Board 8 > Food is lower quality than it used to be.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It does depend on the restaurant. Most bigger chains and longer lived smaller places have gone downhill, but there are still places you can go that are better.

The actual problem on the whole price thing "of course something $2 now and $2 before gets worse" is that it basically all comes back to wage stagnation. Most people don't have the buying power to keep up with inflation, so they cut back on things to keep them the same price because raising the price is worse for the companies margins than cutting back on things. People are more willing to put up with the product sucking slightly more than it did before than having to pay more for the same product.

Like most things having to do with wage stagnation, this isn't a sustainable solution because there is eventually going to be a point where they've cut down on the products so much that it isn't worth the asking price for people anymore anyway.

Get off mah lawn

I seem to be in the minority here, but I feel the opposite. Access to ingredients, spices, and recipes has increased by a lot, and the meals I can put together with negligible effort is pretty decent. I live in a pretty rural area though so especially in produce time might be biased, but even with random winter stuff can put together something decent.

masterplum posted...

This is such a boomer topic.

Due to inflation, if food has stayed the same price, it by definition has gotten worse or lower quality. This isn't greed, it's the fact that the ingredients have gotten more expensive. You can't buy ingredients at a loss.

No they just move their facility to Mexico and use the same ingredients and processes but everything else is cheaper. I think the food generally tastes the same and people tend to lose their sensitivity to sweets early. Google "have Oreos changed" and look through a 20 year history of people getting into their 30s and thinking Oreos have changed.

I do agree there is a boomer aspect to the topic tho

I dont think the flavor of Oreos changed much unless you mean less flavor because theres a fraction of the filling they used to have. Taste wise I dont recall them being any different.

I think food has mostly just gotten smaller, to be honest. I cook and flavour most things from scratch now and have a completely different diet to what I used to, though, so I don't know if I could tell the difference anyway. I think fresh fruit and vegetables might be worse than they used to be? But maybe that's more me moving to the city from rural areas. Also, vegetarian meat replacements are so much better than they used to be. Thank God we aren't just stuck with Quorn anymore.

Oh and I definitely think snacks specifically taste worse for me than they used to. That's probably a combination of me getting older, taking a bunch of meds and COVID making sweet stuff taste like vomit.

Seriously, Impossible Burgers are pretty damn good. Beyond is fine as well but the Impossibles are impressive.

I'm in the UK and I don't think we have Impossible yet, but I'm hoping it arrives some time in the next few years. I mostly just eat veg anyway, though Beyond and Linda McCartney stuff is pretty good for what it is. Not tasteless little mushroom blocks like Quorn, at the very least.

Seitan is my favorite thing to eat lately

It's not like you have to buy "frozen dessert". The good brands are still actual ice cream, including store brands. I think Haagen-Daaz cut a number of ounces off its "pints" a while ago, though.

I eat out waay too much but I haven't noticed a dip in quality over the past few years or more.

Here in the Dairy State, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell "frozen dessert". Okay, probably not, but I've literally never seen it in my life.

DeepsPraw posted...

It has an unparalleled mouthfeel that you simply cant get with traditional fats.

What

Which fat are you even talking about?