Portion sizes when you were young

CathA

When we were small, (mid sixties) I can't remember any snacks between meals; you had breakfast, school dinners and then something at night, possibly a small cooked dinner, or soup and bread? As a treat, I can remember we had tomato soup with mashed potato, wow was that the bees knees! When Nana came to visit we'd be given sixpence to go to the shop and buy an ice cream, and I can to this day recall her turning up at my parents house with Bar 6 chocolate bars for us all, another wow moment!!
We emigrated to Australia when I was small and as it was so hot we ate a lot of salad type meals for a long time. If we had a big bag of crisps to share between the whole family in the evening that was a real treat. I can recall coming home from school and asking for a biscuit, my mum said I could have one and my dilemma was-should I take the nice but small one, or the boring but bigger one as I was starving!! Mum was a good plain cook, never got into spicy things until she was much older. She did lot of home baking and I was always jealous of the kids who had shop bought cakes.

It is different nowadays, food is so much cheaper in comparison. There's more variety and shops are open longer hours now. Hands up those who remember half day Wednesday? Happy days.

Butterfly_Brain

Saturday night late night supper was something like cream crackers and jam or toast done in front of the fire.

kiss_me_now9

Woahhh, sorry, didn't mean it in that way at all

armyknife

It does go the other way too, I'm always bemused by the serving/portions sizes listed/recommended on cereal packets, typically it's 30g whereas I always have 125g* of whatever cereal I'm eating; do I really eat four 'portions' at a sitting?






* save when I have 4 weetabix, which only way 90g, sad I know but I weighed them along with the milk, otherwise I pour way too much milk onto them.

FairyPrincessk

I'm a bit surprised at how unpopular snacks seem to be. I understand why they weren't common in the past, but having a healthy (and yes I realize there is a tendency for them to be very unhealthy now) snack to tide you over seems like a sensible way to keep from over-eating at meal times.

Personally I struggle to get enough calories without snacks. When I'm out teaching I always have a small bag of nuts and a bit of fruit in my bag to scarf down in between lessons. As a youngster I almost always managed to snack my way through anything in my lunch that could be nibbled long before lunch. I then only had a sandwich or something along the lines of a slice of quiche to eat with a piece of whole fruit...far more manageable for me.

However, I'm not much of a tea drinker and when I do drink it I don't have milk in it. I imagine a cup or two of tea between meals with a bit of milk in it probably has a similar calorie equivalent to my snacks. I've also hear of milk during morning break here at school for children--which we only had at one of the many, many schools I attended---so perhaps snacking was happening but in the form of milk?

THIRZAH

I was born in 1955. We lived in a small village . My mother cooked all our meals from scratch-she had no choice. Most of our vegetables and fruit were home grown. Fruit was bottled for the winter and runner beans were salted otherwise we just ate what was in season.
My mother bought two bottles of fizzy pop from the "Pop Man" when he called on a Friday. Once that was gone we just drank squash or tea.
Twice a week we had threepence to spend on sweets-we ate these for elevenses at school. On other days we took a couple of biscuits in a paper bag.
There was always cake in the tin for an after school snack and my parents would have a snack in the evenings at about 9 o'clock.Nobody was overweight but then we were very active. My family were farmers and ran a nursery garden so everyone did manual work. We helped out after school if necessary.
We walked to school . We also walked home for lunch .Very few people had cars.Most women couldn't drive.
I think portion sizes were smaller but it's hard to judge. We always had pudding which DH and I don't usually bother with these days.We ate more bread. One of my aunts used to make her sons eat a slice of bread and butter before their tea .

Pollycat

HappyMJ wrote: »

A 49" TV is £12.50 a week (just googled that and taken first quote not checked for cheaper). A family would consider that an essential. At £12.50 per week it's not that expensive. A single person could manage with a much smaller TV, the computer or mobile phone browser for entertainment.

A car is usually in exchange for mobility allowance. It's either a car or paying for taxi's everywhere. People with normal mobility can catch a bus and walk to their final destination which is much cheaper than a modified taxi taking someone from door-to-door. Travel is an essential expense.

Why take this thread that way? Families need children to be distracted and a TV is essential. People with limited mobility need to get around and a car is essential.

I didn't take this thread that way.

I was responding to what another poster said (which I disagreed with).

I actually said - in my post that you quoted:

Pollycat wrote: »

I think it's a pity that such a nostalgic, interesting thread has taken such a nasty turn.

So why are you taking the thread this way?

We've both posted on this thread about the actual original topic so why not leave it at that?

cbrown372

Not much mention of home baking, my Mum's shortbread would knock Mary Berry off the top spot and nothing nicer than coming home from school when she was making pancakes, few would have time to get cold

We had a three course meal at night always with a milk pudding, her chocolate pudding was the favourite with rice pudding coming in second. Instead of a Sunday lunch we had two light meals on Sunday's like a high tea then a games night. Happy days when no-one bothered about what other people ate or looked like.

dandy-candy

Something really useful I have learnt from a few replies on this thread is tha 1lb of meat was recommended for four people.
I had already bought at the weekend a small beef joint (490g) which I thought was the right amount for two people. I cooked it last night i served it to four instead, with lots of veg. Everyone got three skinny slices and were still hungry. DS2 said "Right, what can I eat now?" !!

suki1964

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

I'm a bit surprised at how unpopular snacks seem to be. I understand why they weren't common in the past, but having a healthy (and yes I realize there is a tendency for them to be very unhealthy now) snack to tide you over seems like a sensible way to keep from over-eating at meal times.

I've also hear of milk during morning break here at school for children--which we only had at one of the many, many schools I attended---so perhaps snacking was happening but in the form of milk?

I think snacking wasn't common because there was no spare money and also convenience food was in its infantry.

I must have been mid teens before I noticed food being eaten just because it was there, probably about the same time as McD's and the like took their places on the high street. I can remember the McD's coming to us and we as a family went up for our tea and I remember quite clearly the milkshake lasting hours as it was so thick you just couldn't drink it till some had melted. Now my work colleagues think nothing of going in after work, eating 4 or 5 burgers each, with sides and large drinks:eek:

Milk in schools was a throw back from the war. We were all given a third of a pint every day and had to drink it like it or not. It was a cheap way to ensure growing kids were getting the calcium and vitamins they needed and for some kids it might have been the only milk they ever got to drink. There was a big out cry when Margaret Thatcher abolished it. 30 years on and it was re introduced to ensure kids were once again getting something healthy in them to start the day