Were there food items that your parents wouldn’t buy when you were little, but when you got married or moved out you went crazy buying those things for yourself?

[Indigo Blue]

@ktgrokwas talking about how she had to sneak pop tarts at the gas station. It gave me the idea to ask. 
 

I LOVED crunchy peanut butter so much, but mom always bought smooth. I remember pulling it from the groceries every time and just being SO disappointed. Also pimento stuffed green olives. She bought them very rarely and I loved them so much. 
 

Oh, goodness when I got married I felt such glee that I could buy all the crunchy peanut butter I wanted!

 

[ScoutTN]

Oreos!
Chinese takeout
 

[Kassia]

Yes, SO many foods that we never had in the house and I binged on after I left home and SO many foods I was forced to eat growing up that I will never. ever. eat again.  

[Laura Corin]

Apples. My mum would buy about four a week. I eat at least one a day now.

[teachermom2834]

I more have the reverse I think. We ate so junky that there are certain junk foods I never bought my own kids. We ate tons of Little Debbie’s. Like they were the staple of breakfasts and lunches. I would never buy those for my kids. Once they got to be tweens I think it became a Christmas stocking item. I would only buy them once a year. 
 

Joke is on me because now we live where they are made and they are everywhere. Anywhere you go they are giving away Little Debbie’s. I’ve never been to therapy but if I ever go we are going to have to talk about Debbie. 

[Brittany1116]

We had limited exposure to vegetables. I recall eating corn, green beans, occasionally peas, many forms of potatoes, and raw carrots. Grandma always had a fresh tomato sliced on the dinner table. But I discovered SO MANY VEGETABLES when I moved out. 

[AbcdeDooDah]

Junky cereal. Went crazy with it until I realized it’s not that great!

[AbcdeDooDah]

Just now, Brittany1116 said:

We had limited exposure to vegetables. I recall eating corn, green beans, occasionally peas, many forms of potatoes, and raw carrots. Grandma always had a fresh tomato sliced on the dinner table. But I discovered SO MANY VEGETABLES when I moved out. 

Same. We only had canned growing up and about 4 vegetables at that.

[Arcadia]

Not for me as I was given lunch money from 1st grade onwards which means I could get whatever I wanted to eat. I was also a latchkey child. My husband however had to go home for lunch from 1st to 10th and had very little lunch money for 11th & 12th, as well as college. So he had a very limited diet until he started working after college. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

Yes. I grew up rural poor in a big homeschooling family(so no schools breakfast or lunch).  Food was what we grew and canned, what came with the WIC check, what was on sale, what the county brought to the food giveaway at the firehouse every month.  There was no processed foods, no fast foods, no second helpings.  I remember being a pre-teen and hungry. I’m not bitter(some of my siblings are), but the truth is my parents needed to let go of the Homeschooling Prosperity Gospel so prevalent in the 1990s and my mom, an RN, could have gotten a part time job to supplement and at least have snacks for growing kids. But my  mom grew up poor too, even more poor than we were, and I truly think she didn’t realize how much food preteens and teens actually need.  She was always 90 pounds as a teenager and didn’t eat much.

When I moved out and had a little bit of money, I gained 35 pounds in the first six months.  I ate fast food and pizza and Kraft macaroni and cheese by the bowl. it was stuff we never ate growing up. I feed my kids too much fast food and I fill the house with snacks, mostly healthy fruit, but some bagel bite pizza things and cold cereal.  I’m trying to do better, but I’m starting to realize that food and food insecurity is a huge deal for me.  To the point we’ve worked a daily $5 or $8 a day into the budget so I can get a donut or a drink from McDonalds, because I somehow associate that with having enough food.
The bad thing is the diet I grew up on was really incredibly healthy.  Lots of homemade whole grain bread, oatmeal, fresh vegetables, locally sourced meat.  I just really struggle to provide that to my own kids because I associate healthy foods with scarcity.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle

[Jean in Newcastle]

No.  I mean, there were foods overseas that I can't get here as easily and American foods that I now eat that I couldn't get there.  And my diet is a lot different than the 50's/60's/70's cooking that my mother did.  But your question asks if I went "crazy" buying anything.  I am not motivated by any strong food cravings as such.  And I didn't feel deprived/superior then and don't feel deprived/superior now.  (I suppose that I do feel deprived from time to time because of needing to be gluten free, but I am so aware of how I feel if I have even a touch of gluten that the desire to splurge is not there.  And there's no sense feeling deprived about something that is just how my body reacts to food.  And I've come up with substitutions for those things that I particularly like - that is, if I am motivated enough to go to the trouble of making them, which 90% of the time I am not.)  Which is a long way to loop around to my first "no" answer. 

[Catwoman]

We always had pretty much whatever we wanted to eat when I was growing up, so I can't think of anything I wanted but wasn't allowed to have. I have raised my son the same way. 

[Kassia]

13 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

We always had pretty much whatever we wanted to eat when I was growing up, so I can't think of anything I wanted but wasn't allowed to have. I have raised my son the same way. 

I think that's really good.  I wonder if a lot of my food issues have to do with not being allowed to have so many foods (my mother was obsessed with my weight).  I grew up sneaking food and thinking of foods as good/bad based on how fattening they are.  

[Pawz4me]

29 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

We always had pretty much whatever we wanted to eat when I was growing up, so I can't think of anything I wanted but wasn't allowed to have. I have raised my son the same way. 

Same

[Garga]

Frozen veggies and not canned! Also my parents never went out to eat, but as soon as I had the chance, I went out a lot. 

[Catwoman]

21 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I think that's really good.  I wonder if a lot of my food issues have to do with not being allowed to have so many foods (my mother was obsessed with my weight).  I grew up sneaking food and thinking of foods as good/bad based on how fattening they are.  

I never wanted to forbid anything or severely limit anything, because then it might become too important, kind of like the whole forbidden fruit thing.  If everything is allowed, there's no reason to sneak or obsess over any of it. It's just there, and that takes the mystique away from it.

[Miss Tick]

I grew up on school lunches before it was a priority to make them healthy. I think that covered the junk food cravings that my mom's home cooking didn't include. Then, when I moved out I was usually scraping by and ate a lot of whatever my current restaurant job served. By the time I was earning a real salary and doing my own cooking, my focus was all about ease. So, I guess not.

[Ann.without.an.e]

1 hour ago, teachermom2834 said:

I more have the reverse I think. We ate so junky that there are certain junk foods I never bought my own kids. We ate tons of Little Debbie’s. Like they were the staple of breakfasts and lunches. I would never buy those for my kids. Once they got to be tweens I think it became a Christmas stocking item. I would only buy them once a year. 
 

Joke is on me because now we live where they are made and they are everywhere. Anywhere you go they are giving away Little Debbie’s. I’ve never been to therapy but if I ever go we are going to have to talk about Debbie. 

This is me. We had all the junk food - cereals, pop tarts, little Debbie’s, etc. When I moved out I learned to cook from scratch and have never bought a pop tart or little Debbie in my 25 years of marriage. But I learned what good salmon is and Brussels sprouts and real asparagus (we occasionally at canned blah). 

[Kassia]

17 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

I never wanted to forbid anything or severely limit anything, because then it might become too important, kind of like the whole forbidden fruit thing.  If everything is allowed, there's no reason to sneak or obsess over any of it. It's just there, and that takes the mystique away from it.

I never had sugary cereal, pop tarts, Little Debbies, etc. that are all mentioned here until I went to college.  And I ate and ate and ate to make up for lost time.  

[DawnM]

There were a lot of American foods we couldn't get where I grew up and I missed those.   I remember we didn't have chocolate chips and so I would spend time chopping up Cadbury bars to put in home made cookies.....by the time I came back to the States for college, getting "chunk chocolate cookies" was a thing and I realized I was WAY ahead of my time.   🤣

But specific items I missed were things like root beer, ice cream that you could buy in flavors (the city had them but we didn't where we were), and cereal items.

But then I got to the States and missed the things I grew up with, so it is a big trade off.

[Elizabeth86]

No, y’all “know” my mom, right? Her love language is feeding people. Lol but my dh’s mom wouldn’t buy many treats or whatever so he kind of went wild on his own. She wouldn’t even spring for cheese on McDonald’s burgers. She had a stash of goodies just for her though.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Elizabeth86

[Elizabeth86]

1 hour ago, Catwoman said:

We always had pretty much whatever we wanted to eat when I was growing up, so I can't think of anything I wanted but wasn't allowed to have. I have raised my son the same way. 

Love it! Same here. Although my kids would probably want soda like every day and we just don’t keep any at home, but have it at restaurants and parties and such.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Elizabeth86

[Hilltopmom]

Oh my gosh- my MIL was so cheap and isnt interested in food (she’s tiny) that she would make cake when he asked but not get frosting & tell him to put jelly or peanut butter on top. I taught him what sweets are supposed to taste like.

 

[KungFuPanda]

Cereal. We only had convenience foods like sugary cereals or pop tarts when we were camping. Mom usually made eggs, oatmeal, biscuits, gravy, bacon, cooked apples, etc for breakfast. Convenience breakfast was cheese toast or peanut butter toast. Now, I still don’t like sweet foods for breakfast, or any meal really, but I DO keep a box of lucky charms or cinnamon life or captain crunch in my pantry for an evening snack. My kids don’t like it 🤣

I like the foods I grew up with and food was simple and healthy at our house, but never scarce. (Maybe breakfast wasn’t healthy, but we had a lot of fruit and veg at other meals) We just lived too far in the woods to make fast food remotely convenient. It was quicker to cook then drive to civilization. 

[Elizabeth86]

45 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

I never wanted to forbid anything or severely limit anything, because then it might become too important, kind of like the whole forbidden fruit thing.  If everything is allowed, there's no reason to sneak or obsess over any of it. It's just there, and that takes the mystique away from it.

I’m the same. 

[teachermom2834]

In addition to the Little Debbie’s we had all the sugary cereals. We were not health conscious and my mom was an extreme couponer and there were always coupons for all the sugary cereals. So we had all the cereal.

So I cooked my kids homemade breakfasts. At one point (maybe after I had baby #4) I was overwhelmed and took them to the store and made them pick out cereal (and I bought a bunch of disposable bowls and spoons). They could have any kind they wanted. I didn’t care.

They all picked out colorful sugary delicious looking cereal. I was relieved they would feed themselves. I admitted defeat.

They all thought the cereal was disgusting. To this day none of them will eat cereal. 
 

 

[Wheres Toto]

2 hours ago, AbcdeDooDah said:

Junky cereal. Went crazy with it until I realized it’s not that great!

Yep, this.   Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, all the sugary goodness (that I can't stand anymore).  

Mom used to say it was because they were unhealthy but I'm pretty sure in hindsight that it was because we were extremely poor.   Same with limiting treats and the few times we did have cookies, we were only allowed a couple at a time to make them last. 

[Elizabeth86]

2 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

In addition to the Little Debbie’s we had all the sugary cereals. We were not health conscious and my mom was an extreme couponer and there were always coupons for all the sugary cereals. So we had all the cereal.

So I cooked my kids homemade breakfasts. At one point (maybe after I had baby #4) I was overwhelmed and took them to the store and made them pick out cereal (and I bought a bunch of disposable bowls and spoons). They could have any kind they wanted. I didn’t care.

They all picked out colorful sugary delicious looking cereal. I was relieved they would feed themselves. I admitted defeat.

They all thought the cereal was disgusting. To this day none of them will eat cereal. 
 

 

Lol you are awesome! I got to that point WAY before kid 4. 😆

[J-rap]

No.  I grew up when most people ate fairly simply and mom cooked everything from scratch.  The foods were very traditional too -- meat, potatoes, and veggies. No one knew how to prepare veggies then.  We usually had frozen corn, peas, green beans, or iceberg lettuce.  I didn't know any better because my friends all ate the same.  I never liked eating very much anyway;  it always felt like an effort to have to sit down at the table and eat!

So when I got married, I wasn't into food and was happy to eat whatever.  Until my dh started cooking.  He was actually a great cook right at the start, and he introduced me to foods I'd never had in my part of the country, like legumes.  So maybe if anything, that was what I wanted all the time.  It was the first food that I really loved.  I learned how to make legume everything.  😄  Over the years, I learned how to prepare good veggies so that I actually enjoyed them.  

[Indigo Blue]

I LOVE sugary cereal, but I don’t eat it anymore. Lucky Charms, Boo Berry, Peanut Butter Crunch, Fruity Pebbles. So good but so bad. 

[cabercro]

Lucky Charms!! We had other sugary cereal from time to time, but my mom refused to buy Lucky Charms because my sister and I would eat 2/3rds of it in a day (including all the marshmallows) and then leave the last third (of just the brown cereal) until it went stale.

Then I went to college where the dining hall had that row of cereal dispensers available at every meal. I think I had Lucky Charms at least twice a day for the first few months of college. And I was far from the only one. The novelty of sugary cereal with dinner was definitely a thing!

[LaughingCat]

My mom would only buy things she considered 'treats' or too expensive occasionally and when she did, you had better grab your 'share' fast or you didn't get any.   That has hurt my eating habits far more than any junk food in the house would have IMO   

ETA: to stay on topic -- it has also meant that although I did binge a little bit on my favorites, I figured out pretty quick I couldn't keep them in the house because I would scarf them down (still grabbing my share fast -- even though there was no one else to take the other shares)

Edited August 31, 2022 by LaughingCat

[Frances]

Nothing comes to mind. We always had tons of fresh fruits and veggies and my mom made the majority of our food from scratch, including bread. But we were also exposed to junk and processed food at home and at potlucks, friend’s houses, etc. Plus, I earned money babysitting, delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, etc from a fairly young age, so could always buy any junk food or candy I desired. About the only thing restricted in our house growing up was diet soda my parents bought for themselves, so not some highly desirable thing.

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, teachermom2834 said:

In addition to the Little Debbie’s we had all the sugary cereals. We were not health conscious and my mom was an extreme couponer and there were always coupons for all the sugary cereals. So we had all the cereal.

So I cooked my kids homemade breakfasts. At one point (maybe after I had baby #4) I was overwhelmed and took them to the store and made them pick out cereal (and I bought a bunch of disposable bowls and spoons). They could have any kind they wanted. I didn’t care.

They all picked out colorful sugary delicious looking cereal. I was relieved they would feed themselves. I admitted defeat.

They all thought the cereal was disgusting. To this day none of them will eat cereal. 
 

 

My kids don’t care for it either. I tried but I missed my window 🤣 My son did eat a bowl of grape nuts the other day and dh will sometimes eat Raisin Bran (with no sugar added). They’re no fun. I live with fogies. 

[Grace Hopper]

SO

MANY

THINGS

 

My mom was a good cook, but a basic farmer’s daughter cook. I think growing up we had the same eight or so dinner meals in rotation for years, with a fairly regular Friday out for pizza night and about once a month cooked cabbage or liver and onions that none of the kids would touch. I don’t believe items like cream cheese or mushrooms crossed the threshold of the home until years after I moved out. I remember coming home after college and being astonished at an enchilada casserole, which was exotic under the circumstances!

[Grace Hopper]

Just now, Grace Hopper said:

SO

MANY

THINGS

 

My mom was a good cook, but a basic farmer’s daughter cook. I think growing up we had the same eight or so dinner meals in rotation for years, with a fairly regular Friday out for pizza night and about once a month cooked cabbage or liver and onions that none of the kids would touch. I don’t believe items like cream cheese or mushrooms crossed the threshold of the home until years after I moved out. I remember coming home after college and being astonished at an enchilada casserole, which was exotic under the circumstances!

WRT treats, mom was not above a box of little Debbie snacks if she had a craving while grocery shopping, or a box of pop tarts or breakfast cereal (which I do not keep on hand now). But overall there was far less snacky food than what was in a lot of our friend’s pantries. 

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Hilltopmom said:

Oh my gosh- my MIL was so cheap and isnt interested in food (she’s tiny) that she would make cake when he asked but not get frosting & tell him to put jelly or peanut butter on top. I taught him what sweets are supposed to taste like.

 

My MIL wasn’t “cheap” but my FIL was very controlling on grocery budget so she had to cook his favorite dishes on a very limited budget. She said what a good life my generation have to be able to spend more on food. So I do get why my husband didn’t have food money until he had full day school in 11th/12th grade (7:30am to 5pm). Packed lunch wasn’t common where we were from unless you are on a vegan diet or have food allergies. 

[Tanaqui]

No. My father was certain that unhealthy attitudes towards food led to him being overweight as an adult, and was determined not to let us get weird food issues by denying foods OR by making us "clean our plate". Plus, just inherently I think he felt that the best way to show you loved your family was to always have a stock of the foods they liked to eat, so long as you don't force it on them and give your kids a weird food issue by making them associate food with love or guilt.

And then after he died my sister and I took over the weekly shopping and a lot of the weekly cooking and while that was definitely not great in a lot of ways, the upside is that we definitely did not binge on Forbidden Foods when we grew up. There was no such thing in our house. Even alcohol - my parents were never big drinkers, or even really drinkers at *all* outside of perhaps a bottle of wine at New Year, but they believed firmly that there was no reason kids couldn't have a sip if everybody else was having, and it was better than making it some really big THING that ooooh, alcohol....!

Though they did ban us from chewing gum after a few messy incidents. I guess that ban would've been lifted eventually once they decided we wouldn't repeat the real crime of leaving gum where we shouldn't, but instead we just... never chewed gum and still don't.

[KidsHappen]

No, if anything I changed to a much healthier diet when I left home and kept things pretty healthy for my kids until the pre-teen/teen years. Around that time my hubby and I bought a box of twinkies for the kids to try and they thought we were trying to poison them. Some of them got into a soda and/or coffee habit as teenagers and the once monthly chocolate crawl began.  

[Kassia]

6 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

I LOVE sugary cereal, but I don’t eat it anymore. Lucky Charms, Boo Berry, Peanut Butter Crunch, Fruity Pebbles. So good but so bad. 

 

6 hours ago, cabercro said:

Lucky Charms!! We had other sugary cereal from time to time, but my mom refused to buy Lucky Charms because my sister and I would eat 2/3rds of it in a day (including all the marshmallows) and then leave the last third (of just the brown cereal) until it went stale.

Then I went to college where the dining hall had that row of cereal dispensers available at every meal. I think I had Lucky Charms at least twice a day for the first few months of college. And I was far from the only one. The novelty of sugary cereal with dinner was definitely a thing!

I love all cereals but try to stay away because I'll overeat them.  I never had the sugary cereals until college and ate them all the time in the dining hall.  I am a vegetarian so the entree served was rarely something I would eat.  

We have junk food in the house all the time because DH eats it.  It's really hard for me to stay away from certain things.  I try to have healthier alternatives so I don't feel deprived but sometimes I just cave.

My kids all grew up to eat much healthier than we did at home growing up.  

[kristin0713]

I never went crazy with food. My mom didn't buy junk but she didn't forbid it, either. I'm thankful for the eating habits that she taught me. I did buy more expensive and brand name food and other things that my parents would not have bought because they were more expensive than the cheaper version. 

[HomeAgain]

Chips and dip.

I grew up with a pretty good whole foods diet, lots of fresh fruits and veggies, lots of simple foods or homemade.  There just wasn't room in the budget for too many pre-made foods. I could count on one hand how many times I ate in a restaurant as a kid and the only chips in our house were homemade tortilla chips.

Yeah, for a few years, I was all about the junk food.  Totally.  Chips & dip being a high one on that list.

I don't see my own kids having the same issues. We do a once-or-twice-a-year "Gilmore Night" where it's finger foods and take out all afternoon/evening.  We do keep some junk food, like chips in the pantry. and they go weeks without being touched.  Same with granola bars and the like, also things I didn't have.  What they want?  Fresh, homemade food or simple foods.  My 12yo requested a packed lunch today of chicken skewers, cilantro lime rice, and mango chunks.  I snuck a Swiss Cake Roll in there that will probably come back with one bite out if it.  My 23yo packs salads or makes stir-fry for his own lunches. If he eats out it's usually healthy. It makes it easy to decide what to get him for a housewarming gift, though, when he moves out.  We'll gift him a few months of a meal prep service.  That way he gets healthy still without having to manage figuring out recipes for grocery shopping.

[Carrie12345]

Not really. I suppose I went overboard on soda, but I had been openly buying my own for years since I started making teenager money.

We generally don’t eat out/take out as much as I perceive the average American does, but definitely way more than when I was a kid. But I see that more as a financial difference.

As an adult, I often crave the fast, easy, cheap meals that had heavy weeknight rotations in my childhood. My kids are not the biggest fans, so it only happens every now and then. 

[TABmom]

13 hours ago, Catwoman said:

We always had pretty much whatever we wanted to eat when I was growing up, so I can't think of anything I wanted but wasn't allowed to have. I have raised my son the same way. 

This sounds so easy. My kids have plenty of food available to them. But they are so freaking picky. Even with several choices, they will choose to not eat and I can totally see them saying “we didn’t have anything for dinner last night/breakfast this morning” with such sincerity that people would believe them. Ugh. 

[73349]

I drank quite a bit of soda in college, but was over it (and certainly not inclined to pay out of my own pocket) by the time I got off the meal plan. I'd only had it on weekends with my dad. DH and I both had plenty of Kool-Aid as kids, but weaned ourselves off as young adults.

Otherwise, no. We had sugary cereal for breakfast--I think my mother knew the unit price of any given cereal at every store in town, and she bought when the buying was good. But it always left me hungry again in a couple of hours.

I think I eat much healthier now than I did as a kid--partly because I have the budget to do so--and DS is still getting enough "junk" that I don't think he will feel he was deprived of anything. DH is eating healthier as well, because neither of his parents did a lot of cooking & he had a lot of frozen pizza, take-out fish, etc., as a kid, but I gradually became a pretty good cook toward the beginning of our marriage, and he has picked it up in the last couple of years as well.

Edited August 31, 2022 by 73349

[marbel]

I don't recall that happening. My mother cooked within her money constraints and the food available to her at the time. When we moved from western NY to CA in the mid-60s, foods we never heard of before became commonplace. (I remember being mocked in 6th grade, shortly after we moved, when I asked what a taco was.) 

My recollection is more of a gradual opening up to new foods. For example, I used to avoid going out for Chinese food because at home I'd been served that canned chow mein (ya know, with the separate little can of crunchy noodles) and thought that was Chinese food. Well were my eyes ever opened once I finally was dragged to a restaurant! 

I don't remember any specific restrictions on foods. We had snacks but were limited on soda because of $$. Popcorn was a big favorite, with grated parmesan cheese (green can) and margarine. It was all cheap. We didn't have a lot of cookies or cakes around, probably because $$. 

BTW I did come to love Mexican food after that move to Cali. And I bet they have Mexican restaurants in my hometown now. 🙂 

 

[ktgrok]

14 hours ago, Kassia said:

I think that's really good.  I wonder if a lot of my food issues have to do with not being allowed to have so many foods (my mother was obsessed with my weight).  I grew up sneaking food and thinking of foods as good/bad based on how fattening they are.  

I think some of my issues are similar, but I also know things like epigenetics, what and how much your mother ate while pregnant with you, etc can also have a big effect...so who knows?

13 hours ago, Kassia said:

I never had sugary cereal, pop tarts, Little Debbies, etc. that are all mentioned here until I went to college.  And I ate and ate and ate to make up for lost time.  

THIS! i posted upthread about eating cocoa crunch when I went to college - it was in an off campus dining hall that had the dispensers. I had it for dinner or dessert (ate a lot of garden burgers for dinner as well) for months straight. 

6 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

 

Though they did ban us from chewing gum after a few messy incidents. I guess that ban would've been lifted eventually once they decided we wouldn't repeat the real crime of leaving gum where we shouldn't, but instead we just... never chewed gum and still don't.

This is the one food I do ban, lol. I had kids that no matter what would somehow get it in their hair, on their face, on their clothes. I have NO idea why they were not keeping it in their mouth, but it became a problem EVERY time so I banned it. 

[Serenade]

16 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

 

I LOVED crunchy peanut butter so much, but mom always bought smooth. I remember pulling it from the groceries every time and just being SO disappointed. Also pimento stuffed green olives. She bought them very rarely and I loved them so much. 
 

 

 

I grew up thinking olives were expensive because we usually only had them on the relish tray at holiday dinners.  Now olives are a pantry staple for me, and there are always some open in the refrigerator. 

[teachermom2834]

It is funny (sad really 😟) the psychological impacts our food culture growing up can have on us for years to come. Both of my parents grew up poor but had totally different reactions to it. My mom would eat anything and would not throw anything away. My dad refused leftovers and had foods he wouldn’t eat because he associated them with being poor.  
 

I was in college before I ever had beans or rice because these weren’t things my dad would eat (but my family could have used some budget stretchers!). I love both beans and rice. I learned to make good use of leftovers (but unlike my mom I am picky about using them right away). My dad has been at my house and seen me or heard about me heating up leftovers for my family and snarled that I could do better for my family than that. So very strange! 
 

 

 

[dsmith]

We never had fast food growing up. There was one hot dog place we would go to when my parents sold a house, but that was it. I went a little crazy on fast food when I started working. We had treats like cookies and cake, but they were always off-brand, rationed and not readily available. I can eat a half a package of Oreo's (which we never had!) in minutes, which is why I rarely buy them. Growing up, dinner was always a main, side and a vegetable, so I feel like dinner is incomplete if we don't have those three categories on the plate, lol. We always had food, and I don't recall ever feeling hungry beyond normal before meal hunger, but I was very aware of how difficult it was for my parents to put food on the table. I feel more secure when we have lots of food in the house, and like my dad, buy extra when items are on sale. My husband is the same, and his family had periods of food insecurity and instances of relying on charity from the church, but also never went through actual hunger from not having food in the house. His parents always purchased name brand expensive foods, though, which I find odd. Also, they rarely ate leftovers. I can't stand food waste, which is probably part of the reason I struggle with weight and staying with my preferred diet - I feel I need to eat things so they don't get thrown out.