What Were You Fed As An Infant?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #41

In my case, I break out in spots . . . Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, L.A., San Francisco . . . . :grinning:

(Robin) #42

Awesome! I’m jealous! :wink:

#43

Wow. Great topic!

I know for sure that I was bottle fed as a baby. I was born in 1975. So, for the first 10 years, we ate mostly pasta, potatoes, vegetables from a can, and the occasional piece of fruit. If we had meat for a meal, it was chicken legs in Shake 'n Bake.

Fast forward to Christmas of 1985 and we got our first microwave. From then on out, other than an occasional pot of pasta, my mother didn’t cook. We lived on frozen microwave dinners until I went to college. It went down hill from there (if that is possible). I lived on ramen noodles and gas station food until I got married at 27.

Looking back, I probably had symptoms if metabolic issues as far back as my late childhood. I’ve actually been on blood pressure meds since I was 23.

(Jane) #44

I am 63. Bottle fed as an infant with months and months of colic. I asked my mom if goat’s milk was ever recommended and she looked at me puzzled and said no.

As a kid we ate bacon and eggs or hot cereal for breakfast. Milk at every meal. Sugar treats on holidays and birthdays only, no snacks.

In jr high/high school my mom became a fan of Adele Davis and we switched to homemade whole wheat bread and supplements. I started cooking the family meals at age 10 and it was either meat and vegetables or a casserole. Potatoes but not much rice or pasta. I didn’t like corn so I rarely fixed it. We only ate bread when we made sandwiches - never just had bread with dinner.

In high school my dad and I went low carb Dr. Atkins but we didn’t stick to it. I was not overweight - just wanted to slim down a bit more. I played on the tennis team and danced ballet so was in good shape.

I got fat while pregnant with my first child at age 25 and struggled for years afterwards yo-yo dieting, getting bigger and bigger each time.

(Rebecca ) #45

Thank you! I’m really learning a lot reading everyone’s responses. It seems as though most were bottle fed as babies.
My Mother told me that the Doctors back then (1961) said bottle feeding was better (?!?!).
I really appreciate your responses!!

(Rebecca ) #46

That’s me except 27 for my first baby!

#47

I consider it an abomination but it seems butter with lard and sugar was a thing here. For poor ones bread, water and sugar.
Ew. (I never eat animal fat in desserts - except butter, of course - but it’s a thing here. No wonder, people used what they had centuries ago. And lard or duck fat was quite common.)

I only heard about it recently from others, I didn’t even heard about sugar on bread. I only had the super common traditional bread, lard, raw onions.

But I ate biscuit (it’s called household biscuit and it was a hard, sweet but not overly sweet thing, I loved it) with butter/margarine, sugar, cocoa… I wouldn’t put that on bread. Honey and jam is okay on bread but that’s it (well maybe Nutella but we didn’t have it when I was a kid, it appeared in 1995 in Hungary, I was 19 then. but I had still a sweet tooth, I probably always will have and I ate it quite a lot later, with salty sticks, better than a spoon for me).

I had times with canned beans (the not tasty, super cheap kind with tomato. at least I liked beans and tomatoes but what didn’t I like, honestly?) and ramen, yeah. Not just those, I always cooked for myself since 25 (and often earlier too) but they were frequent. And those powder soup things! I loved the ragou soup with terragon and never made them myself. And when I still lived at home, I made zillion puddings in the microwave oven (from powder but the kind that needed cooking. I liked the punch one with raisins) and drank soups made from water and cubes only… I totally could cook but they were convenient and I liked them. But they has MSG now and sugar and who knows what and nope. I eat meat now anyway and making a proper meat soup (I mean water, meaty bones, salt and the optional eggs) is about the same effort just better so it’s okay.

Frozen microwave dinners never were my thing. I am not even sure what they are or if we have them here. We have something but never looked at those stuff. But it’s mostly breaded things and not very real pizzas, mostly, I saw those in supermarket fridges.

OMG, what’s that?
Rare snacks? You lucky one. I had sweets in the end of every meal at home as I remember. And whenever I fancied. I get satiated and search for sweets, it was a big thing in my life, not every time but very, very often. I still have it to a tiny extent, it’s weakest on carnivore, of course, more like a thought than real temptation and if I manage to eat enough normal food, I don’t have it.

Wholemeat bread… That was maybe when I became 40? :smiley: It was sooooooooo not a thing here when I was a kid. But I see it was different for many of you guys.

I had NO IDEA low-carb is a thing for decades. It probably was the same with low-fat.

So many of you were bottle-fed… I think breastfeeding was a default here, too bad Mom couldn’t do it. It clearly sounds the best to me…
Oh but now I remember Mom said that there were people who gave their kids the same supplements or formula or whatever, sorry I have no idea about that, whatever premature kids who badly needed the help even with the existing smallish risks got. Because everyone wanted big kids getting bigger quick. IDK why. Mom was annoyed when other moms bragged about their huge babies, I was tiny and didn’t gain weight quickly to put it lightly. But I was healthy.
And the totally healthy big kids got the stuff with the needless risks. Sigh.

(Jane) #48

Hot cereal was oatmeal or cream-of-wheat. Not sure if the second one translates but it was a creamy wheat-based hot cereal.

(Jane) #49

My first born was 8# 14 oz so typical size. Grew very fast to a huge kid. His best friend’s Mom asked me one day how big my son was when he was born. Not as big as her son when he was born who was much smaller than kids his age.

(Allie) #50

I know for sure I wasn’t bottle fed, was breast fed for a year.

(Alec) #51

Baby: Breastmilk
Infant: meat and 2 veg
Child: lunch: meat and 2 veg; dinner (I could choose): beefburgers, baked beans and chips

My favourite snack as a child was Cadbury’s mini rolls. I would often consume a pack of 6, no problems. I am sure the sugar spike was very high!

So, as a child, in general, I was pretty lucky. It’s the 40 years since of SAD that made me insulin resistant and fat.

(Mark Rhodes) #52

Thats odd. I was fed goats milk because I was colicky and Goat’s milk was easy for digestion. Oh no, the doctor didn’t recommend it, my Grandma did. In fact Grandma raised me my first three weeks. After my birth Ma went into the hospital for a major gallbladder surgery.

(Robin) #53

Grandmas and goats… they know a few things.

#54

I was BFed for at least the first 10 weeks and then my mom got an infection. After that she was encouraged to bottle feed. My sister was mostly bottle fed and her BMI is around 22 and she is metabolically very normal! I really do not think it matters what our mothers fed us. The clean plate thing is bad and I never did it with my own children.

We lived someplace until I was 5 that junk food was not available but I was not particularly interested in the usual food served, hamburgers, no bun, meat, rice, some type of vegetable (I remember hating hamburgers that were broiled or baked, grill was not an option as it was cold out). I would eat breaded cutlets, pancakes, certain cakes as long as they did not have sauces on them, apple struedle, plain pasta with butter and sugar (which we called noodles) and that was about it. I was very skinny until first grade. I remember cleaning my plate for the first time when I was about 6 and being very proud of myself (which is why whenever my kids would show me a clean plate I would simply nod and tell them to put it in the sink if they were done!) I started getting heavier and around 13 one of my relatives made a comment that I was getting chunky (5’3 and 110 lbs! but for the times I was not thin). This triggered some dieting which continues until today. For a long time I was able to maintain a normal weight until I was about 26, and all of sudden the weight came on, I gained about 30 lbs in a few months (no idea why!) and never really lost it and added more over the years. I did not add lbs during pregnancy but mostly after, being home with the baby.

The main difference after age 5 was that we moved and all of sudden anything Drake or Hostess or kellogs was purchased. I remember devil dogs very well! Plus my parents worked a lot and we had a store on the corner where I could buy any food I wanted. We did not eat as a family except on holidays and my babysitters (younger siblings) would make me anything I wanted. I never really liked meat other than a burger phase (one babysitter had a recipe where it was mixed with vegetables which was tasty). My preferred dinners were pasta, or corn flakes with milk and sugar. Later we had a different babysitter who made a lot of stews which I ate but I was a teenager by then. Meanwhile, as I mentioned my siblings ate the same things and did not gain weight. We have one parent who is naturally thin and another who gains easily even while exercising every day

(Stickin' with mammoth) #55

I was fed silence and gaslighting intermittently, followed by heaping helpings of emotional neglect and…

…Oh, you mean at meal times. Well, my mother helped found the first health food store in our mid-sized Midwestern town so I learned very early just how disgusting Brewer’s yeast mixed into unsweetened orange juice was every morning. I had a little Dixie cup full of vitamins foisted upon me every day before school, I remember it was up to 26 pills at one time because I was actually proud of being able to down them all in one gulp. The only spices she used were salt, pepper, caraway, dill, and cinnamon, no onions, no garlic, no ketchup. Vegetables were only partially cooked so they were still bitter and squeaky in the mouth and plastic-tasting margarine was the only lubricant available in tiny, doled-out amounts. All meat was cooked to the tough stage. She thought carob was 100% the same thing as chocolate. There was wilted green-black lettuce sticking to the jam side of all my peanut butter and jelly school lunches which were assembled using something called Old Home Whole Wheat Bread that was so thick, flavorless, and dry you could use it to sop up motor oil from under a leaking '74 Chevy truck. Her idea of a “treat” was unsweetened, unsulfured dried apricot slices so tart they excoriated skin cells from the insides of your mouth. Other children did not want to play at my house.

The few times we visited restaurants were special occasions so I was given carte blanche with the menu. I was heavily shamed before, during, and after every single one of my choices but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I was going to see breaded shrimp and coconut cream pie ever again that year. I learned to order as much as I could get away with and then binge eat until I was physically sick in order to squeeze as much pleasure out of those few hours as I could to last me until the next time. I developed a binge eating disorder and severe depression that I grapple with to this day.

So far, the only thing that has worked is carnivore.

PS: I have no idea if I was breastfed as an infant but, frankly, the idea of my mother being in close physical contact with another human being for that long boggles the imagination so I’m gonna say No.

(Karen) #56

:astonished::astonished::astonished::astonished::nauseated_face: wow I was almost in tears reading how awful your upbringing was :sob: I hope some of that was said on jest or tongue in cheek! I want to give you a big hug and a T bone steak :heart:

(Robin) #57

And you learned to use wit, humor, and sarcasm as a defense mechanism, I bet. You are so clever and so fun. I often find that there is a story behind people with that quick that razor sharp wit.
Sad you had to go through that. Happy it’s in your past now.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #58

I wish. That was just the light stuff, I left out the parts that would get me banned from the forums. Let’s be very clear: There are folks in here who’ve had it way worse than me. By putting this stuff down I wanna give them a shout out and let them know it can suck hard and get better. With bacon.

That’s a bet you would win. I’ve learned to harness my powers for good instead of evil. But evil, like a dark road through the forest or an unknown vodka, is still fun on occasion.

(Jane) #59

I am so sorry! Not pity, just empathy.

Both my parents were abused - mom sexually and dad mental cruelty. Instead of repeating the pattern, they chose to break it. My mom wasn’t a very warm person but she wasn’t abusive and dad made up for it.

I found out the other day my grandma was only 19 when she had my dad. She married a man in his 30’s whose first wife accidentally drowned and left him with 3 kids to raise.

So, my grandma was a kid herself raising an infant and 3 small children. Doesn’t excuse what she did to my dad but I understand better how and why it happened.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #60

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I’ve done a deep dive on my family tree, too, a very deep dive. Sadly, I’m the only one who found it helpful or necessary and all attempts to communicate what I’ve uncovered have fallen on deaf ears. Going No Contact was the most healthy decision of my life along with keto. I save a lot of money on Christmas cards.