Growing up with healthy parents, there are some things I had to live without. Soda, dessert, fun cereal, and the freedom to eat whatever crap the other kids were eating are luxuries I lacked.
There is a certain camaraderie in adulthood with the other kids who grew up eating this way. So, here are some things that might make you the product of a healthy household:
Your favorite cereal is boring.
Raisin Bran, SmartStart, Puffins, Cheerios, Cinnamon Life. You didn’t grow up eating cereals like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, so when you try the “fun cereals” as an adult, you’re probably confused as to why anyone would want to eat that much sugar for breakfast.
Fruit Juice is too sugary.
If you were allowed to have apple juice, it was watered down because of all the sugar.
#SpoonTip: If I decide to have apple juice as an adult, it is a concoction with the perfect ratio: 1 part water, 1 part juice. Old habits die hard.
Lunchables were banned, but for good reason.
When all the kids came to school with their pizza Lunchables, you desperately wanted to switch lives. As a young adult, you may have indulged in your childhood dream: trying a Lunchable. And you were disappointed. How could something that looks so delicious as a child be so grotesque as an adult?
Hard candy stresses you out.
To this day, you fear that sucking on hard candies will give you a cavity.
Poptarts and fun cereal are a luxury.
“Only on special occasions” is something you probably heard often as a child, especially regarding Poptarts and fun cereal. Having these things on a daily basis? Anarchy.
Soda isn’t that great.
If you were allowed to have soda it was usually at restaurants or on special occasions, but never at home. So as an adult, it’s not the first beverage you reach for.
Spray cheese? Questionable.
Going to the grocery store with your parents was difficult because all the fun snacks you wanted but couldn’t have were within your physical reach. One of these snacks probably included spray cheese. But after giving it some thought years later, cheese in a can is disgusting. You may want to thank your parents for this one.
Dessert.
Again, this was a luxury reserved for special occasions. Birthdays, holidays, momentous events, but not an average Tuesday night. When you went over to friend’s houses as a child, you couldn’t believe they had dessert on a regular basis and you desperately wanted to get invited to stay for dinner. Now, you probably turned out one of two ways: indifferent to dessert or a sugar fiend. For me, it was the latter.
Road trip snacks.
On a lengthy road trip, you grab all the junk food you can. You’ll stop for every kind of fast food and make the most of your gas station trips. You have years of healthy, boring car trip snacks to make up for it.
I remember (not so fondly) the years of cheese and crackers, grapes, nuts, and carrot sticks as the only sustenance on our family road trips.
Raisins.
Does the phrase “nature’s candy” sound familiar to you?
Portion control? Not so bad.
As an adult, you don’t feel the need to overload your plate with a mountain of food. When you were young, your parents got you into the habit of smaller, realistic portions.
You may have felt like you were missing out then, but you’re thankful for what your parents did now. You have some solid eating habits that’ll probably stick around for a while and that’s not such a bad thing.
Feeling nostalgic? Check these out:
These 90s Snack Commercials Will Give You Major Nostalgia
7 Healthy Swaps for Your Favorite Childhood Snacks
The 7 Childhood Cereals College Students are Secretly Obsessed With