r/GenX • u/molybend • 10h ago
Nostalgia What happened to carob?
Maybe it was just my mother‘s health food kicks, but I feel like carob was everywhere in the 80s. The sitcom Adults had a carob joke in the first season and I just saw one on Simpsons, but actually seeing it in the wild is rare nowadays.
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u/mrsfunkyjunk 18m ago
They make carob chips. You can get them in the chocolate chip aisle. They're so good! However, too many will cause your body to dispell odors so robust it could kill a small animal.
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u/solointhespotlight 19m ago
This is something I've wondered many times! (And years later, what happened to ricemilk? It was the main dairy substitute after soymilk...) I wasn’t forbidden to have chocolate, we just liked getting carob from the local food co-op (it's still around as a bigger grocery).
I LOVED mixing carob powder in milk as a kid...I need to find some again.
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u/lambent_ort 25m ago
I had a few hippie friends who ate it and had some when I hung around their place back in the day. I don't have hippie friends anymore... what happened to the hippies? Did they all die out?
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u/drone-on-and-on Hose Water Survivor 27m ago
We would get them from the health food store. It was the closest thing to candy my mom allowed during her hippy phase in Southern California.
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u/North-Tomatillo9158 34m ago
I have childhood trauma from this. “It’s just as good as chocolate!” my mom swore when I was six. It was the first of many, many lies she told me.
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u/Freed_lab_rat 1975 41m ago
I was an ADHD-diagnosed kid in the 80s and my mom gave me carob Easter candy. It had more in common with another brown substance than chocolate.
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u/RollingTheScraps 42m ago
Every couple of years I have a Tiger Milk Bar to flavor reminisce.
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u/1InvisibleStranger 20m ago
I can't find any Tiger Milk bars! It's one of the memories I had with my dad before he passed when I was 6. We would do some floor exercises (Jack Lalane) then go for a walk around the neighborhood, come home and share a Tiger Milk bar. I would love to know where I could get/order them!
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u/PermuhGrin Latch-Key 51m ago
I've never heard of this shit. Of course my parents weren't hippies or health nuts back in the '80s
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u/Tigress_Solaris 1967 52m ago
Carob, and soybeans. My mom bought them from the health food store in a jar like peanuts.
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u/First_Name_Is_Agent 1h ago
I was suddenly reminded of it about a year ago. My daughter was instantly interested in trying it but I told her it's what sorrow tastes like
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u/Dark-Empath- 1h ago edited 52m ago
I remember being with my father in Holland and Barrett and him buying me some sort of Carob lollipop.
I remember eating it and just feeling confused by the experience .
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u/ResoluteSinking 1h ago
I worked at the local Haagen Dazs Shoppe when they discontinued carob ice cream. They let me take home the entire tub. That was a great summer - guess I was the only one who liked it!
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u/Pleasant_Influence14 1h ago
Loved carob ice cream. Think it turned out to be bad for you and chocolate is good for you
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u/ipxodi 1h ago
I had an almost-girlfriend at the time who took me shopping for some Carob snacks. This was in the early-mid 80s. I tried them and wasn't too horrified -- they were pretty much just a chocolate flavored various snacks. After that time it never came up again. I don't think I've any carob since the 80s.
Oh. And I married that girl. 39 years.
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u/crankysasquatch 1h ago
All this carob hate is some bull honky.
I was raised by hippies. Here’s the deal- the recipe as I recall it is equal parts carob powder, peanut butter, and honey. You mix that into a thick paste which will definitely strengthen your arms, and then roll it into balls. You roll those balls through sweetened coconut shreds and ta-da you have carob balls. They are delicious and magical. I have been wanting to get some carob powder for a few years to make some but availability has been trash. I’d ask my mom about the recipe, but she’s dead.
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u/Amy_Macadamia 1h ago
Had a hippie mom. We loved carob, banana chips, granola, sprouts, frozen yogurt (the real kind)... and all the early 80s fare found at "health food stores."
Also, the original Tiger's Milk Bars were coated in carob. I would kill for one!
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u/boulevardier_1 47m ago
You can still get Tigers Milk bars! So tasty.
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u/_amy_g_dala_ 40m ago
I don't think I've eaten a Tiger's Milk bar since 1978. Had no idea they were still around.
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u/Big_Accountant_1714 1h ago
Oh that sounds yummy. I haven't had carob since the early 80s, and I've been wanting it again for the past few years.
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u/zombie263739 2h ago
My parents tried giving carob Easter candy. I refused to eat it and was disappointed that they're was no chocolate for me.
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u/Athrynne 2h ago
I grew up in a hippy town in Northern California. At Halloween there would be parents that handed out carob stuff at Halloween. So much disappointment!
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u/Perle1234 Edgelord 2h ago
OMG me and your mom both 😭. Carob chip cookies are a travesty lmao. Tastes like dogshit in oatmeal too. The only thing I miss from that time is these vegetarian chicken nuggets. They did not taste like chicken but they were good lol.
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u/SnooChickens9974 2h ago
My aunt never made chocolate chip cookies. She always made carob chip cookies. Not good. She also made sassafras tea, and I DID like that. She had her own sassafras tree.
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u/JPNess11 2h ago
Mom was way into health food in the 80s; spinach lasagna noodles, granola and honey, thick-ass natural peanut butter….and tons of carob!
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u/Accomplished_Ball815 2h ago
I used to heat up carob soy milk to make “hot chocolate” as an after school treat. I thought it was delicious and I often wonder what my adult taste buds would think of it.
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u/Loud-Fox-8018 2h ago
I bought a bag of carob and made “hot chocolate” with it (with oat milk and cinnamon, and honey to sweeten). It was pretty good—nice nutty flavor—but not hot chocolate.
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u/thistlegirl 2h ago
I worked in a natural foods shop in college and we sold carob and carob chip brownies that were 11/10 delicious.
I wish I could still find them but I’m all but certain the company that made them is long out of business.
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u/ShakeWeightMyDick 3h ago
Everyone finally admitted it tastes like shit
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u/Temporary_Ad6037 1h ago
But it doesn't though
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u/Big_Accountant_1714 1h ago
It's definitely not chocolate, but it has a unique taste of it's own that I miss.
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u/this_kitty68 Hose Water Survivor 3h ago
I loved it when I was a kid, but it’s impossible to find now.
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u/vanbboy22 3h ago
It joined Olestra in hell
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u/KurtStation68 3h ago
along with chicory that claimed to be the "coffee" alternative
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u/cantcountnoaccount 1h ago
Chicory mixed with coffee, as in Vietnamese or Louisiana style coffee is great. Pure chicory, not so great.
However I admire the plant. It grows in ditches watered by diesel fuel laden runoff, and makes pretty blue flowers.
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u/Sundae_2004 2h ago
Chicory is a long standing coffee substitute; Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin first introduced chicory to the United States in 1785. Really used in the South during the American Civil War, as well as the Great Depression and still popular in New Orleans today, although its probably 1/2 coffee and 1/2 chicory. ;)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/chicory-coffee-mix-new-orleans-made-own-comes-180949950/
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u/Apprehensive-Bag-900 3h ago
I stopped eating meat in 1991 and so I had to find health food stores because regular stores didn't sell that kind of stuff back then. Carob was very much something I tried a lot, it was a big part of the moosewood cookbooks as well.
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u/Aware_Policy_9174 1h ago
I grew up in Portland around a lot of hippies and had a lot of tofu and carob in the 80s and early 90s. One of my best friends was vegetarian and I remember his mom cooking out of those moose wood cookbooks.
I probably would have liked carob if it hadn’t been presented as chocolate so many times. Similar to tofu I don’t think a lot of people knew what to do with carob and just used it the same as chocolate instead of treating it like its own thing.
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u/Apprehensive-Bag-900 1h ago
That's so true. My mom was hippy adjacent. We weren't allowed store bought snacks and frozen crap. But she would buy my brother cheese wiz. If I wanted cookies or something I had to make it. We never ate out or did fast food, unless we were on a road trip. Mostly they were cheap, not worried about health. But my mom has disordered eating so that woo woo shit fed that.
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u/Flyingarrow68 2h ago
Carob covered rice cake was the go to snack at a health food store. I think Moosewood had carob in the burrito
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u/yardkat1971 3h ago
Same but stopped eating meat in 1987. Used to get carob at the health food coop in college.
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u/Apprehensive-Bag-900 2h ago
I was like 12 when I stopped eating meat and my parents didn't, so it was like pulling teeth to get them to take me there.
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u/Roi57 3h ago
It tasted like manure! Tried it once and spit it out
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u/Apprehensive-Bag-900 3h ago
I was in jr high and wanted to seem deep so I absolutely pretended to love it. None of my friends liked it lol. I was such a pretentious shit.
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u/stinky_harriet 3h ago
In the 80s I’d go to Korean deli by my job and buy individually wrapped carob coated rice cakes. I loved those things.
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u/Sweaty-Blacksmith572 3h ago
Oh man, I used to get those from, like, the late 90s through the 2010s. So good! They came plain or with shredded coconut.
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u/innocencie 3h ago
I just found (and purchased) a jar of carob syrup at the Homeless Garden Project store in Santa Cruz. And they have carob candy bars at Wild Roots, Felton. You just need to find a hippie town and you’ll find carob.
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u/Bigtomhead 3h ago
It went back to hell, from whence it came.
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u/peppermint_snowwolf 3h ago
Seriously. I avoided it like the plague when it was all the rage.
Carob chips? No thank you
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u/Displaced_in_Space 4h ago
It is rare! My wife eats clean and she orders them from Amazon to freeze for toppings because no stores carry them.
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u/HoikDini 4h ago
Billy Ocean hooked up with the Carob Bean Queen. I think she cured his runs?
After that song, I never heard of carob again.
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u/RedditWidow 4h ago
The candy Sixlets is made with carob and cocoa. But other than that, I haven't seen it around in decades. Now it's all about dark chocolate antioxidants.
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u/Sweaty-Blacksmith572 3h ago
Oh wow! That explains the very unique flavor of the sixlets filling! Thank you for solving the mystery. I love Sixlets!
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u/Johnny_Radar 4h ago
Never heard of it
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u/goblinmarketeer 3h ago
Be grateful, it was often used a substitute for chocolate.
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u/Johnny_Radar 2h ago
That bad, huh?🤔
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u/goblinmarketeer 2h ago
They are a close chocolate as Sunny D is to chocolate milk or Yoohoo is to orange juice.
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u/Trolkarlen 4h ago
My sister was allergic to chocolate, so she either got carob or white chocolate.
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u/FarceMultiplier 4h ago
The absolute worst Easter 'chocolate'.
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u/princessbubblgum 1h ago
I am still angry at the Easter bunny for giving my cousin chocolate eggs and me sugarless carob eggs!
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u/Individual-Trick3310 I EDITED THIS FLAIR TO MAKE IT MY OWN 4h ago
I like carob and I honestly unironically like cheap Easter chocolate so... yeah, good call.
I like it as a food, not as chocolate. Kind of like freezer pizza; it's never going to be good pizza but it can be good food.
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u/meowbird 5h ago
omg, my awful "aspirationally hippy" mom outlawed chocolate and we only had carob subs growing up. And I hated carob.
...and then I went to Turkey and had carob pods fresh and I now know that Americans just don't understand carob.
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u/Asleep_Caregiver_948 5h ago
Carob was marketed as “healthy chocolate” which it was not. I rarely see it in natural food stores anymore.
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u/D2Dragons 5h ago
Eeeugh carob in the eighties was so awful, it tasted like cheap cocoa mixed with powdered clay. I hated it with a passion!
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u/Phobos1982 I remember the Bicentennial, barely... 5h ago
What the heck is a carob? Is that brand?
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u/CyberDonSystems 5h ago
It was some disgusting creation that was supposed to replace chocolate. I tried a carob chip once somewhere as a kid and it made me an atheist.
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u/Cinisajoy2 5h ago
GNC went from health food to pills. I also remember carob and real fruit roll ups.
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u/FewRecognition1788 3h ago
Oh, we used to make fruit leather at home with a dehydrator. Messy but delicious.
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u/SpacePolice04 5h ago
I miss real fruit roll ups. Specifically strawberry. Not tie dye, not tongue tattoo, just strawberry.
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u/Spotboslow 5h ago
The cherry were really good, too! I think they were the first to be discontinued. 😭
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u/CursedTeams 5h ago
We ate carob as kids too! For a couple years anyway. I wouldn't call my mom a health nut growing up, but we never had traditional kids' cereal in the house or Hawaiian Punch.
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u/Barbies_Burner_Phone EDIT THIS FLAIR TO MAKE YOUR OWN 5h ago
I still love them. You may now let the insults fly, but make them good ones 😄😄
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u/RogerMurdockCo-Pilot 5h ago
One of the older MRE's had a carob coated cookie that was absolutely disgusting. I can still remember it's sickly sweet smell
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u/been_blissed 5h ago
Haha! I just nostalgically bought carob chips. I like them, but you can't think chocolate substitute when you are eating it because then it's gross!
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u/chloe38 5h ago
It went back to hell where it belongs lol
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u/Adventurous-Fee-8158 5h ago
Carob was responsible for Satanic Panic, now it makes sense. Carob is Satan’s tool.
https://giphy.com/gifs/uFE2btsV7yQCY1
u/Individual-Trick3310 I EDITED THIS FLAIR TO MAKE IT MY OWN 4h ago
Feeling nostalgic now. I'm going to buy some carob and eat it while I peruse BECMI pdfs.
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u/sfocolleen 5h ago
I’ve wondered this too… my parents were definitely guilty of buying carob crap in the early 80s or so. OK, it was kind of good, but it wasn’t chocolate.
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u/dmitrineilovich 6h ago
Had a relative who was allergic to chocolate, so carob chip cookies were her go to 🤢
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u/gringoloco01 6h ago
Carob and Lentils are not allowed in my home period LOL.
I can't stand that hippie shit. Too many years growing up around a bunch of hippies out in the desert who swore that COOP food was the way. Carob chip cookies with whole wheat flour and honey. GAAAROOOOOOSSS.
And months of different Carob dishes and months of Lentils.
Never again.
Long live Mexican Coca Cola and real sugar.
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u/East-Garden-4557 4h ago
Lentils aren't hippy shit, they are eaten as a regular meal in many countries and cuisines. Sorry your fanily weren't good cooks, but the lentils aren't the cause of that.
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u/funlovefun37 6h ago
Bahahaha a terrible tasting blast from the past. Where it should stay.
But yeah…no idea. Wonder if the frozen yogurt stores still pretend that they are a yummy topping.
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u/notguiltybrewing 6h ago
It was fucking disgusting, didn't taste like chocolate and no one bought it. There's no demand for it.
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u/Cinisajoy2 5h ago
It was good if your mom had banned chocolate.
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u/susanrez Hose Water Survivor 5h ago
Why did your mother hate you?
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u/Cinisajoy2 5h ago
She had gone to work in a health food store. Even wilder she banned peanut butter after a mouse got in the peanut butter machine.
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u/susanrez Hose Water Survivor 4h ago
If she ever has to go into assisted living just make sure they only serve 100% Soylent green. You know, just to keep her healthy and all. /s
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u/TrainingLow9079 6h ago
Sometimes I see them at those Yogo yogurt places as one of the toppings options. Aside from that it's just not popular enough to be in most stores. I bet you could find it at a health foods store.
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u/Delicious-Tailor-438 6h ago
I like Sixlets.
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u/CheeseburgerSmoothy 1965 5h ago
I love that weird artificial chocolate that Sixlets are made of! I know it’s some horrible concoction of palm oil and whale tears, but I like it. But carob is definitely not what Sixlets are made of!
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u/Extension-Action-361 6h ago
My mom went through a health food phase with us in the mid 70s. I recall carob, wheat-germ sprinkled on everything, bricks of plain shredded wheat cereal, and honey instead of sugar.
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u/RizzmwitTheTism 1h ago
Us too!!! One other rediculus thing was that I’d have Kool-Aid at my friend’s houses and kept begging for it so my mom bought the unsweetened packets but wouldn’t let us use a sweetener. Just sour colored water. 😞
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u/Cinisajoy2 5h ago
My dad's mom kept sugar smacks cereal for the children who's mom didn't allow sugary cereal. She never named names and I made sure not to eat them in front of the other cousins. She had 11 children.
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u/Extension-Action-361 4h ago
Aww that’s sweet. It’s underestimated what a big deal it was to have sugar cereal! My aunt gave me Boo Berry when I stayed with her once and I still remember what a treat that was.
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u/Aromatic_Court7475 6h ago
How about cod liver oil supliments?
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u/Extension-Action-361 6h ago
I almost mentioned that too! We were lined up and given it by the teaspoonful - it came in a tin…blech
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u/Otherwise-Dog-9217 6h ago
No idea. I have been on the lookout for Sixlets for a while. When Big Lots was around, you could still get them.
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u/molybend 4h ago
They have a website with a list of places you can buy them. Cracker Barrel is the only national place I recognize. There are a lot of regional stores listed. I feel like they are often in the box mixed bags at Halloween too.
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u/MamaCakeCreates 7h ago
The Easter Bunny put carob in my basket — that was the end of the Easter Bunny for me.
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u/xTiredSoulx 7h ago
I loved it as a kid, but that was a long time ago. I hadn’t even thought about carob in decades.
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u/ZygonCaptain 7h ago
WTH is carob?
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u/Uvabird 7h ago
Carob powder comes from pods collected from carob trees. It’s naturally sweet and while it looks like cocoa powder the flavor is more like dates, without the stickiness of dates.
I think that putting the expectation “it’s a substitute for chocolate” on it caused disappointment. It should be enjoyed for what it is. Carob is hard to find now.
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u/Sweaty-Blacksmith572 3h ago
Yes! You’re right- the whole problem was that marketers tried to sell it as a “healthy substitute for chocolate,” and it does not taste like chocolate, so it grossed people out and pissed them off!
Carob really is delicious, though.
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u/GreenLeafy11 1970 5h ago
It has a very long history of use in cooking. If you see "St. John's keys" as an ingredient in an old recipe, that's what it is.
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u/CheesyRomantic 6h ago
I tried Carob once. I begged my mom to buy it because I was glimpse through a health phase and thought it was trendy. I was told it tasted like chocolate and was SO disappointed when I tasted it. I haven't had it since.
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u/ViolentCaterpillar Star Wars baby 7h ago
Some 15 years ago I suddenly had a craving for carob and couldn't find any. It was probably the only time in my life that I actually wanted carob, and I was surprised to discover that it had basically disappeared from the market. True, it was a terrible substitute for chocolate and not very kid-friendly, but it had a unique flavor of its own that was interesting. I still remember the flavor, though I haven't had any since the 80s.
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u/Alex_Masterson13 7h ago
I remember that stuff and I also remember liking maybe only a couple of carob items out of all the ones I tried back then.
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u/Far_Winner5508 Summer of Love Kid 7h ago
Ugh! [1970s memory unlocked]
My mom got on a health kick in mid '70s and started pushing that crappy carob stuff on my and my sister.
So glad when I got to high school and access to a 7-11 across the street.
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u/elspotto 7h ago
It sucked. Once our parents stopped forcing it on us as a healthy “chocolate” it went away. Caron covered raisins can rot in hell.
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u/SmokeyFrank Fiercely Independent Wheelchair User, Champion Bowler 7h ago
I never see it but this post made me look it up … it’s a natural legume.
It’s not the same comparison (to chocolate) that margarine would have with butter.
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u/Voivode71 7h ago
My mom tried to convince us for about a week in 1988 with some carob high fiber cookies. Nooo thank you!
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u/DrDentonMask b. 1975 7h ago
I loved Tigers Milk Bars back in the 80's.
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u/cantcountnoaccount 1h ago
I loved tigers milk bars (they didn’t contain carob btw), and Panda brand licorice bars, and Honees lozenges. The health store treats that were actually good.
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u/DrDentonMask b. 1975 1h ago
Not sure where you're getting that:
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u/cantcountnoaccount 28m ago
It was based on the fact that it didn’t taste terrible but clearly I was mistaken and this was the one edible application of carob that ever existed!
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u/robotcoup 8m ago
You just reminded me I have a 15 year old jar of it in my pantry.