11 Favorite Snacks From the ’50s and ’60s You’d Never Feed Kids Today
Before FDA regulations and helicopter parenting, the snacking world was a mix of the bizarre, the questionable, and the quirky. The worst part is that kids were the lab rats for all these tasting experiments.
Sugar wasn't just an ingredient in snacks but a separate food group. Additionally, artificial ingredients, wax, and preservatives were used liberally.
Many treats from the 1950s and 1960s will not survive today's stringent safety requirements. We look at some retro snacks that were once the highlight of childhood but would make any parent cringe today.
Cracker Jack
For generations of kids, the red-and-white Cracker Jack box was more than a snack. It was a treasure chest waiting to be discovered. If you ever got one of those as a child, you'd understand the excitement that came with it.
Each Cracker Jack box contained a prize, anything from tiny toy soldiers and plastic figurines to stickers and rings. These boxes sometimes contained small metal parts that would not meet today's safety standards.
Later, paper prizes and game codes replaced the toys and trinkets.
Chocolate-Covered Insects
Many candy concoctions from the 1950s and 1960s would shock modern parents. But nothing came quite close to chocolate-covered insects.
With the loose regulations and safety standards at the time, candy makers coated mealworms, crickets, ants, and other bugs in chocolate. Instead of safety hazards, candy-covered chocolates served as a quirky, adventurous treat.
Wax Bottles (Nik-L-Nips)
As they were unofficially called Nik-L-Nips, or wax bottles, they were a popular treat in the past. They date back to the early 1900s and were still in vogue until the 2000s.
These mysterious edible wax bottles contained colored, sugary liquid. Kids would bite off the top, slurp the liquid, and chew the wax like gum. Weird, right? Today's parents might raise an eyebrow, but nobody questioned chewing wax back then.
Wax Lips
Wax lips were no ordinary candies. They were large lip-shaped treats kids could wear, play with, and eat. Also known as Halloween lips, they came in different styles, some including mustaches and buck teeth.
After wearing these oversized lips, kids would eat them, but it was more wax than candy. While some chewed until the flavor wore off, others swallowed them whole.
In addition to eating wax and artificial flavors, there was also the risk of choking.
SPAM
One look at the ingredients of a SPAM can, and you'll understand why it's no longer as popular as in the 50s and 60s.
A tin contained processed pork, ham, plenty of salt, modified potato starch, sodium nitrite, and sugar. Combined, these do not exactly make for the healthiest meal. But back then, kids looked forward to those thick, processed meats and typically savored them with bread.
You can still find SPAM on shelves, but modern parents would not even suggest it to kids.
Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid has been a kid's favorite since the 1920s. However, due to recent health and nutritional concerns, it is slowly losing its spot in favor of healthier drinks.
A serving of Kool-Aid contains between 19 and 22 grams of added sugar. For context, the American Health Association recommends 25 grams of sugar daily for children. Going above the recommended intake can lead to dental problems, obesity, and potential heart diseases. Most Kool-Aid flavors also contain artificial colors and flavors.
Fizzies
In the 60s, Kool-Aid was perhaps the only snack as popular as Fizzies. All you had to do was drop the candy tablet into water, which ‘fizzed' into a glass of fruity soft drink. Some kids would even bypass water and throw the candy straight in, letting it foam in their mouths.
In 1968, the FDA banned cyclamate, a sugar substitute, claiming it caused cancer — and Fizzies contained cyclamate. This ban prompted the brand to change ingredients a few times. Ultimately, it decided to discontinue the product.
Since then, Fizzies has made short-lived reappearances in the 1990s and 2000s.
Space Food Sticks
In the late 1960s, in response to NASA's Appolo missions, the Pillsbury Company created Space Food Sticks. These snacks were a kind of energy bar marketed as a “nutritionally balanced between-meal snack.”
Space exploration's excitement in that era made Space Food Sticks a popular snack. Although they started as astronaut snacks, they quickly became popular with the general public.
Today's parents would be concerned about the ambiguous nutritional claims.
Dr. Bones Candy Skeleton Parts
Skeleton Parts is quite an interesting name for candy, but it's not surprising in an era when exploration was more important than taste. A pack contained miniature skeleton parts made from chalky candy.
Kids would try to assemble all the parts to form skeletons before munching on them. They were even sold as educational fun snacks.
While parents back then paid little attention, modern parents would agree there are better ways to learn about the human anatomy. High levels of mineral additives, the risk of choking, and the small matter of eating candy shaped like human parts disqualify Dr. Bones from today's lunch packs.
Candy Lipstick
In the '50s and '60s, kids could play grown-up with candy lipstick like candy cigarettes. The waxy, bright-colored tubes mimicked actual lipstick. The most popular variants were hot pink and cherry red, which left stains on kids' lips for hours.
Although many brands sold them as “kiss-proof,” these candy lipsticks left a sticky residue on whatever surface a child touched.
Parents today would also cringe at the amount of wax a candy lipstick contained, not to mention the questionable marketing.
Pixy Stix
Invented in the 1940s, Pixy Stix reached peak popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. The concept was simple: a colorful paper straw packed with flavored sugar powder.
Kids only needed to rip off the top and pour the sweet-sour powder directly on their tongues. Experienced pros took multiple packs simultaneously, resulting in a rainbow-colored tongue and an inevitable sugar rush.
Pixy Stix is no longer an option today, as it offers little nutritional value.
