14 dinner foods that were beloved in the 1980s but are now banned or heavily restricted

School dinners were a pivotal part of every student's day-to-day. In between maths and history, you'd make your way to the front of the queue for a hearty mid-day meal of sponge, pink custard and turkey twizzlers.

Alas, the days of a nutritional free-for-all are behind us. ​In 2005, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver overhauled the UK's s​chool menus with his Feed Me Better campaign. Turkey twizzlers were a prime target, containing only 34% turkey along with plenty of fat, salt and additives.

There's few dinners that taste as good as a warm slice of bread and a chunk of cheese, but if you've got a particularly well-risen loaf, it might be time to check the ingredients list.

Potassium Bromate was used to strengthen dough and help it rise higher, but '80s studies linked it to cancer of the kidneys and thyroid. This research led to a UK and EU ban in 1990. While it's not officially banned in the US, the FDA has recommended against its use since 1991. 

Frying up sausages or bacon for dinner might sound like a perfect summer treat. But it's what you wash it down with that can matter just as much as the quality of the meat. 

Since the 1920s, brominated vegetable oil had been used to stabilise fruit flavouring in citrus drinks, but it's been proven to build up in body tissue and negatively impact health. BVO was banned in the UK in 1970 but wasn't banned in the US until 2024.

After a good old fashioned '80s dinner, there's nothing better than a slice of freshly baked apple pie. Paired with custard or cream, you can't go wrong.

Unless, that is, the apples you've purchased are coated in Alar to ensure they ripen at the same pace. It might sound like agricultural efficiency but this substance was exposed as a cancer risk, pulled from use by the manufacturer and banned by the U.S. EPA in 1989. 

Milk so fresh it's still mooing might sound like a pastoral, cottagecore fantasy but the reality is a hefty dose of bacteria. 

Unpasteurised milk and raw milk cheeses were everyday items, but E. coli bacteria has put this old favourite under tight control. Raw milk was banned from supermarkets in the UK in 1985 and was banned by the FDA in the US two years later.

Suspicious burger meat will be a nostalgic trip for any '80s kid but, luckily, you're unlikely to come across any suspiciously stuffed sausages nowadays. UK law means beef burgers must contain a minimum of 62% meat, while economy burgers must contain upwards of 47%.

The use of Mechanically Recovered Meat has long been used to keep costs down, but the inclusion of spinal columns from cows was banned following BSE concerns. 

While the UK officially banned the import of whale meat in 1973, it remained a legal dinner option in many parts of the world throughout the early '80s. The International Whaling Commission paused commercial whaling for populations from the mid '80s.

Back in 1988, when people were guzzling back raw eggs like Rocky, Edwina Currie made headlines for claiming 'most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now infected with salmonella.'

By the 1990s, the UK had implemented a vaccine programme and in 2017 declared lion stamped eggs were safe for pregnant women and young children. 

Mason jars had a moment in the heyday of Mumford and Sons, and are coming back into our homes with the rise of 'tradwife' content (PSA: your pasta shells don't have to look aesthetic). 

Back in the '80s, people were doing the same and happily pickled whatever they could get their hands on. Unfortunately, low quality preservation techniques mean these homemade classics are likely not up to modern food safety standards. 

Back in the '80s, locally smoked fish was an easy supper-time treat. But we've since got a lot more aware of the dangers involved in food processing and your favourite Friday meal certainly hasn't swum away guilt free.

Modern standards around temperature, bacterial control and food storage mean smoked fish has to meet a higher standard than the days of your local butcher trying out a new hobby (no matter how tasty it might have been at the time). 

Your main course decided, it's the '80s so surely it's time to start prepping the canapés? If you're hosting something of a posh affair, there's only one choice and that's caviar.

This classy collection of fish eggs remains sought after, in particular, those from the Beluga sturgeon. The US banned the import of this variation in 2005.

You've got an amuse bouche and toxic main course set for the menu, but what about something to wash it all down with? For '80s kids, that's likely to be a grape or cherry soda.

Unfortunately, even the decade's favourite dinner-time drink didn't escape the harmful additives rampant during the '80s. Cinnamyl anthranilate provided those top two flavours artificially, but was banned in 1985 as it was believed it could cause cancer.

There's always room for a square or two of after-dinner chocolate, but if you're based in the US that bar of Cadbury's grinning from the cupboard isn't all that close to its UK version.

Thanks to a 1988 deal with Hershey - which led to a strict import ban on British Cadbury entering the US in 2015 - all Cadbury chocolate in the US is made to a recipe with less fat and a higher percentage of sugar than its UK counterpart.

So the kitchen's a mess, you've burnt the dessert and your partner's on their third trip to the corner shop? Maybe it's time for a takeaway. But what was an '80s treat may have contained harmful artificial trans fats which raise 'bad' cholesterol and lower 'good' cholesterol, increasing risk of heart attack and stroke.

Several countries have been commended by the WHO for their efforts to cut down on trans fats and the US effectively banned industrially produced trans fat in 2018 and intake is reportedly low in the UK.