Unhealthy/Gross foods growing up

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  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    Not sure what the issue is with white bread & butter... my mom used to have to have a small piece with *every single meal*. It's my 12 year old son's favorite thing too. :)

    Now, you want to talk gross- my mom often made a can of corned beef hash with a poached egg over it. I had to sit at the table until I ate ("enough") of my dinner, and on hash nights, I just planned on a long night at the table ;)

    My dad used to cook hash until it had a crispy coating you could cut with knife. Then slather it with ketchup. Now that's strictly a nostalgic craving food, every other year or so.

    If you say so! ;)
  • newheavensearth
    newheavensearth Posts: 870 Member
    edited March 2018
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    Back with bread.... toast pizza. Spaghetti sauce, cheese slices, and lunch meat on toast grilled under the toaster oven.

    Ramen with Ritz crackers and fifty cent juices or sodas.

    Jamaican beef patties. Even with the little chunks of gristle.

    I actually think pot pies are pretty good. They're my sick day food.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    I grew up in the 70s/80s and my mom grew up in the 50s. I think she was one of those who was very much fascinated with all the new convenience foods that came her way. She loved frozen pizza, even though all of us kids were always begging for her "homemade" version (which also started from a boxed mix), and frozen anything, really.

    Just thought of a new one... Swanson's pot pies! (But mom would at least slit the top crust & add some extra frozen veggies ;) )

    As a teenager I often ate Swanson or Banquet pot pies with a big scoop of cottage cheese on top.

  • af240
    af240 Posts: 37 Member
    edited March 2018
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    I remember the white bread slathered in margarine along with spaghetti or ravioli. Horrors! haha

    A lot of mine are just horrific to me now, but none of them are really that notable or disgusting. We went out a lot to Pizza Hut and always got bread sticks before our pizza, and never salad. My mom wasn't a bad cook but she took a lot of shortcuts and didn't do many veggies. The vegetables she did cook, I didn't like because they were very overcooked, especially carrots with roast & potatoes...the carrots were the texture of chewing gum and tasted horrible, lol.

    As a kid and teen, so many meals ended with a Little Debbie snack cake. I especially liked the zebra ones and Swiss cake rolls, or peanut butter bars. Even at school (grades 6-12) I remember them selling Little Debbie oatmeal crème pies, Star Crunch & fudge rounds like crazy and everyone would eat those for lunch...so many snack cakes. I always thought of them as "real food" and not "candy" so on some level, I imagined them being lower calorie than a Snickers or Twix and now I know that wasn't necessarily the case at all - especially if I had a couple of them or an XL one.

    So much nostalgia with the Little Debbie snacks! I especially remember always getting the zebra cakes at lunch in elementary school. I had them once as an adult and omg the outer icing is straight up wax!! haha
  • sandy_taylor13
    sandy_taylor13 Posts: 194 Member
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    Hamburger Helper at my house. So much sodium now that i look back on it. Yuck!
  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
    edited March 2018
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    I kind of wonder how many of these foods were fabricated from necessity. Some seem to be methods of stretching out a meal like serving white bread and butter with your meal. As kids we probably had to clue our parents were trying to get as much as they could from dinner for as little money as possible. My graham cracker cereal was probably created because we were out of cereal, but had a box of graham crackers in the back of the pantry. Same with the hot dogs and mac n cheese. a package of 50 cent BAR S hot dogs and a 10 cent (90's prices) box of mac n cheese fed 3 people for dinner. It is still one of my favorite ways to eat boxed mac n cheese, lol. If we were well off that week, it was a $1.00 Kelbasa sausage fried up with a box of store brand mac n cheese. :lol:

    ETA: @08_GreenEyedMomma we called that SOS. AKA ShKitten on a Shingle. I LOVED that when I was little, but can't imagine eating it now.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    af240 wrote: »
    I remember the white bread slathered in margarine along with spaghetti or ravioli. Horrors! haha

    A lot of mine are just horrific to me now, but none of them are really that notable or disgusting. We went out a lot to Pizza Hut and always got bread sticks before our pizza, and never salad. My mom wasn't a bad cook but she took a lot of shortcuts and didn't do many veggies. The vegetables she did cook, I didn't like because they were very overcooked, especially carrots with roast & potatoes...the carrots were the texture of chewing gum and tasted horrible, lol.

    As a kid and teen, so many meals ended with a Little Debbie snack cake. I especially liked the zebra ones and Swiss cake rolls, or peanut butter bars. Even at school (grades 6-12) I remember them selling Little Debbie oatmeal crème pies, Star Crunch & fudge rounds like crazy and everyone would eat those for lunch...so many snack cakes. I always thought of them as "real food" and not "candy" so on some level, I imagined them being lower calorie than a Snickers or Twix and now I know that wasn't necessarily the case at all - especially if I had a couple of them or an XL one.

    So much nostalgia with the Little Debbie snacks! I especially remember always getting the zebra cakes at lunch in elementary school. I had them once as an adult and omg the outer icing is straight up wax!! haha

    Yes it is!! You could make a candle out of one! haha
  • rockymir
    rockymir Posts: 498 Member
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    When I was little my parents had the habit of considering potatoes just like greens. So we often ate pasta and a side of...potatoes!
    I grew up to learn that wasn't correct but guess, my parents are still eating like that.
  • af240
    af240 Posts: 37 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    Not sure what the issue is with white bread & butter... my mom used to have to have a small piece with *every single meal*. It's my 12 year old son's favorite thing too. :)

    Now, you want to talk gross- my mom often made a can of corned beef hash with a poached egg over it. I had to sit at the table until I ate ("enough") of my dinner, and on hash nights, I just planned on a long night at the table ;)

    My dad used to cook hash until it had a crispy coating you could cut with knife. Then slather it with ketchup. Now that's strictly a nostalgic craving food, every other year or so.

    Yeeeeessss....I didn't even eat canned corned beef hash as a kid, but discovered it as an adult! Haven't had it in years though but I will ALWAYS order it on very rare occasions I eat at a diner lol always with ketchup!
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
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    So many of these foods sound exotically attractive to me now bc I grew up in a household that thought we were in Italy. :D Even though I'm an adult, I haven't yet tried many of these.
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
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    I actually think pot pies are pretty good. They're my sick day food.

    Mmm, I love pot pies! I didn't have them until I was a teenager with a part-time job so was able to buy a frozen one to try. Love at first bite.
  • newheavensearth
    newheavensearth Posts: 870 Member
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    I kind of wonder how many of these foods were fabricated from necessity. Some seem to be methods of stretching out a meal like serving white bread and butter with your meal. As kids we probably had to clue our parents were trying to get as much as they could from dinner for as little money as possible. My graham cracker cereal was probably created because we were out of cereal, but had a box of graham crackers in the back of the pantry. Same with the hot dogs and mac n cheese. a package of 50 cent BAR S hot dogs and a 10 cent (90's prices) box of mac n cheese fed 3 people for dinner. It is still one of my favorite ways to eat boxed mac n cheese, lol. If we were well off that week, it was a $1.00 Kelbasa sausage fried up with a box of store brand mac n cheese. :lol:

    I agree. Necessity, what was on sale, what was available, what my allowance could afford me. I know a few delicacies were products of my Dad's experiences both growing up and serving in wartime. I didn't complain. It just was what it was.
  • angmarie28
    angmarie28 Posts: 2,785 Member
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    I still like bread and butter, I rarely eat it though. My grandma would make me sugar bread for snack after school which is the same as bread and butter, just with sugar on top, I still like that stuff, but I think I make it onece eery like 2 or 3 years, hahaha. I also used to melt shredded cheese on a plate and eat it :D

    We used to eat only canned vegetables, or sliced cucumbers smothered in ranch, nothing else, I at one point hated all vegetables that were not canned or cucumbers, now I hate canned vegetables, and eat tons of fresh and frozen vegetables.
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    edited March 2018
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    id toast up an entire frozen loaf of garlic bread and eat it as a snack lol my mom worked all night slept all day we did best we could. Im sure i added extra butter and stuff i forget but yum butter

    side story i remember once i forgot i was cooking a loaf and i set the fire alarm off and woke her up, she stopped buying them after that. Probably a good thing lol
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
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    I kind of wonder how many of these foods were fabricated from necessity. Some seem to be methods of stretching out a meal like serving white bread and butter with your meal. As kids we probably had to clue our parents were trying to get as much as they could from dinner for as little money as possible. My graham cracker cereal was probably created because we were out of cereal, but had a box of graham crackers in the back of the pantry. Same with the hot dogs and mac n cheese. a package of 50 cent BAR S hot dogs and a 10 cent (90's prices) box of mac n cheese fed 3 people for dinner. It is still one of my favorite ways to eat boxed mac n cheese, lol. If we were well off that week, it was a $1.00 Kelbasa sausage fried up with a box of store brand mac n cheese. :lol:

    I agree. Necessity, what was on sale, what was available, what my allowance could afford me. I know a few delicacies were products of my Dad's experiences both growing up and serving in wartime. I didn't complain. It just was what it was.

    Necessity often is the reason. When I was a kid my mom would serve spaghetti sauce on white bread sometimes. She made it seem we were getting a treat, something different than pasta. Didn't dawn on me until I was an adult that it was probably just before payday and no money to buy pasta.

    We used to eat heated leftover rice for breakfast with milk and brown sugar when we were out of breakfast cereal. I still sometimes make extra rice just for that purpose.
  • DomesticKat
    DomesticKat Posts: 565 Member
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    I agree. Necessity, what was on sale, what was available, what my allowance could afford me. I know a few delicacies were products of my Dad's experiences both growing up and serving in wartime. I didn't complain. It just was what it was.

    This was true for my grandparents. I had dinner with them at least once a week and there were things they would not eat that they had frequently during the war (WWII). Stuff like spam or other processed food was out of the question because my grandfather refused to eat it. My grandmother was a great cook though so it was night and day compared to my mom's cooking.