Introduction: t

he life transition of becoming a university student allows us to remember and value the contribution of older adults to current dietary patterns.

Objective:

to interpret the meanings that university students, according to binary gender, and the influence that older adults have on their current dietary patterns.

Methodology:

an exploratory, phenomenological, hermeneutic qualitative study. In a Chilean university context, adult students who signed informed consent participated. Sampling was purposive, using the saturation point. A semi-structured interview was used to collect data. Data were analyzed using content analysis, concluding this stage with informant triangulation. The study was approved by the ethics committee.

Results:

forty students (52.5 % women) participated. Three categories of meaning were identified: transfers of knowledge, gender roles, and emotional and meaningful appraisal of food transmission. Students recognize their grandmothers for their contribution to their food literacy, a situation consistent with the men's thinking. For the latter, older women respond to a heteronormative role related to food, a situation understood as role inequality by the female participants. Intergenerational emotions, meanings, and eating patterns are mentioned without gender differences for the grandmothers' contribution to their diet. Older men contribute to the teaching and learning process of culinary preparations.

Conclusions:

older relatives persist as normative and affective referents of eating patterns in university students.

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