# Old School Eating



## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm not going to edit much because I'm tired- sorry about any typos.
What I want to talk about is food and the cost of food when we were little kids- and I'd like to know what you remember about eating and your parents shopping habits.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around some stuff. For instance how society has changed with the advent of commericals geared towards snacks etc....
For me, in my early childhood, about until the 80s, my parents bought groceries and cooked at home a lot. They bought very simple staples. Not really snack types of food.
I remember in early elementary school, those snack cakes came out called Zingers. Only the "rich" kids had those in their lunch. Everyone in class envied them.
We went to the grocery store and I was going to ask my mom to buy them until I saw the price tag on the box. I put them back without asking, knowing that they were expensive. Dh said the same thing about them. We were talking and wondering how much they must have cost for us, as children, to have sticker shock over the price tag. What was it....like $2. And really? Back then that was a lot? How is that even possible?
Then in the 80's every Sat morning the commericals rolled in and soon everyone we knew was eating sugar cereals and buying candy bars. It was like a new time period for food.
Tell me about your pre-1980's food experiences, your parents shopping and your snacks, the economy back then- anything that comes to mind. I don't have specific question, just want a feel for that period of time.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

This is short. Dh needs the computer.

I remember ads for a few junk cereals as a child (Froot Loops, Count Chocula, etc.), but not a huge number. I don't remember snack foods much at all. We snacked, but we snacked on cheese slices or made popcorn or cut up some fruit or...little boxes of raisins sometimes. Mom cooked almost all our meals at home (we went out to a cheap sit down restaurant about once a month, because my parents wanted us to be comfortable in a restaurant setting). We ate a lot of homegrown veggies, because mom loved to garden.

My memories, admittedly vague, of other people's lunchboxes tend to suggest that most people got a sandwich, a piece of fruit, maybe some cheese or a hard-boiled egg. The only "treats" I remember were homemade cookies. Everybody brought a Thermos to school, which usually had juice or milk in it, but sometimes soup.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm really interested in why both Dh and I thought Zingers were so expensive- to the point that we wouldn't even ask our parents to buy them. Were they fifty cents a box, two bucks? And how would that be wrong to ask your parents for. What the hell was going on back then?


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## 106657 (Apr 9, 2008)

I don't ever remember going out to eat as a kid. We spent a lot of weekends at the beach, and sometimes ate at the snack bar. My mom cooked all our meals, and snacks were pb & J, fruit, cheese, treats were frozen juices, you know in ice cube trays with tooth pics.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

http://www.dollymadison.com/


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

I grew up in the 60s/70s on a dairy farm - so beef and whole raw cow's milk were a large staple of our diet. We bought a side of beef every year and had a large upright freezer in the cellar. We ate steak once/week at least, meatloaf w/scalloped corn and baked potatoes every Tuesday, beef stew with Bisquik dumplings and goulash all winter long. One of my mom's specialties was liver with onions and bacon - which DH loves but I have never been able to eat. Her mac & cheese was fabulous, and she made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs from scratch.







Mom canned her own tomatoes - we ate lots of stewed tomatoes and I was the only kid I knew who actually liked them - and made her own grape & strawberry jam. Our veggies were sometimes fresh and sometimes canned, but always cooked in milk and butter. In summer, we ate fresh tomato slices with mayo and cucumbers soaked in vinegar for lunch, with sun tea. We ate a lot of minute rice - my mom makes awesome pepper steak. She baked brownies from scratch, pies of apple, cherry, and rhubarb, and homemade Christmas cookies (Spritz, anise, and gingerbread). One year she made hard candy for Cmas and it was SO GOOD. Every Sunday night, Mom made homemade pizza loaded with ground beef, green peppers, and onions. Once in awhile, she'd get up and make a big breakfast - pancakes, or fried eggs and bacon and delicious home fries from scratch. Most mornings were Cornflakes or Cheerios - one thing my mom typically drew the line at was junk cereal. My parents preferred Brick Oven whole wheat bread, which produced great toast but horrible sandwiches.

And my mom makes the most fantastic potato salad ever!

We were fortunate that Mom is/was a junk food junkie, and loves convenience foods. We could always talk her into treats without too much trouble - we were never with a good stock of potato chips, Oreos (before I started baking cookies), Dolly Madison treats, Banquet frozen chicken, hot dogs, Freihofer chocolate chip cookies, Marshmallow Fluff, Deviled Ham, tuna fish, cheese spread, ice cream, and _anything_ chocolate. Mom was addicted to bite-size Butterfingers, Reese's Miniature PB cups, and Wrigley's gum - JuicyFruit, TeaBerry, and Clove.

Even now, my mother's house is full of empty calorie treats and convenience foods. My kids love it.









And oh. my. gosh. I LOVED Zingers!!!!!


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm hungry after reading about your mom's cooking.
Here are some great old kid snacks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6058594...499962/?page=6


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

_When it says Libby's Libby's Libby's
on the label label label
You will like it like it like it
on the table table table_


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
Here are some great old kid snacks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6058594...499962/?page=6

OMG!!!!! I have this cookbook!!!!!!! That date is way wrong though ... more like 1968!

Nothin' like the original.

Grew up on this stuff and still love it to this day - I buy a box every now and then.








Had forgotten about this gem.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm getting way into my searchs lol. I want to start collection old food....or something. It's taking me way back too.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

Wow. Check out the prices of stuff.
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/70sfood.html


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

I remember Hershey bars for 15 cents and penny candy.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm 34, are you my age?


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

60s/70s Candy

Remember BB Bats? So gross, but so good!


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I'm 34, are you my age?

I WISH. Invert the numbers.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spero* 
I WISH. Invert the numbers.

Insert nonworking laughing smiley here.


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## EvansMa (Jan 19, 2008)

I love thinking about my childhood. I am 34 and I grew up in Alaska. Prices were always a bit more than the lower 48 for everything.

Growing up I remember going to the grocery store with my mom. She cooked from scratch a lot. On the rare occasion we would get a treat it would be package of generic type oreos. We did always buy candy bars for my dads lunch. She would pack my lunch and my dads everyday. We would get a sandwich, a piece of fruit or carrot sticks, I still love carrot sticks, some chips and a juice box for me.

I do remember kids getting twinkies. I always wished I could have them too. The treat that my mom would buy for me was the Fruit roll ups. God I still love them. They taste nothing like strawberries but man were they good.

I have a fear that when my ds goes to school he will get made fun of because I packed his lunch or because I made him cookies instead of buying them. And it makes me sad to think about it. Those were good memories from my childhood.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I had those same lunch box fears. Turns out....no one seems to make fun of each other's lunches these days. Who'd a guessed?


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## Liquesce (Nov 4, 2006)

My pre-80s food experiences? Pretty much just







: .









During the 80s, though, pretty much the same as your pre-80s ... though maybe that has more to do with growing up a farm kid than which decade.


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## milkmommie (Apr 19, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EvansMa* 
I have a fear that when my ds goes to school he will get made fun of because I packed his lunch or because I made him cookies instead of buying them. And it makes me sad to think about it. Those were good memories from my childhood.


There was a teacher who actually commented on all of the "homemade" stuff in dd's lunchbox and how cool she thought it was that she actually ate it all!







My lunches were always home made. We never got twinkies but the other kids had them and juice boxes too. Oh, I had some packaged food envy!!


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## enkmom (Aug 30, 2004)

My mom was earth-friendly back in the day. My dearest wish was for sandwiches in zip-lock sandwich bags, but she wrapped them in wax paper and re-used the paper every day. I also wanted single-serve bags of chips, which she thought were tremendously wasteful. It didn't really matter much, 'cause mom wanted us to have HOT lunch, so we ate the cafeteria food.

We almost never ate out when we were kids. Dad got paid once a month, on a Friday. That night we would order pizza and have our one soda for the month. The next day we shopped for food. Mom would make an exhaustive list, and we bought our supplies for the month. Like your mom, my mom bought ingredients, not snacks or single-serve packs. She made cake or jello, and that was dessert. We bought one pound of butter every month, and that was ONLY to be used for the popcorn that we popped every Sunday afternoon. We ate stick margarine on our bread or potatoes.

Every month, my sisters and I would get to take a turn choosing one cereal ( a highly sweetened one we had seen on TV). Most days we ate oatmeal or Maypo or my very favorite Cocoa Wheats! I am also old enough to remember when cereals were called what they really were - Super Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops, Sugar Frosted Flakes, etc.


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## ikesmom (Oct 29, 2005)

I vaguely remember my dad eating crackers called "Chicken n a Biscuit"









Cheese in a can blech!

We liked ravioli in a can..which I can't stand the smell of now lol

Those little cracker and cheese boxes that you spread on with a red stick...my kids like em now









I never ate Malto Meal but the commercials were on T.V a lot. This is later than the one I remember which had a little boy looking at his belly button and a voice over of "Walter this is your tummy speaking"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtiritKccM .


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## aniT (Jun 16, 2004)

In the 70's I remember TV dinners with aluminum trays and hot dogs a lot. In the 80's I remember fried spam and hamburger helper. Soda and potato chips were often in the house and a freezer full of "treats" my mom locked. My brother figured out how to "break into" the freezer and get them out however. All veggies came out of a can and is probably the #1 reason I hate most of them. (I have learned to like some fresh veggies.)

My mom was a single mom and my dad refused to pay child support and took off with all the money when they divorced in '73 so maybe TV dinners and hot dogs were cheap. The fried spam and hamburger helper came later, after my mom remarried. She just doesn't like to cook.


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## Sharlla (Jul 14, 2005)

Well I grew up in the 80's but my mom always had a big veggie garden where ever we lived. We got foodstamps and she always cooked foods from scratch. We rarely had snacky types of food in the house.I do know that we drank a lot of milk, we were a glass at every meal type of family . We had chickens and fresh eggs as well.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I'm reading all of these with great interest!


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## SquishyKitty (Jun 10, 2005)

If I send homemade cookies or slip the occasional jellybean into DS's lunch, he usually ends up sharing them with everybody.


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## boysrus (Dec 2, 2001)

hm, clementine, your experiences were nothing like mine.
I am 37 and am the youngest of 9. My parents both grew up during the depression and we lived in a small town in the midwest. Dad worked in the steel mill.
Every Friday was shopping day. Mom would let us pick out cereals if we were with her. There were always sugary cereals. We would often get the variety packs. We also bought poptarts and little debbie snack cakes. Oh, and little variety packs of Frito Lay chips of big bags of chips. We would usually get ice cream and cookies too. And pop. All children would race to eat the good stuff as quickly as possible, and the best treats were gone before the weekend was up. lol. We would buy twinkies and zingers sometimes, but they were pricier than little debbies, and were usually only bought when onsale.
We had a milk man who would deliver once a week. He would bring 8 gallons, and sometimes ice cream sandwiches (yum). Mom would have to go tot he store for more milk by the end of week. I remember that her grocery bill was always around $100.
My mom made a lot of stuff from boxes. We had hamburger helper and cakes were usually mixes. We ate pot pies for dinner, and sometimes had ham steaks (think spam, but bigger). She would cook some nights also, but big chunks of our diet came from pre or partially made food mixes


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## boysrus (Dec 2, 2001)

oh, and I live in a really crunchy area, where I am sure a lot of people bake for their kids. Also, the school is right across from a fabulous, crunchy bakery, so kids get treats from there a lot too.


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## Dmitrizmom (Nov 11, 2002)

I'm 35. Dad was a grocer... I'm the 5th child of 7 (#7 wasn't born until 1983)

We didn't eat alot of packaged foods. Mom cooked almost everything from scratch. We would get the dented cans, the cans without labels (it was great







: fun to guess what was in the can), the cans fast approacing their expiration dates. I seem to remember eating alot of hamburgers, sloppy joes, and beef liver with onions. Mom always made sure there were at least 2 veggie choices on the table. Milk was optional, but the other choice was water.

But! Mom always had cookies or brownies or cupcakes or rice krispie treats for us.

I remember being able to get the store brand white bread 4 loaves for $1, less if it was on sale. I remember candy bars at 5 for $1. Little Debby snack cakes for $.99 (it was a lovely treat when we got those).


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## mommy68 (Mar 13, 2006)

I'm 41. We weren't rich (not even close) but had zingers in the house. We had cookies, chips, ice cream and junk like that. I had to have cereal or oatmeal for breakfast because I was always so picky as a young child.







I think Zingers are nasty now. I don't know why that stuff tasted so good as a child.

I really enjoyed eating those devil foods cakes with white icing in the middle when I was little, and if I try to eat one now they are naaasty. I don't even bring stuff like that in our house.

We also ate a lot of frozen meals when I was young. I remember the Swanson dinners and chicken pot pies and chef-boy-ar-dee boxed pizza mixes. We ate that stuff like crazy during the summer months.

We also ate veggies from a can mostly and had spam. My mom would use potatoes leftover and make potato cakes, something I loved.


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## DaughterOfKali (Jul 15, 2007)

I couldn't stand the stuff my mother made/bought.

I grew up in the late 60's-70's.
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.
She made mac & cheese casseroles but the top was always hard and the inside was all dry. Gross.

I remember a lot of hamburger stuff (sloppy joes; hamburgers; pasta with meat sauce). I never liked meat so I wasn't happy.

I think we at a lot of meat (I hardly ever ate mine and battles were horrible). Potatoes were almost a daily staple.

I liked veggies (except brussel sprouts) so that doesn't stand out in my mind.

We didn't have snacks very often. My mother used to make desserts but they were highly disappointing.

I was scrawny when I was very young but once I was able to go to school (where they had junk food for sale), I gained too much weight. Overcompensating for not having the occasional junk food at home.


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## becoming (Apr 11, 2003)

I wasn't born until late 1982. My family ate out for most of our meals. We always had quick breakfast food and lots of junky snacks in the house, too. But in my parents' defense, we were extraordinarily busy. (Mom was an elementary school teacher, and both my sister and I were involved in TONS of extracurricular activities starting at a young age.) What's funny is that my mom almost always cooks at home now and always invites us over to eat. I pick at her about becoming a true old lady, cooking for an army when it's just her and dad in the house.


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## Think of Winter (Jun 10, 2004)

SlimJims! Spam, lightly browned. Hamburgers baked in gravy. Whole milk with every meal. All veggies were cooked, and cooked looong. Fluffernutter sandwiches and the tiny cereal boxes were vacation food.


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## LavenderMae (Sep 20, 2002)

We always had Tang. Let's see we had those nasty hotdogs with the cheese in the middle, star crunchies (still love those







), goober (peabutbutter & jelly mixed, YUCK), steak'ums and I know more but I can't think of anything right now. I did not grow on a lot good food although I was forced to eat collard greens which I hated (I hid them in mashed potatoes) but now love.

Sunday breakfast was always fried liver mush, eggs, white toast smothered in maragerine and grits. I loved it, it was the only meal my grandfather made (I was mostly raised by grandparents).


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## Scribe (Feb 12, 2007)

I was born in 1979, but I grew up sort of old-world. My parents raise their own meat and vegetables and can/freeze their harvest. Dinner at my house was pretty much always comprised like this:
1. Either a cut of home raised beef or wild game (venison or elk). Because chicken had to be purchased, it was a big treat. Often gravy as well.
2. Some home grown and frozen vegetable, usually boiled. Green beans and corn were served the most often.
3. Some home canned fruit--peaches, pears, or applesauce.
4. Home grown potatoes, usually boiled or fried.

We had margarine, never butter, and the only oil in the house was usually corn oil. We often had homemade cookies for treats.


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## whateverdidiwants (Jan 2, 2003)

I'm 34 also and pretty much grew up on junk - lots of fast food, soda, sugary cereal, chips, lunch meat, ice cream every night before bed. I eat far better as an adult than I ever did as a child, and it's taken a lot of work to get my parents to change their eating habits.

Anyone else remember Jiffy Pop?


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## Yooper (Jun 6, 2003)

Wow. I have been thinking about the same thing lately









I am of similar age and I swear I watched the food flip right before my eyes in the early 80's. I remember noting it at the time. It helps that I have a sister that is 7 years younger and I was responsible for helping get her lunches ready for school. The difference in just 7 years was obvious to me then.

Until about the 3rd or 4th grade, we almost never ate out and never had snack-type foods. My mom did use canned veggies and fruits from time to time and we did only eat white bread, but everything else was pretty much a whole food. No sugar cereals, no koolaid or soda, no boxed cookies or canned meals. We only got the occasional TV dinner to save my dad from cooking whenever my mom was not there for dinner (very very rare) as we did not have a microwave and reheating leftovers was tricky without one. I vividly remember the jealousy and shame in the early grades of not having granola bars, snack cakes, individual chip bags, and capri suns. Only the very rich kids had those things at first. I never asked for those things. It did not occur to me that I had any say over what food was purchased. I did not even look at the prices but assumed they must cost a lot.

Then one day, there was a Twinkie in my lunch and it went downhill from there. It was gradual but within a year or two we were full-blown junkies. We started eating out more and more. Spaghettios, snack cakes, tollhouse cookies, juice boxes.....we had it all. My mom only drew the line at soda and chips. It only got worse as more crap hit the market. Bagel bites, hot pockets, those creepy chewy cookies, fruit roll-ups, etc.... My sister was hooked on the stuff by the time she went to school. It is very sad actually. It is completely antedotal, but our eating habits could not be more polar today.

I think that stuff started out being expensive and "strange" but as more and more of it hit the market, the price went down and it became more commonplace.


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## fireant (Jan 10, 2006)

ugh, I was born in the late 70s.

My mom used to (and still does) make this meal my sister and I call "stuff". It's a strange version of "sh*t on a shingle". You know, creamy meat with a veggie mixture on a slice of toast. In my mom's version, it was a lot of random ingredients from the cupboard or fridge...sometimes with noodles instead of toast.

I still have a hard time with most of her cooking but my sister seems to like it. I can't get over the bottle of ketchup in her chili and other hidden ingredients.

To her credit, she was a single mom and worked full-time raising 3 kids without child support (I don't think child support was that common when I was a kid).

The biggest amazing food thing I can remember is when the peanut butter jars started being made out of plastic rather than glass. My sister and I were so amazed that it could hit the floor and not break that we threw it on the floor until it finally did break.







I still feel guilty that we wasted that peanut butter.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

I was the oddball amongst my friends, b/c we ate lots of veggies at my house that most kids wouldn't touch with a 10-ft pole ... beets, spinach cooked in vinegar, stewed tomatoes, butter beans, etc.

My mom wouldn't buy soda for us, but she was a Vichy addict (this was before seltzer came in vogue), so we drank tons of that - which our friends thought was sooooooo gross.

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I had those same lunch box fears. Turns out....no one seems to make fun of each other's lunches these days. Who'd a guessed?

My older DD only eats lunch at (high) school once/week, b/c that's all I'll pay for and she doesn't want to bring her lunch.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *enkmom* 
I am also old enough to remember when cereals were called what they really were - Super Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops, Sugar Frosted Flakes, etc.









Me too.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ikesmom* 
I vaguely remember my dad eating crackers called "Chicken n a Biscuit"









Those were my FAVORITE!









Quote:


Originally Posted by *boysrus* 
We ate pot pies for dinner

Omigosh, I *love* potpies - we usually had those once/week when I was growing up. They were super cheap, like 4 or 5 for a dollar. DH can't stand potpies - I used to buy them when we were first married but he refused to eat them. I haven't had a potpie in ages ... DH is away for a few days w/the younger kids and I might just have a potpie dinner for me & DS tonight.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *mommy68* 

I really enjoyed eating those devil foods cakes with white icing in the middle when I was little, and if I try to eat one now they are naaasty.

I was trying like hell last night to remember what those things were called.

DEVIL DOGS!!!!!!!!

And yeah ... loved 'em when I was a kid but now









I still love Zingers, Ring Dings, and Funny Bones though.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DaughterOfKali* 
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.

I loathe tuna noodle casserole. Our school had it every Friday (those darn Catholics







) and the whole cafeteria stank of warm tuna. uke

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Think of Winter*
the tiny cereal boxes were vacation food.

Yup, we got those once/year, for our 2-week trek to Hampton Beach.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *LavenderMae*
goober (peabutbutter & jelly mixed, YUCK),

I adore Goober Grape ... in fact, I still buy it now and then and my DD was begging me to get some last week when we were grocery shopping.

I can't stand Marshmallow Fluff anymore, though. DH and the kids are addicted to the stuff ... they pile it on toast w/peanut butter.


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## Pancakes (Jan 22, 2008)

OK, I was born in '72 and have very few memories of food before '81, but what memories I do have are of very simple, unbalanced, meals that were meant to fill you up on the least amount of money. Mom was a single parent w/o help from our dad. We were on state assistance and mom did the best she could with absolutely nothing.

She remarried in 1980 and the meals became more healthful, but still simple as they weren't rich. Mom would buy some snacks, but in small quantities. For example she would buy one 12pk of soda per month and we were each allowed 3 cans. One bag of chips, one half gallon ice cream, etc. We never had pre-packaged cookies, donuts, or any type of frozen convenience food. Hell, we didn't even have a microwave until '82 and probably didn't figure out how to use it for a few years after that.

Mom did buy sugar cereals, though. Not a lot of them, but she bought maybe 4 boxes per month and my sister and I were the only ones that ate it. When we got older she started buying generic puffed wheat and the like because we were eating the cereal too quickly. She knew we wouldn't scarf it down. lol

All deserts, when we had them, were home made with the exception of cakes. She did buy boxed cake mixes, but we only had them for birthdays. Most deserts were the product of my sister and I learning how to bake.

In early grade school we ate the school lunch because we qualified for reduced lunch. I always envied those that brought their own-with their cool superman or Barbie lunch boxes and shiny packaged chips.

Latter grade school we didn't qualify for free lunch, but still had to buy it; mom didn't have time to make them.

I asked mom what her grocery budget was when my sister and I where teens (mid-late '80s), she said that she tried to keep it under 400 per month. This was for a family of four. We never went without food, but we didn't have all the snacky crap that a lot of people seemed to have. A common statement in our house was "Mom, you just went shopping, why isn't there any food?" Mom's reply was always "There is plenty of food, you just have to cook it." Funny, my kids ask the same question, and I give the same answer.

ETA:
As for eating out we almost never did. From what I remember it was a 3-4 times per year event. I remember when McDonald's first introduced chicken nuggets, we went to McD's for lunch to try them. They were MUCH, MUCH smaller then, BTW.


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## fireant (Jan 10, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pancakes* 
Hell, we didn't even have a microwave until '82 and probably didn't figure out how to use it for a few years after that.









Yup, I remember using a toaster oven for the longest time. I remember the first microwave we had was giant and I can also remember my first step-mom cooking a chicken in the microwave.

Along those lines, I remember my mom saving up for a VCR and it took many months for her to do.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spero* 
OMG!!!!! I have this cookbook!!!!!!! That date is way wrong though ... more like 1968!

I was close ... it's copyrighted in 1971.

Gross, there's a recipe for "Tuna Bake"!

Oooh, "Chewy Chocolate Brownies" - I remember making that recipe.

"Candy Cane Frosting"









My mom used the Carnation meatloaf recipe.

I learned to make "radish roses" from this cookbook.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fireant* 
I remember the first microwave we had was giant and I can also remember my first step-mom cooking a chicken in the microwave.

My mother still has the giant microwave Dad bought her in the early 80s - it has a dial instead of pushbuttons. I remember trying all sorts of experimental cooking in it, and the cake we tried caught on fire.


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## iowaorganic (May 19, 2007)

I was born in 80- but geez- we sure didn't get crap until the 90s. Mom and Dad raised hogs- so we got to eat the ones that they couldn't sell- we never had beef or chicken- it seemed like a total luxury to us. I remember having a fried egg with a piece of toast for breakfast- until they built an Aldis in the big town nearby- then we had to eat 99 cent Aldi cereal- yuck. We had potatoes, corn or beans, and meat for every meal. The veggies and potatoes were all from the garden that mom made us take care of too. I remember having cheese slices- but never cottage cheese- I remember the first time we begged for it and mom gave in and bought the tiny container and it was gone in like 3 seconds. She was mad.

We rarely got to eat out- maybe 2x/year- and only when someone else took our whole family out.

But the 90s changed all that.... granola bars on occasion, a burger king sandwich on grocery day (only the 99 cent ones though), crappy cereal, but never much soda. My dad got it in his lunch- but we never got any.

When we were little we got to eat the best quality and I am sure that mom felt like she was depriving us...


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## WaitingForKiddos (Nov 30, 2006)

I'm a kid of the 80's but my folks purchased and cooked food like you're describing. I went to really small private schools or was home schooled so my exposure to fancy stuff like FruitWrinkles was very limited. I remember a girl who's lunch was always a grape jelly sand which on Wonder bread, a box Hi-C, a baggie of potato chips and a Twinkie. My god I was so jealous of her! My lunch was always brought from home and it was a peanut butter on wholewheat, a fruit, and a quarter to buy a carton of OJ. Until I was an adult I didn't know that those foil wrapped hoho's were bought that way. I thought that the kid's mom wrapped it herself!

Dinners were generally the same things that we all liked...spaghetti with tomato sauce, mac and cheese (not boxed), breakfast for dinner when dad was working late.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and a piece of toast. Once I was allowed to get Lucky Charms. I must have been about 7. I couldn't gag it down and ended up picking out the crunchy marshmallows to eat the cereal part.

We didn't do snacks really. If you were hungry there was always a banana or apple but never chips or crackers. I think I remember finding one of those cracker and cheese things with the little red stick to smear the cheese. Total treat!

We didn't have tons of money when I was that young so some of it was due to the prices I'm sure. But I know my mom talks about her food addiction, which was present back then, and how she bought loads of candy bars and bags of chips and ate them in secret in the car. So there WERE sweets around...I just didn't see 'em.

Now, as a grown up, I cook pretty much the same way and keep the same foods out of the house. If there's a Little Debby type thing or more than a single bag of tortilla chips in the pantry then we're going camping or something.

DH grew up in the late '80s but was fed on traditional foods his early years. Until he was a teen he didn't have sweets ad even then it was an occasional snickers bar...not the really crappy stuff. To this day he doesn't like sweets. When he does get the rare sweet tooth he wants a homemade oatmeal cookie or two small scoops of ice cream.


----------



## littleaugustbaby (Jun 27, 2003)

I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.


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## WaitingForKiddos (Nov 30, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spero* 
My mother still has the giant microwave Dad bought her in the early 80s - it has a dial instead of pushbuttons. I remember trying all sorts of experimental cooking in it, and the cake we tried caught on fire.









Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?


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## Dreaming (Feb 8, 2004)

I was born in '77 and remember back pretty early.
We ate a LOT of Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, Macaroni and Cheese,Pot Pies and T.v. dinners.
Always frozen or canned veggies. I will only eat fresh now and I HATE frozen broccoli with all of it's nasty bitterness HOW does anyone eat that stuff??

We had a ton of sugar cereals. I lived off of Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles et al yet rarely ate breakfast (figure that one out).
Our pantry was full to the top with Little Debbie snacks and Doritios and flavored crackers.

We ate at McDonald's once a week. My mom was single and worked a LOT.
She did bake cookies once a month but everything else I made and it came from a box.

I was left to make my own lunch by first grade so I'd put a few slices of processed meat on white bread and maybe mayo if I had time. Threw in a Swiss Cake Roll and maybe some chips.
We usually only had apples as the only fresh fruit or veggie at our house but I rarely ate them.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *littleaugustbaby* 
I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.









: AND I miss the Jell-O gelatin frozen pops! They were SOOOOOO good.

The pudding pops are way smaller than they used to be ... and WTH happened to Bomb Pops??????? They renamed them, they're 1/2 the size, and they taste different.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *WaitingForKiddos* 
Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?

Hell, yeahuh! My kids just made microwave s'mores the other night!


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## jempd (Feb 27, 2002)

I'm older than most of you, I suspect, so I grew up when there weren't even many fast food restaurants and way less packed convenient foods. Still there were Twinkies, Hostess treats etc. My parents were way crunchy for the time (help start the food coop where we lived, soda and most candy and junky food was forbidden to cross the threshhold) and in fact my father was a bit extreme about it and still is--I think it's funny that all those years ago he used to rant about over processed foods and here we are today with the slow food movement etc. He regarded drinking Coke as being close to an evil act, which is why my sisters and I regarded such foods as forbidden fruit and went out of our way to try them. My mother happens to be an excellent cook of the Julia Child/James Beard variety so I also grew up knowing how good a lot of food can taste and that definitely shaped what is my approach to food today--which is to say I adore food and am quite serious about it, feel that several ethnic cuisines, Indian, Chinese, etc, are true arts. I'm grateful that my parents had us eat a variety of fresh, good, well-prepared stuff; we ate seafood, homemade bread, all fruits and vegetables without exception, and so on. On the other hand I can see now that my parents were just snobs in a lot of ways in terms of food and I don't let it stop me from enjoying the occasional coke and fried food, potato chips, etc. My attitude today toward things they come up with--cereal straws?!--is disbelief. It's like a neverending avalanche of foods that aren't quite foods that they continue to market to kids and it's a little scary. I try to walk the line with ds of not being over-zealous and at the same time refusing to cave into the relentless marketing and availability of the most extreme examples (cereal straws being one of them imo).


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## fireant (Jan 10, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iowaorganic* 
I was born in 80- but geez- we sure didn't get crap until the 90s. Mom and Dad raised hogs

Sorry to derail but I read that as "Mom and Dad raised hot dogs"

I got to picture:

1. a hot dog tree
2. a field of hot dogs growing not unlike a cabbage patch

I then came to my senses and pictured:

1. animals being raised solely for hot dog ingredients
2. small children stuffing hot dog casings with random meat

If only veggie dogs grew from trees.


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## Dreaming (Feb 8, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fireant* 
Sorry to derail but I read that as "Mom and Dad raised hot dogs"

I got to picture:

1. a hot dog tree
2. a field of hot dogs growing not unlike a cabbage patch

I then came to my senses and pictured:

1. animals being raised solely for hot dog ingredients
2. small children stuffing hot dog casings with random meat

If only veggie dogs grew from trees.

OMG!! Hot dogs!
I totally forgot about that meat staple!
Hot dogs cut up into mac and cheese.
Nothing there from a tree.


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## Marcee (Jan 23, 2007)

I was born in 75. The first half of the 80's my mom was a single working mom so we ate lots of conv. foods like pot pies and premade chicken cor don bleu. Junk food was not bought often. We ate school lunches. Then she remarried in the mid 80's and we started raising our own meat. So then we had Meat, Potato/rice, and veggies (except for on Friday, which we always had spaghetti or goulash) for every dinner. Lunch at home was always a sandwich on wheat bread. Snacks were always cheese or fruit. Oh and we ALWAYS ate liver and onions once a week.... yuck.

My mom always made us eat hot ceral in the winter and never allowed cold unless it was late spring and summer. Hot cereal was served with milk butter and no more than a tsp of sugar. Yuck. Junk cereal was not allowed unless you bought it yourself. I saved up my allowance so I could buy Cookie Crisp.


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## aniT (Jun 16, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DaughterOfKali* 
I grew up in the late 60's-70's.
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.
She made mac & cheese casseroles but the top was always hard and the inside was all dry. Gross.

OMG, how could I forget the creamed tuna on toast. Or tuna in mac and cheese called tuna casserole. Or hot dogs or spam in mac and cheese. (boxed mac and cheese mind you.) Ewww..


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## Pancakes (Jan 22, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *WaitingForKiddos* 
Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?

I had no idea, and had I not just cleaned out the microwave I probably would have to test that out.


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## GooeyRN (Apr 24, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *littleaugustbaby* 
I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.

Yes! They were a huge treat at our house. Our old dog went purely nuts for them.

My mom sent me to school with a metal lunch can and thermos.


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## IntuitiveJamie (Jun 24, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ikesmom* 
I vaguely remember my dad eating crackers called "Chicken n a Biscuit"









Cheese in a can blech!

We liked ravioli in a can..which I can't stand the smell of now lol

Those little cracker and cheese boxes that you spread on with a red stick...my kids like em now









I never ate Malto Meal but the commercials were on T.V a lot. This is later than the one I remember which had a little boy looking at his belly button and a voice over of "Walter this is your tummy speaking"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtiritKccM .


Be prepared to fall out here...
I currently have Chicken in a biscuit crackers in my cupboard right now!! Dh loves them and quite frankly I think they are tasty too. They are considered a treat though.


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## velochic (May 13, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DaughterOfKali* 
I couldn't stand the stuff my mother made/bought.

I grew up in the late 60's-70's.
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.
She made mac & cheese casseroles but the top was always hard and the inside was all dry. Gross.

I remember a lot of hamburger stuff (sloppy joes; hamburgers; pasta with meat sauce). I never liked meat so I wasn't happy.

I think we at a lot of meat (I hardly ever ate mine and battles were horrible). Potatoes were almost a daily staple.

I liked veggies (except brussel sprouts) so that doesn't stand out in my mind.

We didn't have snacks very often. My mother used to make desserts but they were highly disappointing.

I was scrawny when I was very young but once I was able to go to school (where they had junk food for sale), I gained too much weight. Overcompensating for not having the occasional junk food at home.

I could have written this post almost word for word, except I still had "my baby fat" into the early 70's when convenience food became *really* popular for the harried housewife.

My mother simply doesn't know good food. She smoked for 55 years (quit last year) and has no taste at all. I don't think she even knew that the food she made for us tasted disgusting.

We ate a lot of sauerkraut and weenies, sloppy joes, hamburger helper, steak (charred beyond recognition... I now eat my steak medium rare), CHEF BOYARDEE SPAGHETTI IN A BOX!!! (us kids would fight over the little can of parmesan cheese that was in it). A lot of what others have said ring bells, too, but I'm still so traumatized by my early culinary exposure that I'd rather not dig too deep.

ETA: One thing I REALLY miss is Coca-cola in the 16 oz. returnable bottles and getting a real, mixed before your eyes, soda pop from the soda jerk at the drug store counter


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## captain crunchy (Mar 29, 2005)

I was born in '77 and my mom was a single mom of 4 with no financial support from dad -- we ate junk -- my mom is an okay cook but she doesn't enjoy it at all so it was usually things like tuna casserole and the like. A lot of tv dinners, hamburger helper and whatnot. They were touted as healthy back then so I think my mom thought she was doing something good. We got free hot lunch at school in styrofoam containers and I can *still* remember the smell. Sometimes dh and I are out somewhere and I will randomly say, "it smells like free hot lunch right...... ... now"









I remember the random packed lunch (when I would go to gifted class 2 days a week) which would consist of something like a cheese and mayo sandwich on white bread with a little debbie nutty bar and one of those little plastic drink things that are shaped like a barrel with a foil top (pure sugar!)

We went to my grandmom's a lot who, (bless her soul) was our only source of healthy, non-processed food. Don't get me wrong, at home we had fresh fruit and (sometimes fresh) vegetables and whatnot but mostly it was prepared in the worst way healthwise! You know, canned or frozen vegetables boiled until mushy









My grandmom on the other hand, made homemade soap with giblet/bone broth and fresh veggies, homemade meatloaf with lots of veggies etc, homemade apple pies with apples from her apple trees and a homemade crust, holiday dinners with lots of fresh and wonderfully prepared foods --

-- although we had our share of junk at grandmom's too -- kool aid where you had to add the sugar in a big huge white *whoosh* into the plastic container, frosted flakes in front of the tv for breakfast, and boxed cakes made in rectangular pans with canned frosting.

When we moved to FL (I was about 11) we moved up in "class" status so everyone at school had the insulated lunch bags with the individual sized chips/little debbie/junk in its *own* wrapper (no big bags that mom ziplocked into smaller portions!). We had soda machines and snack machines in the lunchroom (unheard of before that!!).


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *GooeyRN* 
My mom sent me to school with a metal lunch can and thermos.

I still have my first (industrial green) metal lunchbox, my metal HeeHaw lunchbox (which has been the "crayon box" for about 34 years at my mom's house), and my metal Peanuts lunchbox (with plastic Thermos).

Not my Apple's Way lunchbox, though. I don't know whatever happened to that gem.









Remember the little metal arm that kept the Thermos in place?

Our high school has a self-serve Slushie machine and lattes - along with vending machines for candy/snacks, soda, and ice cream.







ARGH.


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## GuildJenn (Jan 10, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *aniT* 
In the 70's I remember TV dinners with aluminum trays and hot dogs a lot. In the 80's I remember fried spam and hamburger helper. Soda and potato chips were often in the house and a freezer full of "treats" my mom locked. My brother figured out how to "break into" the freezer and get them out however. All veggies came out of a can and is probably the #1 reason I hate most of them. (I have learned to like some fresh veggies.)

My mom was a single mom and my dad refused to pay child support and took off with all the money when they divorced in '73 so maybe TV dinners and hot dogs were cheap. The fried spam and hamburger helper came later, after my mom remarried. She just doesn't like to cook.

This describes a lot of my experience.







And canned ravioli, and kraft dinner mixed with tuna and peas.

ETA: I wanted to add that at that time (mid-70s) a lot of mums were returning to work of some kind, or taking classes, or just getting their consciousnesses raised.

Having convenience food was a big part of the experience because the point was that the mothers didn't "have to cook" (never mind that boiling pasta is boiling pasta). And part of them going back to work was having more money to do so. My mother started working briefly in about 1980 or 81 and it was definitely a big part of the convenience cooking.

I think a lot depends on class and location. We lived in a big city and that drove a lot of it. I definitely had a sense of cost (in some years we were house-poor) but the norm was that you'd get twinkies in your lunch now and then, or money for chips from the cafeteria.

My mother alternated this with the carob and make your own bread years herself. It was a strange time.


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## Viola (Feb 1, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I
Tell me about your pre-1980's food experiences, your parents shopping and your snacks, the economy back then- anything that comes to mind. I don't have specific question, just want a feel for that period of time.

In the late 70's, coffee was very expensive for a short time. I remember getting a rabbit for Easter in the late 70's, and my mother brought them home in coffee cans. The rabbits cost $5 each, and my mother joked that was cheaper than a can of coffee would cost.

As a young child, I remember having to eat stuff I hated, like beef roast and mashed potatoes. To this day I hate mashed potatoes. We also ate potted meat sandwiches, vienna sausages, peanut butter & banana, peanut butter & butter, peanut butter & jam. And Spaghettios. I remember the first time we got Chef-Boy-R-Dee in a can. We loved it. We ate stuff like that off and on throughout the years. We did have Ho-Hos and Twinkies occasionally. My dad always had some sort of candy on hand, stuff like gelled orange slices, circus peanuts or mini Three Musketeers bars. I never much cared for any of those, although I do remember eating them at times.

I loved bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, but I learned that I loved tomato sandwiches too, and I started making them myself when I was around 8.

My parents used to get pizza from a local pizza place. I hated pizza. I'd also get pizza in my hot lunch at school. I didn't like that either. It wasn't until I hit a certain age and saw pizza with pepperoni and mozzarella that I realized I liked pizza. But usually when we had pizza, it was Totino's supreme, frozen, and I'd have to pick off all the green peppers. I didn't eat delivery pizza until I was in college, and then we started having it at home too.

I remember when milk hit over $2 a gallon. It was $2.07 and it just seemed crazy to us, but the price did go back down after that.

We got our first microwave in 1976, but then when we moved out of that house, we didn't have another one for many years. It was after I came home from college. That was when we got a VCR too.

There were certain foods I never ate growing up, like Chinese food or bagels. And then there are foods I haven't really eaten since I have grown up, like Scrapple, scalloped oysters, cream chipped beef on toast and bacon gravy on pancakes.

I have such a hard time cooking for my own children, and I try and remember what we ate growing up. Not that I want to duplicate it, but I'm wondering how my parents did it. My dad usually had a garden, so we had fresh vegetables in summer. We ate a lot of tomatoes, green beans, peas and cucumbers. Green peppers, which I despised. My mom would make stuffed green peppers, and the taste of the pepper would contaminate the meat. Sometimes she'd make beef roast (which I hated), meat loaf, pork roast with sauerkraut, which I liked but wasn't common. Pork was expensive, as I recall, although we did have pork chops. My dad would make stuff like corned beef hash or just plain scalloped potatoes. I think we had a lot of that during the financially challenging times. He also made chicken and dumplings frequently, or just roast chicken. He'd also eat a lot of oysters or things like fried, breaded chicken livers. My mom wouldn't eat seafood or organ meats, however.

We would have crab when she was out of the house, and then we'd spray every surface with Lysol afterwards, or she'd complain about the smell. I remember getting a bushel of steamed crabs on a number of occasions. As we got older, it seemed like stuff we could fix ourselves. Boxed mac & cheese, frozen pizzas, hotdogs (I never really cared for them, but I'd eat them), coldcut sandwiches.


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

I just remembered the one snack food that did make it to school a fair bit. Potato chips. Lots of kids had the little bags of potato chips. We didn't get those, but my parents did buy an occasional big bag of "Nalley's 100%" potato chips when they first came out. I loved them - better than anything available today, imo.

We got lots of crap at my grandmother's house, but we didn't have it at home. My bff and I were talking about this recently. We didn't know _anybody_ who actually kept pop in the house (it was around for special occasions only), but it seems as though almost everyone does so now. I'm not sure when that changed.


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## Dmitrizmom (Nov 11, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Dreaming* 
OMG!! Hot dogs!
I totally forgot about that meat staple!
Hot dogs cut up into mac and cheese.
Nothing there from a tree.










we did them sliced into Van de Camps pork&beans. .. loved that at the time, now there's no way I'd touch that. ewww.


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## marybethorama (Jun 9, 2005)

I remember eating a mix of homemade and processed stuff.

Like Drake's

I am soooo tempted

We did eat a lot of vegetables from the garden but often we'd have hot dogs with them. We also ate a lot of things like "American Chop Suey" etc,


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## Storm Bride (Mar 2, 2005)

We almost never ate hot dogs, because my mom hated them.

We did eat a lot of ground beef...Salisbury steaks, shepherd's pie, hamburger chop-chop (strange name for that particular dish - sort of a soupy thing on noodles, with bok choy), occasional meat loaf, burgers, etc.


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## beanma (Jan 6, 2002)

Junk has been around for a long time. I think it had a huge growth spurt in the post-war prosperity of the 50s and we've been supersizing ever since. Of course some of it like soft drinks had been around much longer than that. I've been around longer than most of y'all posting on this thread. I'm 44. I remember black and white TV (*gasp*), vinyl records (45s, LPs, and even 78s and why oh why did our record player go to 16?) and plenty of Ho-Hos and Charles Chips and Koolaid, etc. I would like to add that I am a native Southerner and we're known for our sweet tooth (teeth?).

Anybody remember the Alka-Seltzer ads? "I can't believe I ate the WHOOOOOLE THING?!"

Here's a silly trivia quiz on junk food for your amusement: http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz88266a1d3b8.html .

(Lavender, my dad loved liver pudding/mush, but I could never go there...)


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *beanma* 
Anybody remember the Alka-Seltzer ads? "I can't believe I ate the WHOOOOOLE THING?!"









I remember that.

One day, our school bus was waiting for a family of five kids who were running waayyy late - they lived at the top of this steep driveway and it was snowy/icy. One of the boys came running, slipped and fell, and went catapulting down the driveway - his books and papers flying in twenty different directions. And the bus driver opened the door and wryly commented to the poor kid lying there at the bottom of the driveway,

"I can't believe you dropped the WHOOOOOLE THING!"

Everyone on the bus burst out laughing.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

To the person who brought up Tang. I forgot about that stuff.
If my memory is correct, I think that it was presented to us as a "healthy drink" lol. Maybe because it had vitamin C added or something lol.
And yes. I do remember the metal flip thing that held our thermos in the lunch box! When you wrote that my heart skipped a beat.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

I seem to remember sneaking vodka-infused Tang into the art storeroom (I had special permission to hang out there and work on my own projects) at school once.







: I was a baaaaaaad girl.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spero* 
I seem to remember sneaking vodka-infused Tang into the art storeroom (I had special permission to hang out there and work on my own projects) at school once.







: I was a baaaaaaad girl.

The good old days.
I used to make out with boys in the bandroom.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

I wasn't making out with anyone in HS.









Which is probably why I was slugging contraband Tang alone in the art storeroom.


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## sagewinna (Nov 19, 2001)

I was born in 1968. I grew up on Kool-aid, Betty Crocker, Home Run Pies, and casseroles out of the Mc Call's Magazine.

Kelbasa Casserole, Beefy Bean Bake, Hamburger Pie, steak in the crockpot (cream of mushroom soup), chicken in the crockpot (cream of celery soup), tuna casserole, etc.

Everything was based on boxes and cans. My mom stayed at home.

Lunch was a sandwich(white bread), chips and dessert. Once in a while there was an apple in there.

No wonder I was constipated as a child!


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## Baby Makes 4 (Feb 18, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spero* 
60s/70s Candy

There are so many things on this site that I am dying to order but the shipping to Canada is ridiculous.

Bottle Caps
Rainblo gum
Nik-L-Nips (those wax bottles with juice in them)
Lemonheads


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Baby Makes 4* 
There are so many things on this site that I am dying to order.

Bottle Caps
Rainblo gum
Nik-L-Nips (those wax bottles with juice in them)

I loved/hated those wax bottles lol.


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell's Tomato soup were another staple in our house.







My mom ALWAYS made the soup with milk - I thought that's how it was done, until I married DH and he was like, "Yuck, what's in the tomato soup?!?!?!?" I hate it with just water added, so I do 3 parts water & 1 part milk.

And Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup ...







omigosh I still adore that stuff to this day ... every once in a great while I buy a can for myself and enjoy it for lunch.

And then there were the times my parents temporarily went on a diet and we were guinea pigs for all the "diet" fads of the day ... iceberg salads, cabbage and carrot soup, and a literal ton of cottage cheese (with fresh chives from the back yard). Plus this strange stewed chicken thing that involved tomato sauce and a can of diet coke.









My aunt worked for Ellsworth (a local ice cream distributor), so we got all sorts of frozen treats at cost. I remember when Nestle Crunch ice cream bars first came out - and we had them before the stores did!

I didn't like char-grilled foods when I was a kid, except for one. When we had parties, my dad grilled breakfast sausages and we ate them in those buttery finger rolls you get at a real bakery ... those things were absolute heaven on earth (and they go perfectly with ice cold beer!). Soooooooooo good.


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## applecider (Jul 16, 2005)

I was born in 1978, grew up with a single working mom. I think she was on the forefront of nutrition back then, which is funny because she's still the same way, ie. hasn't progressed much!

For breakfast we would eat things like oatmeal or cereal (but NEVER the sugary stuff, oh no, that wasn't allowed) Always had to have some kind of fruit for breakfast. Sometimes she would put wheat germ on stuff.

For lunches (she packed my lunch through high school!) we usually had a sandwich on whole wheat bread, fruit, maybe crackers and if we were lucky a homemade cookie. But nothing ever was packaged. I definitely had the snack pack envy! Then for a drink, we had juice in a tupperware cup with a lid. I remember that thing would always leak somewhere.

I also remember thinking that hot lunches looked disgusting! Mushy veggies and weird looking casseroles.

For some reason I don't remember dinners much but I think we usually always had a fresh veggie of some sort, meat or fish and maybe potatoes or something like that. We didn't get dessert.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fireant* 
My mom used to (and still does) make this meal my sister and I call "stuff". It's a strange version of "sh*t on a shingle". You know, creamy meat with a veggie mixture on a slice of toast. In my mom's version, it was a lot of random ingredients from the cupboard or fridge...sometimes with noodles instead of toast.

Oh, we used to have the Sh** on a Shingle! Cream of something soup with cut up cheapo lunchmeat over toast. Very interesting!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fireant* 
I remember the first microwave we had was giant and I can also remember my first step-mom cooking a chicken in the microwave.

I don't think we got our first microwave till at least '84 or something, because I can remember when we got it!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *takebirthback* 
Be prepared to fall out here...
I currently have Chicken in a biscuit crackers in my cupboard right now!! Dh loves them and quite frankly I think they are tasty too. They are considered a treat though.









Chicken n' a biscuit, those were a rare treat!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *velochic* 
We ate a lot of sauerkraut and weenies, sloppy joes, hamburger helper, steak (charred beyond recognition... I now eat my steak medium rare), CHEF BOYARDEE SPAGHETTI IN A BOX!!!

Oh, these are the same things that MIL cooks to this day. She also smoked for well over 30 years. I wonder if that's why she still cooks this stuff? I can't stand it. EVERYTHING has ground beef in it.

As far as going out to eat, we pretty much never did, maybe with my Dad and Stepmom or my Aunt and Uncle would take us out to eat sometimes. The only time we ever bought food out was maybe once every few months or so and we would go to Burger King or Dairy Queen. That was a REAL treat.

I do remember penny candy, sour patch kids and chic-o-sticks! And those wax things with juice? I remember thinking ew, but how interesting at the same time!


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

I know. Like were we really supposed to EAT the bottle part lol. And if we weren't....I think I'm going to anyway.


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## AppleCrisp (Aug 19, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I'm really interested in why both Dh and I thought Zingers were so expensive- to the point that we wouldn't even ask our parents to buy them. Were they fifty cents a box, two bucks? And how would that be wrong to ask your parents for. What the hell was going on back then?

I remember Zingers. And I wanted them bad, but they were too expensive also for us. Also these things called "Kudos" - like little candy bars. I desperately wanted them in my lunch but they were totally out of the question. I think I actually cried and yelled at my mom over them. I remember getting mostly sandwiches and maybe one or two cookies. I'm pretty sure my parents bought realy cheap cuts of meat, and cheap sides like frozen bags of vegetables and potatoes for meals. We didn't buy lots of snacks at all, and almost nothing name-brand. Store brand was it or nothing.


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## enkmom (Aug 30, 2004)

We got Zingers very, very occasionally, if they had them at the bakery thrift store. My mom thought that all processed treats were expensive, when she could make it herself. The only exception I remember is Oreos, and if she could have made them herself, she would have. We bought Oreos maybe once every other month, and they were strictly rationed.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

OMG. Enkmom, your post made me remember something super funny.
My mom, as I said, wouldn't buy the prepackaged snacks until after I was in a certain grade.
Anyhoo.
Brace yourself.
One time she made her own twinkies from scratch.









They didn't really turn out, as you can imagine. But it was fun to be able to stick my hand in an entire bowl of creamy filling and really get my fill of that stuff.







: Anyway. I totally remember her being like "those are too expensive. We can make our own." Even as a kid I was like "hmmm."


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## enkmom (Aug 30, 2004)

Yep, sounds like my mom. I didn't taste Kraft macaroni & cheese until I moved out and "cooked" for myself. She would try every single "make your own groceries" recipe she could. She did find a twinkie cake recipe that wasn't too bad, but the cake was not as spongy as a real twinkie.


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## stickywicket67 (Jan 23, 2007)

my mom never bought "junk". she would make cookies for us or wheatgerm chewies. (ugh!)

definitely no Kool Aid, Hostess, soda or any snacks like that. watered down juice, milk or water. fresh fruit, peanut butter on celery or apples. cheese but with crackers, bread, or fruit. eating cheese on it's own was just rude and over the top we could have it w/ something else







those were snacks. we never ate family style. my mom portioned out the meals. we had a huge garden and belonged to a food co-op.

we rarely went out to eat. like never. maybe if we were on a road trip- McD's or if it was too hot or mom was too tired to cook and that was not very often.

we got to pick one box of cereal a week when we went to the reg. grocery store- Cheerios, Kix, Shredded Wheat. we also could have oatmeal, eggs or cream of wheat for breakfast. so sugar-y cereals ever. too $$ for junk.

i never ate steak as a kid. even now my mom thinks it's extravagant.
chicken alot. "365 ways with chicken" my bro and i used to say. never dessert. maybe a little ice cream later in the evening.

my family was frugal. and my mom was a big advocate for whole foods and eating healthily. no canned veggies. no packaged food.

$2 back then for Zingers was spendy. i remember when milk was like $1.65 gallon and that was for a whole gallon! eggs were under a dollar. you could make dozens of cookies for much much less than a box of Zingers.

we took lunch- sandwiches or yogurt an apple or a banana. when i was in elementary school once a week we could get an ice cream bar- i liked Orange Combos. they were 20 cents.

my brother and i weren't allowed to watch a lot of tv so we didn't really get inundated with the commercials or the want for packaged food. we were pretty brainwashed my my mom too to call out the junk!

my mom was also a SAHM for a long time and we would help out with cooking etc. life wasn't as busy as it feels now. more time for homemaking things like cooking and baking.

i think that's a lot of the reason people eat out so much and buy prepackaged foods- everyone works all the time. it's quick and comparatively cheap when you factor in time for preparing and clean up.

people also earn more now but spend more time at work. at my first real job when i was 20 i had a much higher salary than my dad did when i was 15! that blew me away. he was a dad with a family and that had only been 5 years before. i was also expected to worked waaaayy more hours.


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## stickywicket67 (Jan 23, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I'm really interested in why both Dh and I thought Zingers were so expensive- to the point that we wouldn't even ask our parents to buy them. Were they fifty cents a box, two bucks? *And how would that be wrong to ask your parents for. What the hell was going on back then?*

i've thought about this before too ... i remember wanting a new pair of pants. they were like $8.99. i was 11. this was in 1978. i put them back on the rack and didn't ask because i knew my mom would think they were too expensive and i didn't really need them.

i think kids back then witnessed their parents struggle and scrape by.
my parents never used credit cards. it just wasn't done. it was much more about saving and not being in debt. living w/in your means. parents weren't so into protecting their kids from the realities of their economy. in our community everyone's family struggled. i didn't know anyone who was really really rich.

then the 80's hit and the culture was all about stuff and more, more, more, by any means necessary- credit card debt, more hours at work, work hard/ play hard. less time for a family life combined with huge imbalances between the haves and have nots. it created a big shift in our culture. people protected their kids from being the "have- nots". it's became acceptable for kids to ask for stuff and expect it.

i have a 2 sisters one born in '76 who was born in '85 they had a much different childhood than my brother (b.1970) and i did (b.1967).


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## FoxintheSnow (May 11, 2004)

Anyone remember devil dogs? Or those skinny pretzel sticks that came in a little yellow box?

My dad is a vegetarian and a health nut so on his weekends dinner was always veggie chili or falafel or this weird tofu egg thing. Back then I hated it and loved eating junk food at friends' houses. Now thats the sort of things I make for dinner lol.
I remember going with him to the health food store back then. In those days, it was teeny tiny.


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## KaraBoo (Nov 22, 2001)

We had some land when I was a baby, before my dad died. We had goats when I was an infant on up til I was about 4. So I had goat's milk, garden veggies, fresh eggs, fresh chicken (my mom would just go out and kill a chicken and pluck it for dinner!)...We were still very poor, though.

When my dad died, we moved into the city and lived on government funds. My older (out of the house) brothers would fish and hunt deer and bring us meat. I had no illusions about where meat came from growing up! I saw Bambi laid out on a table and butchered. I remember also at that time eating a lot of canned foods. When my mom got her "check," I'd come home from school and eat the same thing each month: chocolate milk, dill pickles, Chef Boyardee and a bologna sandwich. We'd often go without food those last few days before the check arrived and all those foods were my favorites.

As a teen, I remember eating a lot of turkey necks and rice, Stove-top (I could make that myself. LOL), bagels and cream cheese, fish (again, from my older brothers) and again, Chef Boyardee.

I didn't get McDonald's or restaurant food often. Too poor for that! I remember going out for pizza after church sometimes, though. Always in a group so, thinking back, someone probably paid for our portion.

All this talk about foods we all ate growing up, how much do you think that has affected your adult health? I know being poor greatly affected my eating habits but what about the actual food?


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## SevenVeils (Aug 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
I'm 34, are you my age?

What? I thought you were 27 for some reason.

more lameness I'm sure.


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## SevenVeils (Aug 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **clementine** 
OMG. Enkmom, your post made me remember something super funny.
My mom, as I said, wouldn't buy the prepackaged snacks until after I was in a certain grade.
Anyhoo.
Brace yourself.
One time she made her own twinkies from scratch.









They didn't really turn out, as you can imagine. But it was fun to be able to stick my hand in an entire bowl of creamy filling and really get my fill of that stuff.







: Anyway. I totally remember her being like "those are too expensive. We can make our own." Even as a kid I was like "hmmm."









When my oldest three were littles, in fact I think I was pregnant with the third, I got bored and tried to make Cheerios. Just to see if I could.


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## *clementine* (Oct 15, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SevenVeils* 
What? I thought you were 27 for some reason.

more lameness I'm sure.

Weird.


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## choli (Jun 20, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *stickywicket67* 
i've thought about this before too ... i remember wanting a new pair of pants. they were like $8.99. i was 11. this was in 1978. i put them back on the rack and didn't ask because i knew my mom would think they were too expensive and i didn't really need them.

i think kids back then witnessed their parents struggle and scrape by.
my parents never used credit cards. it just wasn't done. it was much more about saving and not being in debt. living w/in your means. parents weren't so into protecting their kids from the realities of their economy. in our community everyone's family struggled. i didn't know anyone who was really really rich.

then the 80's hit and the culture was all about stuff and more, more, more, by any means necessary- credit card debt, more hours at work, work hard/ play hard. less time for a family life combined with huge imbalances between the haves and have nots. it created a big shift in our culture. people protected their kids from being the "have- nots". it's became acceptable for kids to ask for stuff and expect it.

i have a 2 sisters one born in '76 who was born in '85 they had a much different childhood than my brother (b.1970) and i did (b.1967).

This is SO true. I was born in 1962. We weren't really poor then - we were later, after my father died. But even before that, we didn't ask for stuff, we were aware that money was needed for necessities. You got what you got, food wise and clothes wise and didn't complain. You got toys for Christmas and your birthday, not just because you wanted them and asked for them.

My mother rarely needed to "declutter"


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## princesstutu (Jul 17, 2007)

We weren't rich, but we still only got snack cakes on the rare occassion (think school field trip). I was born in the mid-70s.

My mom cooked almost every day. We took our lunches to school. Not much different than how I do with my kids. Except my mom cooked healthier, on the whole. Lots of liver, fried chicken, etc. meals. I tend toward too much pasta, I think.

We ate a lot more candy, tho. I would never let my kids eat as much candy as my mom let me eat. I loooooved candy/gum cigarettes. "Smoked" them incessantly.


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## Daffodil (Aug 30, 2003)

The idea that junk food didn't really become popular until the 80's seems strange to me. I was born in 1962, DP was born in 1955, and we've often commented on how strangely willing to buy processed, non-nutritious crap all the parents were when we were kids. My mom bought whatever sugary breakfast cereals we wanted. (My favorite was Life, though.) My usual elementary school lunch was a fluffernutter, often with a Ding-Dong or Ho-Ho for dessert. I drank Hi-C grape drink with every meal. My siblings were fond of Tang and Kool-Aid. We ate white bread, pre-wrapped American cheese slices, margarine, Spaghetti-O's, etc.

My family lived in the suburbs of big cities, and we ate at fast food places pretty often. But DP grew up in small-town upstate NY, and the first McDonald's didn't come to his area until he was in high school, so he almost never had fast food as a kid. I absolutely loved Kentucky Fried Chicken. Man, it used to be SO GOOD! I'd love to know whether it's changed a lot over the years, or whether it's just my tastes that have changed.


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## princesstutu (Jul 17, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Daffodil* 
I absolutely loved Kentucky Fried Chicken. Man, it used to be SO GOOD! I'd love to know whether it's changed a lot over the years, or whether it's just my tastes that have changed.

It's not your tastes. It just doesn't taste as good as it used to. I, too, was a KFC chick. Didn't much care for McD or BK.

I liked Arby's and Hardee's, tho. When I was growing up, fast food was something you ate either on Sundays (b/c it was a day of rest) or when on the road traveling. For us kids, anyway. My dad was at Hardee's daily (for coffee, at least). I fondly remember the Smurfs and Care Bears glasses they had.


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## AppleCrisp (Aug 19, 2005)

Didn't the current nutrition content labels on food become standardized about 15 years ago? I remember when they adopted the current format, but I don't remember what they were like before that....what information was provided and in what format. I don't think my mom ever looked at them, but I don't remember if the lablels were useful back then.


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## Think of Winter (Jun 10, 2004)

Today we start our vacation week. I just got back from the grocery store, where I spent $96 on junk, aka vacation food from my childhood. Don't flame me. I know this isn't exactly healthy eating, but it's probably still better than eating out (which I'm also hoping to do a lot of







.)
-potato sticks in the single serve can
-cheezits
-the 'real' animal crackers in a box w/ a string ($1.50 per box!!!)
-single-serve sugar cereal
-can of cinnamon buns
-2 boxes of muffin mix
-hot dogs
-family size bag of potato chips
-bacon
-a pint of Ben & Jerry's
-ice cream cones
-pretzels







:


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## Think of Winter (Jun 10, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AppleCrisp* 
Didn't the current nutrition content labels on food become standardized about 15 years ago? I remember when they adopted the current format, but I don't remember what they were like before that....what information was provided and in what format. I don't think my mom ever looked at them, but I don't remember if the lablels were useful back then.

There was a list of ingredients, but that was it. It was really hard being diabetic and having to take a wild guess about what was in stuff.


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## avivaelona (Jun 24, 2005)

there usually was a list of ingredients, the calories on some things, and the cereal boxes had the vitamins they had in them listed.

Quote:

I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.
Yes! I remember when the taste changed, and we stopped buying them. I think maybe there was crack in the old ones though because I could NOT stop eating them.

I was born in 67 and I remember eating just as much junk as is available now honestly. It wasn't always as brightly colored or cleverly packaged, or insistantly advertised, but it was the same junk. Pop tarts for breakfast, devil dogs (yes I remember them) for snacks, sugary cereal. My mom put her foot down about marshmallow cereals, but my grandmother would buy them for us when we stayed with her. I think that is funny that was the line my mom wouldn't cross because basically everything we ate was full of sugar. We didn't get soda pop at the house but we drank it with every meal when we were out and drank juice for every meal at home.

We weren't poor but were really tight for a while when I was a kid when we moved and our other house didn't sell for over a year. We ate lots of franks and beans and boxed mac and cheese but we were still drinking expensive juice at every meal. I think my mom thought that was nutrition. I didn't know if I liked vegetables or not until I got to college, my parents never cooked veggies except occasional canned peas and they had iceberg lettuce salads. The only place I ever had veggies otherwise was at chinese restaurants. Even when I started shopping and cooking for myself in my teens I really had no idea what to buy or how to cook them. (really, I didn't even know you could just steam broccoli) . My mom used to cook pineapple chicken, meat balls, chef boyardee pizza in a box was a real treat, Kraft mac and cheese...


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## AppleCrisp (Aug 19, 2005)

However, I think HFCS didn't start getting into everything until the 1980s, right? So most of the junk before that was actual sugar. I don't know if that makes a difference or not as far as eating that much junk then as compared to now. And now there is HFCS in pretty much everything, not just snacks, so you get a lot more now, as compared to then, I would think?


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## rayo de sol (Sep 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *jempd* 
My parents were way crunchy for the time (help start the food coop where we lived, soda and most candy and junky food was forbidden to cross the threshhold) and in fact my father was a bit extreme about it and still is--

My mother was like your parents, into the hippy/macrobiotic movement of the time. She was VERY extreme about food. I grew up in the 1970s and '80s, and I was fed way too many whole grains to the exclusion of almost everything else. We were practically raised vegan in that very few animal products were in our diet. Meals were grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, and nuts, but mostly grains.

Breakfast was oatmeal, whole wheat berries, or some other whole grain hot cereal. Lunch was peanut butter on homemade heavy-duty ww bread. Supper was brown rice with a side of tofu. An occasional treat was OJ with nutritional yeast stirred into it, homemade carob cookies, popcorn with blackstrap molasses on it, watered-down apple juice, or a glass of soy milk.

It sucked. We weren't fed nearly enough fat or protein. We craved butter, cheese, and meats.

Anything sugary or sweet or packaged was completely forbidden. I was so envious of the other kids at school who had fluffernutter sandwhiches on that fluffy white bread for lunch. I wanted Kool-Aid so badly. When I went to friends' houses, I was overjoyed to partake of Tang, Fruity Pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Rice Krispy treats, hot cocoa with marshmallows, soda, candy, Cheez-its, chips, cheese-filled Combos, Doritos, Twinkies, Hershey's Kisses, Snickers, Double Stuff Oreos, pizza, and hot dogs. I had this friend at school who took pity on me and shared her Kudos bars and Capri Suns with me.

To her credit, my mom meant well, and she always cooked everything from scratch. But I'll never understand why the health food nuts of that era thought that whole grains were some sort of panacea.


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## audsma (Apr 21, 2005)

I'm 35, and remember having lunch box envy as early as Kindergarten. I was caught by my dad (a teacher at my elementary school) throwing my lunch away so I could get a 2nd hot lunch that month. Oh the wrath!

My mom made everything from scratch, aside from the boxes of Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Shredded Wheat Cereal and our sugariest cereal we were permitted was Life. We always had to have fruit, mainly bananas, on our cereal, however.

When we were young (still in the 70's) my mom would only feed us carob products, so we didn't really like chocolate, but when I caught her with her secret stash of Milky Ways, I knew that her standards for us and her were different.

We went through a lot of phases-- no dairy, no wheat, no red meat, so our diets changed a lot. One constant influence, however, was the weekly food ads-- mom would plan her shopping based on the coupons within, and then set out on her 5 grocery store circuit, one per weekday, to buy a few items here, a few there based on sales. Her coupon clipping lead me to try various packaged foods, most memorable being Hot Pockets in early high school.

During elementary school in the 70's my friends were allowed Jif peanut butter, non-homemade jam, Wonderbread, while I had store-ground peanut butter that separated, low to no sugar homemade jams, and whole wheat bread. I was jealous. Now, this is who I am as a mother (although I do allow my daughter chocolate chips.) We were, however, taught to shun twinkies, etc. In middle school my food rebellion became bigger-- I found that my cooking class had recipes calling for chicken breasts-- boneless skinless! My mom couldn't believe not buying a whole chicken to cook. And, I started saving my money to buy donuts or brownies with my friends from the lunch line every day. My best friend had Coke and gummy bears every day. Her mom fed her from Costco (Price Club then.) We ate Calzones every day after school at her house.

In junior high and high school my favorite homemade snack was credited to the rise of the microwave (which I think is a huge contributor to this shift in eating) was a quesadilla. My high school lunch was a flour tortilla, carrots and celery sticks. Mom didn't know that I bought a ham sandwich from the cafeteria, and a package of powdered donettes from the vending machine.

My mom tracked her spending compulsively. I could find out how much she spent on groceries in any given year if you would like.

Eating out was reserved for payday-- the last day of the month, but since we were children of teachers, we didn't eat out from July-August, unless on vacation with relatives. All of our meals on our trips were primarily "home made" meals. Our other special treat was popcorn and fruit on Sunday nights.

Like Spero, I remember 5 and 10 cent candy. Great thread!


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## spero (Apr 22, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Daffodil* 
The idea that junk food didn't really become popular until the 80's seems strange to me.

Me, too. We weren't inundated with the advertising like my kids are, but we still had plenty of junk food available.

We had the sugary cereals (same cereal as today, just with the "sugar" now politically correctly removed from the name - Super Sugar Smacks, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Sugar Corn Pops).

We had Dolly Madison before Little Debbie moved into the neighborhood.

We had Swanson TV dinners long before Oscar Mayer had Lunchables.

We had Sunbeam and Wonder breads, and "Diet Rite" bread for the health-conscious (basically, just really skinny white bread sprinkled with sesame seeds







).

We had Spam and Deviled Ham and Chef Boy-ar-Dee and Kraft mac & cheese and Dinty Moore stew and Hormel chili and Banquet pot pies.

We had giant boxes of Jean's potato chips and Cheetos and Jiffy Pop and Cracker Jack and Bugels and Cheez Whiz in a can and Fiddle Faddle.

We had Popsicles and (the REAL) Bomb Pops and Dixie Cups and ice cream sandwiches and Cool Whip and Dream Bars and Fudgesicles and FlavorIce.

Before Mr Ding-A-Ling terrorized neighborhood parents everywhere with his calliope music, we had sno-cones and cotton candy and candy apples at "The Popcorn Wagon" parked on Main St all summer.

We had Pop-Tarts and "toaster swirls" (danish-type things).

We had Coke/Pepsi and Seven Up and Fresca and ~gasp!~ Tab and Orange Crush and Tahitian Treat and Nehi and Yahoo (the chocolate drink, not the internet conglomerate).

We had McDs and Carrolls and Dairy Queen and KFC and Pizza Hut and Arthur Treacher's and Dunkin' Donuts and Orange Julius and Baskin-Robbins and Woolworth's greasy spoon counters - hell, even the Big N (Kmart predecessor) had it's own diner for awhile!

There was plenty of junk to be had in the 60s-70s - trust me, I ate most if not all of it.







:

Quote:

_But DP grew up in small-town upstate NY, and the first McDonald's didn't come to his area until he was in high school,_
Yep, I lived in smalltown upstate NY and when we got a McDs - in our one-red light village, no less!!!! - everyone celebrated for at least a week. That was a HUGE deal in 1982!


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## SevenVeils (Aug 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AppleCrisp* 
Didn't the current nutrition content labels on food become standardized about 15 years ago? I remember when they adopted the current format, but I don't remember what they were like before that....what information was provided and in what format. I don't think my mom ever looked at them, but I don't remember if the lablels were useful back then.

It had more information than it does now. More that was of use to me.


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## deditus (Feb 22, 2006)

Well, this isn't "pre80s" because I was born in 1980, but....

our food came from:

our organic vegetable garden, ranging in size from 1/4 acre to multiple acres when I was really little and we lived on my g-pa's farm
mom cans tomatoes, salsa, corn, green beans, jams
dad cans mushrooms, potatoes, meats, pickles
maple syrup from our sugarbush
chickens we raised
eggs from our chickens
barter our chickens for beef
pig we raised our bartered for
fish, fowl, and game dad caught/hunted

At various times we baked our bread, grew sprouts, canned other things from u-picks or wildcrafted, and other times we relied more heavily on things from the grocery (when my parents worked more or siblings were younger). But we always had game and a huge garden. When all 4 kids were at home, we drank a gallon of milk a day. Cereal was Cheerios, raisin bran, shredded wheat, etc (the not so sugary ones). We never had pop. We always had orange juice (concentrate). My parents are a kinda funny mix of poor, thrifty, hippy, organic back-to-the-landers. They'll bbq brats the bartered for, make coleslaw and potato salad from scratch from their garden, and buy potato chips








We ate way better than SAD, but still had treats like pie and cookies mom made, and ice cream from the store. I really can't get into the cost of groceries issue because I am seriously having bad anxiety over the cost of whole foods right now.


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## SevenVeils (Aug 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Think of Winter* 
There was a list of ingredients, but that was it. It was really hard being diabetic and having to take a wild guess about what was in stuff.

I think that was two labels ago. They changed it something like 20 or 21 years ago to make it more complete, and it had MORE vitamin/mineral content info than it does now.

The thing that I don't think it had though, and maybe that's what you're referring to, is the sugar/carb content. I know when I've done low-carb that info was invaluable, and I can imagine that it would be so if you are diabetic also.


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## SevenVeils (Aug 28, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *emgremore* 
Well, this isn't "pre80s" because I was born in 1980, but....

our food came from:

our organic vegetable garden, ranging in size from 1/4 acre to multiple acres when I was really little and we lived on my g-pa's farm
mom cans tomatoes, salsa, corn, green beans, jams
dad cans mushrooms, potatoes, meats, pickles
maple syrup from our sugarbush
chickens we raised
eggs from our chickens
barter our chickens for beef
pig we raised our bartered for
fish, fowl, and game dad caught/hunted

At various times we baked our bread, grew sprouts, canned other things from u-picks or wildcrafted, and other times we relied more heavily on things from the grocery (when my parents worked more or siblings were younger). But we always had game and a huge garden. When all 4 kids were at home, we drank a gallon of milk a day. Cereal was Cheerios, raisin bran, shredded wheat, etc (the not so sugary ones). We never had pop. We always had orange juice (concentrate). My parents are a kinda funny mix of poor, thrifty, hippy, organic back-to-the-landers. They'll bbq brats the bartered for, make coleslaw and potato salad from scratch from their garden, and buy potato chips








We ate way better than SAD, but still had treats like pie and cookies mom made, and ice cream from the store. I really can't get into the cost of groceries issue because I am seriously having bad anxiety over the cost of whole foods right now.

Can I go live with your parents? They sound exactly like me (ask wild fire child, she's my daughter).


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## WC_hapamama (Sep 19, 2005)

My parents were pretty moderate about the junk food. It wasn't forbidden, but it wasn't by any stretch the only thing we ate.

Soda was very rare in the house until I was in high school. Mom would occasionally buy a 2 liter or a 6 pack of soda, but most often, soda was something we only got if we went out for a meal, were visiting the grandparents, or bought it with our own money.

Mom would buy cookies and snack cakes (she worked next door to a Dolly Madison/Weber bread thrift store that later turned into a Hostess Store), but once the stuff was gone, she wouldn't buy more until the next payday.

Something we didn't get much of was juice boxes or capri suns in our lunches. We had the choice of loading our thermos with water or juice from home, or we could buy milk at school.

Mom did use convenience foods on weekdays (her job requires a lot of standing), but on weekends or days when she wasn't on her feet all day, she'd cook from scratch. I'd say that roughly half of our weekday meals in a given month involved something from a can, box or jar.


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## UUMom (Nov 14, 2002)

Anyone interested int he history of packaged food needs this book: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=1842717

I am currently reading it, and it's crazy- interesting. It's about the start of the industrial food industry which began right after WW II (although many items did hit before the war's end due to rationing and working women who didn't have time to cook). It's all cherries suspended in jello, and canned soups, and little debbie things, white bread and bologna, TV dinners in *aluminium* trays, canned cling peaches in goodness knows what, deep fried hamburgers etc etc etc. Junk food had it's start, big time, big big big time, right about 1946 or so. A lot of preservation/freezing/dehydrating/packaging etc technology came out of World War II and industry wanted to take the knoweldge (and huge potential for huge bucks) beyond the war years.

Absolutely a good read!

From my childhood, I remember lucky charms, cookie crisps, fritos, pringles (still love them!) white styrofoam bread, oreos, cambell's canned soups, bright orange mac & cheese, jiffy pop, tang, ovaltine, coffee syrup, pop tarts, fluffernutter sandwiches, and more!

My mother hardly ever bought those things, because she loved Julia Child, but man, did we want them! Heaven in my lunch box was crackers and spreadable orange cheese you put on the crackers with a little plastic stick.


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## AppleCrisp (Aug 19, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *UUMom* 
Anyone interested int he history of packaged food needs this book: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=1842717

I am currently reading it, and it's crazy- interesting. It's about the start of the industrial food industry which began right after WW II (although many items did hit before the war's end due to rationing and working women who didn't have time to cook). It's all cherries suspended in jello, and canned soups, and little debbie things, white bread and bologna, TV dinners in *aluminium* trays, canned cling peaches in goodness knows what, deep fried hamburgers etc etc etc. Junk food had it's start, big time, big big big time, right about 1946 or so. A lot of preservation/freezing/dehydrating/packaging etc technology came out of World War II and industry wanted to take the knoweldge (and huge potential for huge bucks) beyond the war years.


Not coincidentally, I believe the advent of chemically dependent farming began with leftover chemicals from WWII as well.


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## UUMom (Nov 14, 2002)

Do you know which ones?

The book is a cool read about cultural changes, not so much about nasty chemicals. Although the aluminium pans for frozen dinners does give one pause.

Did you know pesticides have been in use since the ancient Greeks used sulfur to try and save various crops? Pests are a bitch. Feeding thousands-- or millions --or billions-- or the 6 in my family-- does present it's challenges.

The dust bowl in the US --which predates WWII -- was caused by misuse and abuse of soil. So the pesticide issue is an old one.


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