Millennials Are Remembering The Foods That Were Once Considered “Healthy” In The ’90s, But Would Seem Absurd Today
Nostalgia never tasted this questionable.
Every decade is full of health food trends that, in retrospect, seem a little wild. In the 1980s, it was low-cal, very processed foods, while in the 1990s, it was “fat-free” foods that automatically meant “healthy” — even if the food was packed with sugar and sodium. Snack aisles were lined with neon-colored fruit-flavored treats that somehow got marketed as ~good~ for you. And “health experts” pushed diet fads that felt more like science experiments than nutrition.
A few months back, redditor lazarus870 wanted to reminisce about those once good-for-you ’90s foods when they asked millennials: “What kind of stuff do you remember being considered ‘healthy’ in the ’90s that would be absurd to think about today?”
The thread drew more than 3.8K responses from millennials — including the OP — who shared some of the most absurd or misguided examples of what we once thought was healthy eating. Here are the ones that came up most often:
1. “I remember SunnyD was considered a healthy alternative to soft drinks.”
2. “Margarine”
3. “Fat-free everything. It was mostly high-calorie and full of other stuff like sugar and sodium, so that it had any flavor at all.”
4. “My middle school pulled out all the soda machines and replaced them with Fruitopia machines for our health.”
5. “The whole Special K diet!”
6. “Canned juice. We would get it in the freezer aisle. I feel like juice in general was thought to be a replacement for all fruits!”
7. “Fruit cocktail was our daily fruit intake. Obsessed with that single cherry in the cup! 🍒”
8. “Muffins were supposed to be healthy breakfast options…and quickly the standard muffin got to be the size of a grapefruit, and iced/topped with chocolate and sugar. While the muffin itself got waaaay more cakelike.”
9. “SnackWell’s. Mmmm… transfats.”
10. “The food pyramid that said to eat 10 servings of bread every day.”
11. “Bagel Bites were originally sold as a healthy alternative/new breakfast food.”
12. “That sugary junk cereals were part of a balanced breakfast.”
13. “My mom and dad both still believe(d) Yoo-hoo to be a health drink because it has vitamins.”
14. “Yogurt with straight-up corn syrup in the bottom.”
15. “I just remember diet pills were HUGE there for a while. You could hardly watch TV without seeing commercials for diet pills, especially during the trashy daytime talk shows. For some reason, I have fairly vivid memories of Stacker 2 commercials.”
16. “Kudos bars weren’t actually candy bars because they had cereal grain in them (pushed as super foods at the time), and we could eat them for breakfast.”
17. “Tang. Because space.”
18. “Bagel and cream cheese was a ‘healthy’ breakfast for people wanting to lose weight.”
19. “Salad Spritzers! And the spray butter bottle.”
20. And lastly, “Those chips with Olestra that gave you anal leakage, lol.”
You can read the original thread on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.