Inadequate childhood nutrition is associated with poor short-term academic and cognitive outcomes. Dietary supplementation with meat is associated with better cognitive outcome in children. Whether childhood nutrition has life long effects on cognitive function is unclear. We examined the association of childhood meat eating with adulthood cognitive function in southern China where the older population lived through significant hardship during their early years. Multivariable linear regression was used in a cross-sectional study of 20,086 Chinese men and women aged > or = 50 years from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study (phases 2 and 3) 2005-8. We assessed the association of childhood meat eating with delayed 10-word and immediate recall score. Adjusted for age, sex, education, childhood and adulthood socio-economic position and current physical activity, childhood meat eating almost daily, when compared to yearly or never childhood meat eating, was positively associated with delayed recall score (additional number of words recalled out of 10 = 0.22 [95% confidence interval = 0.11-0.31]). Similarly adjusted, childhood meat eating about once a month, about once a week and almost daily were positively associated with immediate recall score (additional number of words recalled out of 30 = 0.38 [0.23-0.54], 0.73 [0.56-0.89] and 0.76 [0.55-0.98] respectively). More frequent childhood meat eating was associated with better cognition through to old age. If confirmed, these results highlight the importance of adequate childhood nutrition and they also emphasise the childhood and adolescent antecedents of adult disease, with corresponding public health implications for healthy aging.