14 Shocking Food Trends From The '80s

Few eras have been as audacious as the 1980s. Big hair and bright colors ruled, synth-pop was all the rage, and anything new and shiny was coveted. People weren't afraid to try new things, and the culinary scene was no exception. The '80s spurred an obsession with over-the-top snacks, fast food fads, and all things processed and packaged. If you were alive during the decade, you might look back at the food culture with nostalgia. Even so, you have to admit that some of the '80s food trends were pretty shocking.

Unlike the natural food movement of the '70s or the gourmet sophistication of the '90s, the '80s were all about convenience, excess, and innovation. Consumerism was at an all-time high, and food companies adapted to the times with an array of bold new products. There were also plenty of ideas floating around about what constituted good food, some of which seem rather questionable today. Looking back, some of those food trends were cool at the time, but also cringe-worthy. Take a walk down memory lane with us as we recount some of the most bizarre food trends from the '80s.

If you grew up in the 1980s, there's a good chance you had a tub of margarine in your fridge. Back then, the bottom line was that saturated fat was bad and unsaturated fat was good. Ergo, many families chose margarine and other vegetable oil-based spreads over products made with animal fat like butter and lard.

Margarine has a complicated history in the United States. It was created in 1869 as a cheaper and longer-lasting alternative to butter. It enjoyed some popularity in the late 19th century, but also got a lot of flak from dairy farmers who pushed the government to impose heavy taxes on the spread. It wasn't until 1950 that the tax regulations were lifted, right around the time that health experts were starting to warn about the potential health risks of saturated fat.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, margarine sales steadily rose and peaked in the 1980s. However, the 1990s saw a downturn in sales when health experts began raising the alarm about trans fats, particularly in products made with hydrogenated oils. Although the Food and Drug Administration banned partially hydrogenated oils in foods in 2015, public opinion about margarine has never quite recovered.

Since its inception in 1940, McDonald's has experimented with many menu items. In fact, the restaurant started as a barbecue joint but later pivoted to offer mainly burgers and fries. While some of the chain's trial foods made it onto the permanent menu (the Filet-O-Fish being the most prominent), others were doomed to become discontinued McDonald's menu items that we're never getting back. One of those is the McPizza.

Pizza chains were doing booming business back in the '80s, so it's not surprising that McDonald's wanted a piece of that pie. In the late '80s, the chain rolled out family-sized pizzas first, followed by personal-sized pies. Unfortunately, the pizzas caused some logistical issues. The main problem was that they took too long to cook, which went against McDonald's ethos of ultra-speedy service. The McPizza managed to hang on throughout the '90s, but by the early 2000s, it had all but disappeared. Today, the only place you can still get pizza at McDonald's is Epic McD, the world's largest McDonald's in Orlando, Florida.

No Super Bowl party or potluck dinner in the 1980s was complete without a seven-layer dip. Although there is some dispute over who invented this monster of a dip, most sources point to Texas as its place of birth. Some believe a woman named Peggy Shoop created it in the early '80s when she added her own twist to a recipe for a six-layer dip. Others say this Tex-Mex creation was already popular in the late '70s. Regardless of where it came from, it became an iconic '80s party dish.

Seven-layer dip typically includes refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese, green onions, and black olives. Some people also add ground beef, shredded lettuce, and sliced jalapeños. Each ingredient is layered on top of one another, and the whole thing is often served in a glass vessel to display the layers in all their colorful glory. It's usually served with tortilla chips on the side for dipping. It's easy to see why this somewhat kitschy classic has endured — it's cool, creamy, colorful, and bursting with flavor.

Many popular foods in the 1980s were all about convenience, and nothing said convenience like spray cheese in a can. Not only could you dispense ribbons of bright orange cheese with just the push of a button, but you could also keep it in your cupboard for months at a time. Spray cheese actually came into being in the 1960s, but it really took off in the 1980s when it was rebranded as Easy Cheese, a product that still exists today.

We have Nabisco to thank for the creation of canned spray cheese. It was first released in 1965 as Snack Mate and was designed to boost cracker sales. At one point, there were seven different flavors to choose from including cheddar, shrimp cocktail, and fried onion. In 1984, Kraft acquired the brand and renamed it Easy Cheese. The bright packaging and novelty aspect of the sprayable cheese resonated with '80s buyers and Easy Cheese soon became a cult classic. Today, Easy Cheese is owned by Mondeléz International and it comes in two flavors: cheddar and American.

When sun-dried tomatoes started appearing in specialty food stores in the States in the 1980s, people took to them like wildfire, sparking a sun-dried tomato craze that lasted well into the 1990s. It started with sprinkling them on pizzas and salads but eventually morphed into sun-dried tomato everything. Think sun-dried tomato tortillas, crackers, dips, and bagels. Eventually, the obsession with the sweet and tangy tomatoes waned, and they're now considered a somewhat retro ingredient.

Sun-dried tomatoes were likely born in Southern Italy, where people have a long tradition of drying tomatoes in the sun and preserving them in oil. The drying process intensifies the sweetness of the tomatoes, and packing them in oil helps to rehydrate them and adds richness. In the '80s, many sun-dried tomatoes in the United States were imported from Italy. As they increased in popularity, companies started mass-producing them using dehydrators instead of drying them in the sun. The result was often tough, tasteless tomatoes. The decline in quality may have been what contributed to the downfall of sun-dried tomatoes as an "it" food.

Only in the '80s could a soda company use the tagline, "All the sugar and twice the caffeine" and garner thousands, if not millions, of fans. Of course, we're talking about Jolt Cola, the electrifying soda that contained about 10 teaspoons of sugar and 71 milligrams of caffeine per 12-ounce can. The soda was launched in 1985 and quickly became the go-to drink for anyone needing a quick pick-me-up or assistance staying awake well into the early hours of the morning.

The creators of Jolt Cola were a father and son team named Joseph and Carl Joseph (C.J.) Rapp. The duo were disenchanted with the way soda brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi were moving towards artificial sweeteners and lighter versions of sodas. Jolt Cola was meant to harken to the good old days when heavy, rich sodas were all the rage. The result was an adrenaline-pumping sugary soda that fell just under the legally allowed caffeine limit. Jolt Cola had a good run in the '80s and '90s, but eventually declined; the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and the beverage was discontinued altogether in 2019.

When Herb McDonald created the Buckaroo Buffet at El Rancho Vegas in the mid-1940s, his goal was to keep people in the casino longer. Little did he know that he would spark a food trend that would grow to epic proportions. By the 1980s, Las Vegas buffets weren't the only places you could gorge yourself on all-you-can-eat spreads. Buffet restaurants like Sizzler and Ponderosa skyrocketed in popularity during the '80s thanks to their promises of unapologetic excess. Even fast food chains were capitalizing on the buffet craze during this decade of decadence.

You might be surprised to hear that many of the big-name fast food brands tried out buffets at some point in the '80s. Redditors reminisce about the buffet offerings from Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's back in the day. Rumor has it there are still some KFCs in the States that offer buffets. Perhaps the most missed of them all though is the Wendy's Superbar. This epic fast-food buffet featured salads, pastas, DIY tacos, and desserts. At roughly $2.99 for lunch and $3.99 for dinner, it was an absolute steal.

Neon colors were huge in the 1980s, and not just in fashion. Trendy tipplers also liked to sip on garishly colored cocktails. If you stepped into a bar during the '80s, it wouldn't be uncommon to see bartenders mixing up drinks with brightly-hued liqueurs like blue curaçao and creme de menthe. Many cocktails also contained vibrant juices like orange, cranberry, and pineapple. Even the shots were pretty eye-catching with multi-colored layers. Think B-52s and Slippery Nipples.

As you can imagine, many of the colorful cocktails that people loved in the '80s were ultra-sweet. Take, for example, the popular Woo Woo cocktail, which consists of vodka, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice. This was also the era when pre-mixes became popular, so margaritas were being blended in slushie machines with lime-aide, and piña coladas were being sold in cans. Thankfully, craft cocktails were just around the corner. By the late '80s, serious bartenders were pushing for a return to fresher, higher-quality ingredients. However, the modern craft cocktail movement didn't really gain traction until the 1990s.

You would think with all the sugary drinks and processed foods people were consuming in the '80s that health wasn't really a concern. Yet, nothing could be farther from the truth. This was the era when aerobics, fat-free foods, and fad diets were exploding in popularity. One of the most popular diet books of the time was "The Beverly Hills Diet," which was published in 1981 and became an instant bestseller.

The author of "The Beverly Hills Diet" was a woman named Judy Mazel who never studied nutrition or medicine. She became interested in weight loss while recovering from a broken leg and devised the diet based on her own research and experiences. Her strategy was to eat only one type of food at a time. She suggested eating only fruit for the first 35 days and then being mindful about combining proteins, carbs, and fats. Unsurprisingly, many health experts criticized the diet for lacking any scientific basis. However, that didn't stop thousands of people from buying the book and several celebrities from endorsing it.

It's hard to find a food that was more vilified in the 1980s than Brussels sprouts. Many people who grew up in that era have an aversion to them even to this day. The biggest complaint back then was that Brussels sprouts were incredibly bitter. Now these leafy green vegetables are having a major moment, and it's pretty rare to hear people complaining about the acrid taste. Part of the reason comes down to science.

In the 1990s, a Dutch scientist named Hans van Doorn identified the chemical compounds in Brussels sprouts that make them bitter. His discovery inspired seed companies to cross-breed different varieties of Brussels sprouts so that they could create vegetables with fewer of those compounds. That's why many Brussels sprouts today aren't nearly as offensive as the ones people in the '80s and earlier decades had to suffer through. If the bitter taste of Brussels sprouts put you off them in the past, you might want to give them another chance. You may just find that you have a new favorite veg.

In the super-saturated fast food market, chains constantly have to up their game to remain relevant. Usually, that means coming up with new products that will pull new people in the door and keep fans coming back for more. The '80s were a particularly competitive time for fast food chains, with many adding a slew of new menu items to try and outpace the competition. Taco Bell was no exception. One Taco Bell menu item from the '80s that many people wish would make a comeback is the Bell Beefer.

Imagine a fast food taco packaged in hamburger form, and that's pretty much what the Bell Beefer was. It featured ground beef, shredded lettuce, diced onions, and mild salsa stuffed inside a burger bun. Interestingly, a chili burger was one of the original Taco Bell items on the menu when the chain opened in 1962. In the 1970s, the burger was renamed the Bell Burger and later the Bell Beefer. No one knows why the Bell Beefer was discontinued, but it's possible slow sales led to its demise.

The 1980s were a pretty awesome time to be a kid because there were so many fun foods designed just for young people. Breakfast cereals were particularly exciting — not only because they were sugary and colorful, but also because many had tie-ins to pop culture. This was the decade when food companies began producing novelty cereals based on characters from cartoons, movies, and video games. It's easy to see why impressionable '80s kids were more than willing to eat it all up.

Before the 1980s, many cereals featured colorful cartoon mascots like Tony the Tiger or Toucan Sam, but they weren't characters kids were watching on TV or in movies. That all changed in the early '80s when General Mills began pursuing licensing agreements to produce cereals based on well-known fictional characters. Some hits included Strawberry Shortcake, E.T., and Pac-Man cereals. As the decade unfolded, kids could scarf back cereal based on a wide array of characters, including C-3PO, Batman, Mr. T, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those days are long gone, but diehard fans of the discontinued cereals can still find some of those vintage cereal boxes floating around.

If there was one drink that every kid wanted in their lunch box in the late '80s, it was Squeezits. These fruit-flavored beverages were revolutionary in several ways. For one, they were the first fruit drinks to be packaged in squeezable plastic bottles. In addition, they didn't require a straw. All you needed to do was twist off the cap and slurp the sugary concoction down. Plus, after the drink was done, the bottles could be refilled with water and used as squirt guns.

While Squeezits were unique in many ways, they shared one thing in common with many other kid's drinks on the market at the time, and that was they were packed with sugar. Oddly, many parents in the '80s didn't seem to have a problem sending their kids off to school with drinks that were absolute sugar bombs. Anyone remember Capri-Sun juice packs, Hi-C Ecto Coolers, or PepsiCo's fruit-flavored soda called Slice? If it was sweet, syrupy, and had a vague reference to juice, there's a good chance it was a successful '80s beverage.

Chewing gum was nothing new in 1980s America. Commercial chewing gum had been on the market since the 1840s, and by the middle of the 20th century, it came in a variety of flavors. However, the '80s were all about the newest, most novel food items, and bubble gum was fair game for a transformation. Candy companies began to play with different flavors and forms of bubble gums, and the results were sometimes shocking.

One product that made a big splash in the '80s was soda bubble gum. This liquid-centered gum came in a range of popular soda flavors like Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, and A&W root beer. When you bit into the gum, the soda center would gush out, offering a gooey burst of soda flavor. The taste didn't last very long, but it was the novelty that counted. Then there was Big League Chew gum, which debuted in 1979. Designed to look like chewing tobacco, it came in a sack filled with a giant wad of shredded pink gum. More than a few '80s kids probably remember getting jaw fatigue from trying to chew the contents of the entire sack in one sitting.

Just like butter was vilified in the '80s for being too high in saturated fats, bacon was also taking a hit. Sizzlean was perfect the solution for fat-fearful consumers. Created by Swift & Co., this bacon alternative was made with pork shoulder instead of pork belly and was marketed as being 50% leaner than bacon. There was also a beef version. You may recall the Sizzlean ads with catchy jingles like, "Don't bring home the bacon. Think lean. Bring home the Sizzlean!" Or perhaps the tagline, "Move over, bacon, there's something meatier!"

By most accounts, Sizzlean wasn't terrible. It just wasn't bacon. Many people recount how it would never get crispy no matter how long you cooked it and that it had a slightly chewy texture. One Reddit user likened it to "bacon-shaped Spam." Despite that, Sizzlean stayed on the shelves throughout the 1980s and until the early 2000s. It's not clear why it was discontinued, but if we had to guess, we'd say sales probably lagged as the low-fat craze of the '80s and '90s died down.