why everyone had PB&J in their lunch boxes and I had salami LOL

WTFitness

Let's get nostalgic!

My mom used to pack my brother and I sandwiches made with white bread, butter and sugar! We'd also have some fruit juice, Dunkaroos and Goldfish crackers for snacks. I also remember taking a pack of dry instant noodles, adding the seasoning, vigorously shaking and crushing the bag, and eating them like chips.
I cannot believe the crap I used to put in my body!

I use to be so jealous of the kids that had dried noodles, I loved those things but my mom would never give them to us in our lunches, lol.

Haha! I would have traded you my noodles for your fruit! We never had any in our house and I always felt like I was missing out.


Reading everyone's responses has led me to wonder... isn't there some sort of risk with eating raw hot dogs? like salmonella or lysteria? hmm

WTFitness

Oh, I just remembered another childhood food staple: Lunchables!

ashahl

Omg SO MUCH indian food, I'm actually so sick of it now and eat it very seldom. Roti, naan, poori's, saag (spinach stew - we all hated it so much my mom had to plug our noses and force feed it to us!!), paneer, lentils, curries.

Ohhhh and as for English food we had hot pockets, poptarts, cornflakes, mac and cheese and our all time favourite but absolute pure junk: Chocolate sandwiches ( which consisted of 2 pices of white bread slathered with margarine and stuffed full of chocolate sprinkes)

MysticMaiden22

Where do I begin???

Breakfast
- Any brand of sugary cereal
- Pop Tarts
- Roman Meal bread w/butter and Smucker's jelly
- Pancakes w/syrup and butter, eggs, and bacon (breakfast on the weekends)
- Instant Oatmeal
- Instant Cream of Wheat (I loved the Strawberries N' Cream)

Lunch
- McDonald's (Happy Meals up until I was age 10 and after that, Quarter Pounder Extra Value Meals)
- Del Taco (tacos and burritos)
- Fish sticks
- Chili Cheese Fries
- Kraft Mac N' Cheese
- Hot Dogs (until I refused to eat them at about age 9)
- Lunchables
- Sandwiches (with Roman Meal bread, Carl Buddig lunch meat and American cheese slices)
- Banquet Frozen Meals (usually the Fried Chicken ones)
- Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
- Chef Boyardee Beefaroni and Beef Ravioli

Dinner
Dinner was generally pretty decent. We usually had a protein, grain or potato, and vegetable. When I was much younger Mom did canned veggies until I complained that I hated the taste, then she switched to frozen. We also had lots of Fresh Express/bagged salads with added veggies. Our dressing choices were Hidden Valley Ranch and Wish-Bone Italian. When Mom generally didn't feel like cooking but did so anyway, she made something with pasta, like Spaghetti or any variety of Hambuger Helper. My favorite meals were the authentic Mexican foods she would make (she was good at cooking it even though she is Caucasian and was never around Mexicans until she married my dad). Often it was skirt steak w/salsa, home cooked beans and rice. They were possibly the healthiest since they were made from scratch, lol. We would order take-out on weekend nights quite often.

Snacks and drinks
- Kool-Aid
- Soda (we were limited to one can per day)
- Nature Valley Granola Bars
- Sunkist Fruit Rolls
- Little Debbie snack cakes
- Gushers "fruit" snacks
- Quaker Chocolate Chewy Granola Bars
- Oreo Cookies
- Chips Ahoy Cookies


I look back at little mistakes my parents made with our eating, but honestly it had a lot to do with the fact that they weren't very educated about food. They still aren't....I cringe now that I see them drinking soda with HFCS and making Kool-Aid with Splenda.

If I do have children, I hope to pass along good habits to them. If they eat "junk food," it will be the healthy kind (no HFCS) and I will try to make sure they eat lots of organic/natural foods.

backinthenines

Wow. I am kind of shocked at how many of you were not provided with decent nutrition by your parents when you were children. If you are parents yourselves now, are you making different choices for them?

Jain

My Mum was always on a very tight budget, so you could tell what day of the week it was by what was on your plate. But her uncle (my great-uncle) was the local butcher, so meat was always available.

Breakfast was the same every day, toast with either marg or butter, depending on which was cheaper that week, and an apple.

Dinner, usually baked beans on toast and a piece of fruit.

Tea, this is where the days of the week come in.:laugh:

Monday, leftovers from the Sunday roast
Tuesday, mince & onion pie with veg.
Wednesday, lamb chop with mashed potato & peas.
Thursday, Stew
Friday, fish & chips from the local chip shop.
Saturday, salad with boiled ham & sometimes cheese
Sunday, roast meat with all the trimmings.

There was always homemade cakes & scones available. Saturday was baking day & my Mum was a very good baker.

She had grown up during the war & was very aware of eating healthily & really did her best to make sure we had good food on the table every day. She made sure I had fruit every day & was obsessed with bananas, but I'm allergic to the damn things.:ohwell:

Fast food to us was fish & chips from the chippy, McDonalds didn't appear Newcastle until I was about 18, & my Mum 'treated' me to a meal there as part of my Christmas prezzie, along with tickets to see Lindisfarne. I was not impressed by the food & never bothered to go back.:laugh:

backinthenines

She had grown up during the war & was very aware of eating healthily & really did her best to make sure we had good food on the table every day.

My grandmother was the same!! She was fantastic at making "something out of nothing". I still have her recipe for pork, cabbage & pearl barley stew and many old recipes which I love!! My nan used to cook with me when I was little, probably more so than my mum did. We used to grow our own fruit & veg because it was cheaper than buying then in the big supermarket out of town. I remember watching her make jam etc. I have very fond memories of all this and think it has shaped the way I feel about food production, cooking and eating.

I feel sorry for kids who come home from school and have to microwave something out of a cardboard box. :frown:

ashers1819

Peanut Butter Fluffer Nutter Sandwiches (PB and Marshmallow spread), Bolognie, Kraft Dinner, Grilled Cheese, pizza, fruit roll ups, fruit snacks, flynstone vitamines (I loved those), homemade cookies, banana bread, my mom's sour cream coffee cake (yum). My mom's baked cheese cake (6 " of pure delight).

We used to eat a lot of good stuff though too, but for some reason you only seem to remember the junk!

My dad's spaghetti and meatballs and all his food generally (he is a brilliant cook).

My favourite ever was that my mom used to make my lunch for me and then write a little nice note on the paper bag. The other kids used to laugh at me but I didn't care my mom is the best!

kidtechnical

When I was little my mum took me to the doctor because I was so skinny (oh the irony!) and didn't eat a lot of foods (oh more irony!). Mum & I were just chatting about it this week. She says that she realises now that what I DID eat was healthy and stuff I WISH my kids would eat (don't get me wrong, my kids eat healthily, but there are some things I can't get into them no matter how much I coax!).

I loved soup, especially lentil soup, I loved sandwiches (not fussed about the filling, but I used to pop home from school for boiled egg sandwiches), I would choose fruit over sweets (still do!) and sometimes mum would come home having popped to the fishmonger to get peppered mackerel in because she knew I liked it. So, I liked pulses, fruit and veg and oily fish, not bad! The real problem was mums culinary skills, or lack there of, lol. When mum sat a plate dow, the minute she turned away we checked the underside of the food for charcoal! She only fried chips, everything else got grilled or boiled within an inch of it's life... as a result I was convinced for years that grilling food was a death knoll for the taste buds!
Bless her, at 34 I'M still teaching HER how to cook, I learned absolutely ZERO in the kitchen from my mum (thankfully lol!)

kwardklinck

I was one of those skinny kids. I could eat eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast, a sandwich and chips or school food for lunch, and mom made fried chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies for dinner several times a week. I guess I was active enough that I didn't gain with that diet. The problem was that I was used to eating what I wanted and not gaining. When I got married, I discovered I couldn't do this anymore because I wasn't as active.
Now, I can eat quite a bit of food but I have to watch the sodium, carb, and fat intake. I also have to exercise 4-5 times a week.

Steph70508

Nearly ever night we had meat with rice and gravy plus seasonal veggies cooked with ham or bacon. For lunch on occasion we had potted meat sandwiches. We never had soda though, only water, skim milk, and sugar free Kool-aid. The meat was fresh from the local slaughter house or from our farm. At least we weren't exposed to all the growth hormones and antibiotics the animals are pumped full of now! Not really healthy eating in general. Also my grandmother who lived next door baked alot. She used crisco shortening in pretty much everything + used the crisco to "grease" the pan!

kwardklinck

Now that I think about it though. We only ate out once a week and mom didn't buy soda for the kids. Maybe that's why I was thin?

Amandac6772

All our vegetables were home grown but my grandmother practically raised me soooo everything with fried, southern, covered in gravy and absolutely the most delicious food ever because she was a magician in the kitchen....miss her soooo much!

Rhian_81

My mum isn't the greatest cook in the world, but she's definitely not the worst either. She tried to make sure there was a good balance between convenient food and proper home cooking, around 50-50 I'd say. She worked full time and was raising us on her own, so she did the best she could.

There'd be turkey or beef burgers, or some other frozen delight like fish fingers or chicken nuggets with chips and peas. Sometimes cheese, beans or spaghetti hoops on toast, or a can of soup. Always with lots of white bread and butter. There always biscuits and crisps to snack on, unless my older brother finished them all before the weekly shop.

She would also make good casseroles, currys, and pies or sometimes pasta or rice dishes throughout the week. And always a huge roast dinner on sunday. As I grew older I got really interested in cooking and now my diet now consists of more than 90% home cooked really varied food, one of my problems has always been portion size... Which I've been re-addressing with the help of MFP.