The Beige Years – Junk I Ate as a Teenager
Published: 19 October 2026 Last Updated: 19 October 2026 Categories: Personal
(And in some cases still do)
I’ve never had the best diet. In fact, vegetables have been my enemy since I was a baby and first started chewing my food. I’d arrange the veg (peas, for example) in my mouth before spitting them out like bullets.
From there, things didn’t exactly get any better as I grew older. I knew what I liked, and I wasn’t about to budge. It wasn’t until I moved out, and especially when I met my wife, that my food repertoire started to expand massively. I’m still nowhere near as adventurous with food as your average person, but for me, it’s been a huge step from fussy eater to someone a little more adventurous.
This list is almost certainly incomplete, but these are the foods I remember most from my teenage years, back in the 2000s.
Frozen Food & Ready Meals
Birds Eye Roast Beef and Gravy
I must’ve eaten hundreds, if not thousands of these things. I actually preferred the Roast Chicken in Gravy but somehow I’d always get the Roast Beef, and I can’t find any mention of that online? 
I haven’t had one in such a long time, it must be 15+ years now. Looking back, those frozen bags they came in looked absolutely vile. The below is a good looking one, they usually wouldn’t be so vibrant from what I recall. They tasted good, as good as it would to a stinky teenager.
Chicago Town Deep Dish Pizzas
Much like Roast Beef in Gravy, I easily ate hundreds if not thousands of these. As I got older, I’d replace one for two and gorge myself silly. I always avoided the microwave for these and used the oven. Did anyone else ever eat the doughy bit, then leave the bottom crust/crusty edge for last? I’m guessing nobody else was ever that nuts. I remember being so sad when they changed the pepperoni from chunks/cubes to the flat discs.
Fries to Go
Before Fries to Go, I used to eat Micro Chips and they were so hit/miss, usually miss, and would be rock hard. My Mum found these one day and I went on to devour them daily. I remember them being extremely tasty, uniform and rarely ever bad. I’m actually craving them right now. Edit – Oh for fucks sake they were discontinued last year LOL.
Minute Steaks
These were frozen thinly sliced steaks, steak being a very long stretch of a term for this shit. I’d put them in the microwave for a minute, bang them on two slices of bread and be a happy chappy. My god.
Dinosaurs
I will always, always love these no matter how old I am, but I ate these weekly as part of my diet as a teenager. I’m so glad they still sell them. The t-rex are the best because the tails get crunchy. And, ALWAYS PUT THE CRUNCHY BITS ON THE OVEN TRAY SO I CAN EAT THE CARCINOGENS.
Chicken Strips
Usually I’d eat chicken strips + chips once a week, that was a given. My Mum used to go to M&S to get these for me, because they were the best.
Toast, Bread & Oven Snacks
Bacon, Sausage and Toast
Every morning I’d eat this. Always Richmond sausages and ASDA bacon with golden toast. Mouth watering.
I actually asked if my Mum could make me this recently to relive this. Still holds up. Nothing beats Mum’s breakfast.
Heinz Hoops on Toast
The picture below is a bit odd to me. Instead of putting the hoops all over the toast (And making it soggy), I’d have a bowl of the hoops next to me, I’d use a spoon, pour it over my overly buttered toast, fold it over, dip it in the soupy hoops and eat it before it got soggy. So good. I still eat this once in a blue moon, but the hoops really don’t taste that good anymore. I guess they changed the recipe?
Garlic Bread
This is still the absolute best garlic bread I’ve ever had, bar none. If you like garlic bread, go to M&S and buy these. Cook them for 6-7 minutes at 200°C and enjoy. I’d eat one of these with a lot of my meals listed on this page. In fact, I started buying them again last year because I heard they still sold them. SO GOOD!
Oven Mini Sausage Rolls
When I began working, my Mum would batch make me some of these very early in the morning along with a Kipling Angel Cake. They weren’t memorable, in fact, they tasted of absolutely nothing. The only way to get them to taste good would be to burn them a bit and have them go a bit soggy in foil all day. Weird, I know, but they were cheap and filling.
Snacks and Drinks
Haribo Starmix
I think everyone can agree that Haribo gave everyone the shits, especially in their previous ingredients. If I ever ate a bag of these (Which was quite regular) my stomach would flip out. That’s putting it nicely. I’d eat a few bags a week sometimes. How I didn’t get diabetes is beyond me.
Monster Munch
Still one of my favourite crisps. BRING BACK THE OLD PACKAGING. I remember combining these with Ribena and a sausage roll in school and unleashing a tidal wave of puke.
Fish and Chips Crisps
I haven’t had these in ages, but I remember trying them again years later and they weren’t as good as I remembered. I ate a lot as a teen though.
Frosties Cereal Bar
Frosties were king growing up, they were my “go to” cereal for most of my early life, with Coco Pops being a close second. When they brought these bars out, I devoured so many. It’s such a shame Frosties in general have been nerfed so much, they really aren’t as nice :(.
Chocolate Digestives
If you put a … bag? What do you call these things? Whatever. If you put one of these in front of me, I’m eating them all. I stopped eating them regularly once I heard how many calories were in a single biscuit, Jesus fucking Christ. Also, chocolate hobnobs are king and beat digestives.
Angel Slices
Along with mini sausage rolls, I ate these every day as part of my lunch prepared by my Mum in my first few years of work. So good.
French Fancies
Basically a big cubed Angel Slice. I only ever really liked the pink ones.
Coca-Cola
When I was a teen I used to stay up until 2am to watch WWE RAW live until 4am, or a WWE PPV. My thing was to have 4 glass (The better choice) bottles of full fat coke and some Chicago Town pizzas. No wonder I was a big fat teenager. Couldn’t imagine doing that these days without feeling like death for days.
Sprite
Coco Cola was a treat, even as an oblivious teen I knew it was really bad for me by the way it made my teeth feel like they were under attack. Sprite however was my regular day to day drink. I had it on holidays all the time too, until I tried Fanta Lemon and this was downgraded to “Shit tier”.
I’d like to think my diet is much better these days. It’s by no means healthy, at all, but I eat waaaaay less processed food thanks to my lovely wife. I rarely have soda. Still a work in progress. I have to say though, writing this made me very hungry and also disgusted. Huh.