One problem with reaching adulthood is that you are almost expected to worry about eating too much meat, eating too many calories, not eating enough fruit and veg, and so on and so forth. And then you have to worry about exactly the same things when it comes to your children!
But back in the 80s and 90s we didn’t give two hoots about the nutritional value of what we were putting into our mouths, and if we’re being completely honest, most of our parents probably weren’t too concerned either! We ate what tasted good, and we weren’t being bombarded with guidelines telling us what was supposedly healthy and what wasn’t.
Below are 10 (occasionally extremely unhealthy) foods that we absolutely loved eating as children, and we know that you’ll all have your own personal favourites. Please do post a comment letting us know how many of the following products you remember, which was your favourite, and which delicious retro food we should have included on our list.
10. Smash Mashed Potato
Many of us were treated to the artificial tasting Smash mashed potato when we were children, and some of you will even remember it being slopped onto your school dinner plate.
If we’re being completely honest, we actually quite liked eating Smash, and for some reason would combine it with a bread roll to create what at the time we believed was a quite wonderful taste sensation.
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9. Meat Paste
What on earth has happened to meat paste in tiny jars? It was a staple sandwich filler for many of us 80s kids, but we can’t remember seeing it used in sandwiches for decades.
Perhaps manufacturers have moved onto more healthy products, or perhaps remembering the smell of the salmon paste has put us off from using it ever again.
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8. Findus Crispy Pancakes
Delicious crispy pancakes filled with chicken or beef and a hint of mushroom was one of our favourite 80s and 90s treats.
Sadly, only this year manufacturer Findus axed their famous crispy pancakes after 60 years, replacing them with ones sold under Birds Eye brand that have completely different fillings.
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7. Birds Eye Potato Ketchips
Most of us are quite content with dipping our regular chips into (or smothering them with) tomato ketchup, but if you remember, back in the 1980s there was a product that combined them both into one mouth watering package.
Birds Eye Potato Ketchips were larger than normal chips that came already filled with tomato ketchup, and we can’t understand why we can no longer purchase such a wonderful food based invention!
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6. Tinned Spam
Our increasingly health conscious food choices make many products that were once part of our everyday diet almost obsolete, and tinned Spam is one such example.
It tasted absolutely wonderful, but the high fat content and other negative attributes make tinned spam one food that many of us have consigned to our childhood for good.
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5. Chewing Nuts
Are we going completely mad, or did Chewing Nuts not actually contain any nuts whatsoever?
From our recollection, Chewing Nuts were actually dollops of toffee coated in chocolate, but please do correct us if we’re mistaken!
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4. Birds Eye Potato Waffles
“Birds Eye Potato Waffles, they’re waffly versatile” went the advert, and we would have been quite happy to consume these lovely potato treats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You could cook them for less time and have them soft, or keep them in the oven for an extra 10 minutes so they were crispy, but either way, we were extremely happy.
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3. Crawford’s Rover Assorted Biscuits
Crawford’s Rover Assorted Biscuits included favourites such as custard creams, milk chocolate digestives, pink wafers and bourbon creams.
Personally we would quite happily have consumed a whole box full of pink wafers, but which was your favourite?
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2. Billy Bear Ham
As we’ve already mentioned, massive slices of ham definitely aren’t as popular as they once were, especially because the ones shaped into a bear’s face no longer seem to be available.
Worryingly, Billy Bear ham was actually only made up of around 60 percent pork, so where the other 40 percent came from we have no idea, and really don’t like to think about!
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1. McCain Micro Chips
Why would you wait for chips to cook slowly in the oven when you could just whack them in the Microwave for a couple of minutes?
McCain Micro Chips may have been re-branded with a new pack design and had their name changed to McCain Quick Chips, but to us they will always be Micro Chips, and boy did we love them.