Is your diet different than how you grew up?

[MimiOfTwo]

Very different. I grew up very poor. The youngest of nine. We grew our own vegetables and that is what I ate the first 20 years of life. We ate out once a year..literally. It was a big deal. I was 14 before I ever tasted steak and can still remember how good it was! I don't eat anywhere near that healthy now as I rarely cook and when I do it isn't anything homegrown for sure.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

Growing up in the 70's we ate home cooked meals every day. Like most are posting we ate canned veggie, potatoes and a meat. Salad was covered in miracle whip - so gross to me to think we ate that lol!!! As I get older and my kids are adults (18, 20, 22) living at home, I cook less. No one is home anymore and my dh works afternoons. I can cook something and it will last for days........ I said to my dh last night that I am out of ideas and have no desire to cook at all for basically just myself. I would be happy with just rice crispies for dinner!

When I do cook it is still probably more like what i grew up with except I work fulltime unlike my mom did so - I only cook breakfast on the weekends and not every weekend but if I do it's eggs, bacon, toast maybe hashbrowns or pancakes/french toast. Sometimes I will make an egg/hashbrown/sausage bake to last a couple weekday mornings. I don't do lunch on weekends. For work lunch is whatever was leftover from dinner the night before or a salad. Dinner is meat (way more chicken than when I was a kid), rice/potatoes and a veggie (maybe). We eat way more junk that I did growing up. We eat out more than I did growing up as well. We tend to order pizza a couple times a month too.

Ugh I really need to cook healthier now that I read this!!!!

 

[prprincess]

Yes, most definitely. As a child, my family lived with my grandmother. She mainly cooked Puerto Rican dishes, and unfortunately, much of our cuisine is meats and carbs. When she passed away and my mother started to take on all of the cooking is when vegetables were finally incorporated into our diets. Unfortunately, to this day it's hard for me to incorporate veggies into my diet because I went so long without them. But I do my best to make an conscious effort to eat several per day. Also, I don't eat much red meat or fried foods - my grandmother made plenty of both, as well.

On the flip side, she cooked everything from scratch. I'm so busy with the kids and working full-time, I do cheat and sometimes incorporate processed foods into our meals, and we do eat out often.

 

[Magpie]

My mother grew up eating everything out of a can. No fresh veggies or fruit. Her teeth took the brunt of that early malnutrition, so by the time I came along, she wasn't going to feed me the same way. But at the same time we had very little money. I grew up loving her chicken livers and home made soups. Lots of vegetables and fruit (I ate SO many apples!). Nothing ever came out of a box or a can. Then I was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, and my diet got even more restricted. (I was allergic to milk, wheat, corn, citrus, eggs, and a bunch of other stuff.)

Processed cheese was a revelation to me at age seven. I was sixteen, the first time I ever tasted Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

I did feel a bit deprived. I thought my mum had gone overboard. Also, my allergies seemed to disappear completely in my teens.

So, I ate canned ravioli and chips in University and my kids ate processed cheese and Kraft dinner and fishy crackers and the standard Western diet for the first few years. But... my son turned out to be hypoglycemic (diagnosed at age 9) and my husband constantly struggles with his weight (in fact, just found out his triglycerides are too high). So, at that point we went right back to eating the way my mom raised me.

I make a lot of home made soups. I buy a lot of fresh veg, especially now that the farmer's market is open. I feed them a lot of fruit. Last night's dinner (for 2, though I could have stretched it to 3 or 4 with more veg) was a single pork chop, diced, and stir fried with lots of broccoli, carrots, green onions and garlic, served over rice. There's no junk food in the house (other than the jelly beans my husband bought), and it's been years since I've eaten KD.

On the plus side, it's not only healthier, it's more economical to eat this way.

 

[aprilchem]

Very differently, I'd say. My mom didn't work when I was a kid, but wasn't very creative in the kitchen - we ate the same 10 dinners, on rotation, for the entire 18 years I was growing up. We had pizza every single Friday night. When I left the house, I'd never tried any seafood, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale, any sort of ethnic food (except for La Choy in a can), any tropical fruit, etc. We ate a fast foods a lot but I'd never been to a sit-down restaurant.

As an adult, we eat every differently. I cook a good deal of ethic food (Indian, Greek, Asian, etc.), and I don't repeat meals a lot (except for our very favorites). My kids rarely eat in a fast-food restaurant, and our normal eating out restaurant choices are Middle Eastern or sushi. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we are better-off financially than I was as a child, and also that my husband is a much more adventurous eater. He's introduced me to a lot of new foods.

It's comforting, however, to go back to my mom's house sometimes because she's still cooking those same 10 meals on rotation for the most part. So it's nice to get a taste of my youth when I go there!

 

[Mizzoufan]

I eat a lot better now then I did when I was a child. It seemed like every meal was meat some sort of potato and gravy and mac and cheese. Hardly any veggies and fruit was limited to apples and bananas. Dessert nearly every night with ice cream or whip cream.

 

[CdnCarrie]

I would say about the same. Both our mothers were SAHMs for the most part (until we were middle school) and had big gardens. Both had grown up on farms and enjoy (and still enjoy) cooking/baking.

We had some processed foods like canned soup but for the most part it was fairly traditional prairie fare - roasts dinners on Sunday, breakfast - oatmeal, eggs, toast, lunches soup/sandwiches with homemade cookies and always fruit before the cookie. Weekday suppers were sausages and potatoes, fish and homemade chips, meatloaf, BBQ steak, etc. Typical meals with always a big salad and one or two types of veggies fresh from the garden or frozen (from our garden) in the winter. Once in awhile it was something like canned cream corn but most of the time fresh veggies. Only milk at mealtime and limited pop and junk food.

And always homemade baking - cookies, cakes, bars. Once my Mom started working full time we often did get pizza on Friday's.

We don't cook as good as our parents do but we both work full time and always have. We are bad for only having a salad and not veggies too especially on busy work nights. And we eat more bought cookies/desserts as I only get around to baking once a month usually. There are times I feel quilty as I know our mothers wouldn't always approve but its not like we are serving Big Macs daily! We do have cereal, eggs, toast for breakfast. One son does favour a certain junky cereal we should limit him eating daily for breakfast but we don't.

Lunches are same as we grew up with - sandwiches, fruit, cookies. But since the kids don't come home for lunch less often something hot like soup. Probably more processed lunch meat and less leftover roast meat in the sandwiches too.
Also I'm really bad about making lunch on the weekends so often the kids are eating stuff like pizza pops or making a sandwich. Or we heat up a can of soup.
Our actual supper entrees are about the same I would think with just less veggies and more frozen than fresh as we don't garden. One kid prefers raw carrots and cukes, etc over frozen veggies so he often just has that with supper. And yes we sometimes have Hamburger Helper as the kids like it and its quick. Maybe once a month but I throw in some frozen veggies and have a salad on the side.

We only eat out maybe twice a month - one sit down and one fast food or pizza a month.
And we do like ethnic foods but don't really cook them at home. We do go out sometimes for Thai or Chinese.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Very differently, I'd say. My mom didn't work when I was a kid, but wasn't very creative in the kitchen - we ate the same 10 dinners, on rotation, for the entire 18 years I was growing up. We had pizza every single Friday night. When I left the house, I'd never tried any seafood, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale, any sort of ethnic food (except for La Choy in a can), any tropical fruit, etc. We ate a fast foods a lot but I'd never been to a sit-down restaurant.

As an adult, we eat every differently. I cook a good deal of ethic food (Indian, Greek, Asian, etc.), and I don't repeat meals a lot (except for our very favorites). My kids rarely eat in a fast-food restaurant, and our normal eating out restaurant choices are Middle Eastern or sushi. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we are better-off financially than I was as a child, and also that my husband is a much more adventurous eater. He's introduced me to a lot of new foods.

It's comforting, however, to go back to my mom's house sometimes because she's still cooking those same 10 meals on rotation for the most part. So it's nice to get a taste of my youth when I go there!

What were the 10 meals?

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Yes and No.

I grew up eating traditional Puerto Rican foods. Everything was homemade but that is pretty much carb based. Rice, beans and meat, usually fried or high fat meats. Sides are carb and fried foods. I do remember always having a green salad on the table. But mainly iceberg lettuce, corn, tomatoes and Italian dressing. I remember it was a "treat" to have spaghetti or mashed potatoes, basically any American food, when we were kids.

Now I do make traditional Puerto Rican dinners about 3 nights a week but I incorporate a lot of veggies and I don't fry much. But the rice and beans are a staple. My kids were babysat by my grandmother when they were infants/toddlers and after school so they are used to that food. My son will eat rice and beans everyday. I make enough so there are leftovers because I refuse to make it everyday. Or he goes to my grandmother's house to get his fix since she's right around the corner. They actually still go there after school and during the summer and she feeds them.

I try to stay away from carbs so I usually eat a lot of veggies and lean meats so sometimes I make two dinners or plenty of something so there are leftovers. I also make a lot more American meals than we ate growing up. As far as my grandma goes with American meals are hamburgers and fries for the kids, but they are both homemade.