Products that have declined in quality. YET AGAIN!

So, Jicky got icky?

Careful, OP. Post anything about food and some prisspot asshole will call you fat or say you type fat.

For me, it's Campbell's Cream Of Chicken soup. I crave it when I have a cold and it's now this gelatinous blob. It used to taste better and you'd have to break it down because it would be more solid.

😂 Jicky has lost the icky it used to have (funk, civet). It's smooth and pleasant now.

How is the Campbell's organic chicken? Just a gimmick?

No products are ever the same after years and years. Corporate America cheapens everything for more profits.

I enjoyed the refried beans in the burritos at Taco Bell back in the 80s, the red sauce too. Both changed in the mid-90s and are now even worse tasting. I can't eat there anymore.

Breyers Ice Cream. It used to have taste.

OP live too long and is too fat.

Most Breyers flavors aren’t legally ice cream. They specifically don’t call them ice cream. People see a big ass Breyers logo and assume. And then they have a few flavors that are legally ice cream just to confuse the conversation.

Things have reached a pretty pass when a fellow needs to buy extra peanuts to supplement his Snickers, just to get the taste back to what it used to be.

Breyer’s ice cream did not have additives in the 1990’s. It was just cream, sugar and vanilla or cocoa, or strawberries.

Cheez Whiz, Kraft Dinner, Campbell’s tomato soup.

As a kid, I liked Cheez Whiz in celery. I also liked tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. These aren’t foods I’d eat regularly, but now I don’t bother at all.

Maybe I could squeeze civet ass glands into my Jicky. Unfortunately the live animal market in Wuhan has shut down.

OP. So many classic fragrances have been knee-capped by the EUs IFRA regulations, which are becoming progressively onerous, all to ensure that no one ever can have a slight allergic reaction to any fragrance. Oakmoss is pretty much illegal now, citrus oils are apparently next. So long to classic chyphres.

Once in a while my father would have a can of Coca Cola. I was at Kmart once and they sold bottle of Coca Cola from Mexico which had NO high fructose corn syrup just SUGAR. My father is NOT a gourmet but even he said the Mexico Coca Cola tasted MUCH better than the high fructose corn syrup American crap. Beverage companies in the USA started to switch over to HFCS from sugar in their sodas around 1980.

Since they banned hydrogenated oils, Ritz crackers taste like ceiling tile and crumble to ash in you hands.

Dolly Madison's "snacks" haven't gone down in quality one lick. They've always been awful.

Presidents of the United States

[quote] Oakmoss is pretty much illegal now, citrus oils are apparently next. So long to classic chyphres.

Oh, NO! How will I survive without CHYPRES!

Most American chocolates taste more and more artificial

BIC branded lighters have adjust the gas so that you use that up faster.

The problem is that now the base level for the flame is extremely higher and the flame is unwieldy.

Fuck you, Darfur Orphan! Two of my favorite scents have been reformulated because of the EU's overreaction. Go eat a bug and leave us alone, bitch.

Most chocolate tastes like plastic now.

I had one piece of Hershey's candy on Halloween and had to spit it out because it was just way too sugary sweet.

Kroger store brand paper towels used to be the best bargain, but they both made them thinner and shrunk the size of the rolls, so I don’t buy them anymore.

Not a decline in quality but total disappearance for the plastic meshy pot scrubber things. I’ve always bought them but when I needed more I couldn’t find them in any store, even Dollar Tree and Walmart. They sell all kinds of dense sponge based scrubbers on the market but those trap water and start stinking in no time. The mesh ones could be rinsed out and left to dry, No mildew smell and they don’t scratch pots. Weird that something in use since my grandmothers time and taken for granted just disappeared all of a sudden.

Broadway

Aldi gets those sometimes, R25. Last time they had them I. November, they even had little handle knobs on them. They sold them in 2-packs for a few dollars.

I haven’t eaten a chocolate bar since maybe 8 years old. I have my own issues - eating crap is not one.

^in*, also, meant R24 not R25.

The OSCARS

They changed every single national brand of toilet paper over the last few years. I hate all of them.

I’m sure it was so they could save .05 cents a year.

Pizza Hut pizza. It used to be pretty damn good in the 80s and the 90s. It is still better than other chain pizzas but it's not the creamy crack it once was.

The only reason pizza hut was good was because we didn’t have wood fired pizza yet over in North America. Then it was over.

All crackers. And, to go along with the new 'taste like nothing/crap' greatness, they also keep shrinking the packages. Club crackers took out an entire sleeve. Town House first started putting fewer crackers in each sleeve so all the crackers moved around and were broken. Then, they shrunk the sleeves to fit the fewer crackers. (I assume they had to use up their supply of larger sleeves.) Now, they have put fewer crackers in the sleeves, again. Ritz started tasting like shit a decade ago.

Honestly, I think generics are better than name brands now a lot of the time because they are foreign made and the quality is better than American crap.

Those looking for decent toilet paper, do you have a Family Dollar around you? They have a 1250 sheet roll for a buck that's pretty good. Doesn't seem as miniaturized as others.

Lexus vehicles were over engineered and built like vaults/tanks in the early ‘90’s all the way up to the mid-‘00’s. There was a noticeable decline in build quality and fit/finish in the late ‘00’s, and the newer models simply are not on the same caliber as the older models from a fit/finish perspective.

Every shampoo and conditioner smells terrible now. I remember when they all smelled really good. Revlon Outrageous and SAMY were my favorites.

The Darfur Orphan is the unfunniest meme on Datalounge.

Toblerone and Cadbury's taste of plasticky nothingness nowadays.

Ciswomen

Another mention for pizza hut pizza. It was a go-to greasy comfort food but now the owners are so stingy with everything you get crust that is almost two inches thick and some weird ass soy cheese shit on it that doesn't even melt properly.

High cost + Low quality = Capitalism

Mountain Dew. It used to have a fruity taste back in the 90s (in high school friend taught me how to make "hobo" wine coolers mountain Dew and white wine.

Even diluted with a white wine you could still taste that fruity flavor.

Now it has a medicine-ish over sugary taste and not even real sugar.

Mountain Dew and Madame Rochas, bastardised.

Peanut M&Ms. One of the few candy snacks with a fairly low glycemic index (around 38). However, in the last year or so, I've noticed that a noticeable percentage of them have stale peanuts - to the point where I have to spit it out.

Also, Diet Dr. Pepper. I used to love that stuff. Now it's bitter and I can't drink it any more. Still sorta hanging on with diet A&W (or Barqs) Root Beer (diet of course.) Not great but all the rest is gross - especially Diet Coke. Leaves a gummy taste in your mouth. What are they doing??

R41 Corn syrup ruins everything.

Crotch fruit.

Everything about toilet paper sucks now. You can’t actually buy a package of toilet paper rolls anymore- everything is a double roll, triple roll or quadruple roll. Of course, when the only Quilted Northern that Target is selling is the “triple” roll, then it de facto becomes just a roll. And if this “triple” roll is really triple the size, what’s a single roll? 5 squares of paper.

It makes it difficult to comparison shop with this gimmicky advertising. One brand has six triple rolls, while another has eight double rolls, but it’s not like there’s some industry standard for what constitutes a single/double/triple roll.

The same thing has happened with buying paper towels.

^^ Due to fat assed huge dumping Americans.

R46, Buy toilet paper by the ply (get 2-ply) and by the square inches. AKA, read the fine print. Then compare for value.

Sadly, my concerts...

Butter. Tasteless. Cheddar cheese. No sharpness. Lamb chops. Ptui.

But maybe it's my old taste buds, as I find many food items bland anymore.

The quality of almost everything has gone way down. It’s very disappointing. Clothing is crap. Designer clothing is crap. Food has all sorts of chemicals. I moved to the UK in the last couple of years and at least some of the food standards are higher here but the toilet paper is horrible. Might as well use the newspaper.

Fragrances are absolute garbage now. I’ve got an old bottle of Chanel No. 5, unopened in a dresser drawer and I guess I’ll just hoard it. Pretty much every fragrance I’ve loved has been discontinued or reformulated. There are a few obscure ones that I’ll never smell again, and that makes me sad. There’s still good food around (thank god for imports and local artisanal kooks bless them).

L.L. Bean is trash now. I’m actually shocked at how bad it’s gotten. When I find good old pieces at thrift shops or yard sales, I snap them up.

Most merchandise sold nowadays is just cheap and shitty. Good quality anything is no longer available in the US because America has found new slave labor in far flung places. Even those shitty products are getting smaller in size for a higher price!

BREAKING: As you age your sense of taste,smell,touch,hearing,sight diminish.Did I mention you become skinflints?

Apparel industry is a perfect example. Cheap blended fabric glued together by 8 yr old slave labor in Bangladesh. Will not survive even one laundering. Don't get me started on the 2 month life span of gym socks.

R24, try looking for Scrub-It brand nylon scrubbies on Amazon. That's where I had to buy mine. Got three packages of them which will last me until the end of time.

Very odd about Snickers, OP, because I just had one for the first time in a while and it tasted better than the last time I'd tried one. In fact, it was the size I remember from when I was a kid in the 1980s, and I found the proportions were nicer than the Snickers of several years ago, which were huge but all nougat.

Bought some Oreos recently and was really put off by how sweet it was. I remembered them being more savory, especially the cookie part which was hardly sweet at all.

[quote]Not a decline in quality but total disappearance for the plastic meshy pot scrubber things. I’ve always bought them but when I needed more I couldn’t find them in any store, even Dollar Tree and Walmart.

R24, I know what you're talking about - the SOS Tuffy dishwashing pads, the orange/yellow or blue ones. They finally disappeared for good a couple of years ago after becoming progressively harder to find for some time, and there's no viable replacement for them. You can still find little disc-shaped plastic scrubbers pretty easily, but they're not the same as the SOS Tuffy ones at all, which were more durable and 'crumpled' to fit into areas that the round ones can't. I really miss them.

R14, I agree. And the fact that it's bottled rather than canned adds to the better, old-time taste.

Caron Farnesiana is another perfume that's been completely fucked.

Airlines. I'm 6' tall and feel crunched riding in economy. Can't imagine if someone is over 6' and how they managed to fit. I won't eat any airline food even if it's included in the airfare. I'm sure that pigs wouldn't eat it. I use points to upgrade if flying cross country or to Europe. I make do if my flight is only a couple of hours, but still won't eat the food. I'd rather go hungry.

Life unless you are rich, minority or female.

r46 Quilted Northern is a KOCH brand, so you shouldn't be buying it anyway.

Farnesiana was deeply woody until 2000.

Fragrances aren't exactly dead. They come up with new ones based on the new molecules, so a new conception of fragrance, that are good. But the old ones are mostly impossible it seems. It seems hypocritical we can go buy a delicious cigarette, knowing it's a cancer stick, but we can't buy a potential allergen for 1 out of 10,000 people.

R62, your post is ridiculous.

And newsflash, sweetie: you're on a gay website. Gay=minority.

R56, which ones did you buy?

R43- Before you buy the M&M's with peanuts check the sell by date. Make sure it's six months away then the peanuts should taste fine.

R34- Even Consumer Report's has mentioned the cheapness of the interior of the Lexus ES in recent years. I bought a 1992 Honda Accord LX in 1997. It was the BEST car I ever owned. It was not only very reliable the interior fit and finish resembled a much more expensive car. This car was over engineered like the Lexus cars of twenty years ago. The trunk of my Accord was lined with the same carpeting as the interior. The materials for the seats were excellent. The power mirror switch I could make the most minute adjustments in the mirror. Honda began cheapening their cars after 1993. The reliability of the 2019 Honda Accord is only average. In the 1990's Honda Accords had OUTSTANDING reliability.

These, R66:

R55, don’t get me started. 90% of my wardrobe is from thrift shops. It’s the only way I can afford the natural fibers I prefer. Good leather shoes, shearling coat, cashmere sweaters, tweeds, silk twill scarves, etc. The garments are heavier and thicker and they last. I’ve got lots of things that are 30-50 years old that look new. New and shiny isn’t really a priority.

R70 is doing it right.

Crackers are crap now because we took away the hydrogenated vegetable oil in the US (shortening, aka trans fat) and they're not tasty anymore.

The quality of dish soap (hand dish washing) and detergent (liquid) is crap. "Ultra" seems more diluted than the regular dish soap we used to have. I have a feeling we're all being charged more, for less. Tide "Ultra" , the same.

Tarrifs much?

R24 - Amazon has the traditional thin green non-scratch scrubbers and also these natural-fiber ones.

J Crew t-shirts have become utter crap in the past 10 years. I’ve stopped buying them because several times, they developed holes after one wear or one wash.

Breyers Ice Cream...

Because people have to have something to look at before deciding to buy Ben & Jerry's

Ben and Jerry’s deserves mention too.

Check that ingredient list, girl.

Three Musketeers Bar

Add caramel and you get MILKY WAY

Milky Way

Add peanuts and you get SNICKERS

Not a decline in quality, but in quantity: Crest 3D White toothpaste. The last time I bought some, I noticed the weight had gone from 4.8 ounces (136 g) to 4.1 ounces (116 g), but the box was the same size, and the tube was the same length.

I swear it's everything these days. All my guilty indulgences taste off or maybe I was just always stoned. I thought my taste buds were shot from alcoholism ;( but nope. Haagen Daz still makes some great tasting ice cream though.

R77-That happened when UNILEVER bought Ben and Jerry's.

Ben & Jerry's has always used guar gum and carrageenan. It didn't start with Unilever.

The comic sections of all the newspapers. In the 40s they was funny with Lil Folks, Lil Abner, Lil Lulu and Barney Gumble and Snuffy Smith

Yes, Haagen Dasz is still excellent. The only ice cream brand (and one of the few of all food junk food brands) that's held up. The ingredients list is still readable.

Twinkies

R64 - So it was 2000 when Farnesiana changed? Because now I have a date I can search for pre-2000 vintage bottles. Thank you. I'm a real fume-head and for whatever reason (OK, the reason is the Scent Bar in L.A.) I tend to lean towards niche but my favourite fragrance of the past few years is Chloe Nomade. The first and only Chloe I've ever loved. It's full of that dry, almost dusty note I often hate, but also plummy and - ugh, I love it.

I can recommend Vileda scrubbies (recently tried them after a rec from America's Test Kitchen and they are superior to the Scotchguard I've been using - and which declined precipitously in quality about 1-2 years ago - in every way). The Scotchguard got so shitty I was opening a new one every week or so. The Vileda I'm using now has been in use for 7 weeks. I'll give these Scrubits a try, too.

Petty but very real reasons I can't hang out with certain people #24:

They prefer Ben and Jerry's to Haagen Daz. I agree with everyone here saying HG is one of very, very few widely available brands that has maintained a consistently very high quality. The only grocery store ice-cream worth buying where I am. Ben and Jerry's sucks and it irritates me when people talk about it like it's a premium/equal to HG brand. I am pathetically relieved to see people posting who agree, because I once had a weeklong fight with a friend about this. She was also under the impression that Victoria's Secret undies and bras were high end. Fucking hell.

Supermarket yogurt brands. Dannon has dropped most of their classic flavors, filled the remaining ones with HFCS, and even changed the packaging to something cheap-looking. A decade or so ago everyone started pushing "Greek-style" yogurt, which doesn't have the flavor or even texture of any yogurt I've eaten in Greece. They've simultaneously all gone from the formerly standard 8 oz cup to 5.3 oz.

If you want kraft macaroni in the box that tastes like it did when you were a kid, get Aldi's store brand, it's damn good.

Well I just bought some do-si-dos Girl Scout. The cream filled center was almost non-existent. And, you get the privilege of donating $5 for the box, an increase of $1 over just year. With less filling. Are they inclusive like the Boys Scouts?

This thread would be more interesting and useful (and shorter) if we listed things that have NOT declined in quality...

Wegman’s store brand products.

I'm not R90 and I'm afraid of being called a shill, but Aldi stuff is pretty damn decent.

Their fake cheez-its, the white cheddar kind, are outstanding. I stopped buying them because I couldn't stop eating them, but if you don't have that problem then they're well worth your $1.50 or so for a big box full. Their box of assorted crackers is good for the money. They sell fake girl scout cookies for around a buck a package-- I don't buy cookies but I hear those are "like the real thing." 85% of their snacky stuff is totally decent. If you're paying $3-4 right now for something that no longer tastes like you remember, why not just move on to something else that isn't any worse for $1-2 instead? I do get the point of the thread, but just a suggestion.

Their bread is mostly terrible, but the mini naan are good in the toaster. Most of the stuff there is good or good enough, especially for the money. Plus they have two aisles of random stuff that's always changing, some of that stuff is great.

R93, Wegman's have declined or have not declined?

R84-You're correct even though Haagen Dazs was bought by Nestle's years ago.

Kraft Singles. Just the plain old pale orange ones. At least in Canada they've totally changed texture and now they're all weirdly sticky and fall apart when you try to get them out of the wrapper.

R86 I can't date the change on the Caron exactly in the noughts. I only know in the 90s it was intact because I had some.

By the way, the fillable bottles of Azzaro pour Homme, form last and this year, are not the same juice. I personally can't be arsed tracking down vintage bottles of anything. At the moment some overlooked or forgotten Italian drugstore men's fragrances are intact. Battistoni, Capucci, Arrogance, even Pino Silvestre.

Oh, disgusting, r98. I thought you were talking about something to eat. I just swallowed two ounces of your stench.

Move it to a perfume thread.

Oreos are now nothing like they were in the past. They're gross.

Most underwear

Why don't you shove off R100, since as I started this goddamned Debbie Downer thread, myself, and was politely answering a post. Sheesh!

R38, you mean 'women'

Wegman’s store brand products have declined. The last seven or so good products I’ve bought from them have been terrible.

Their white cake from the bakery is good, though.

I have a feeling that someone posts about the decline of expensive products they could never afford to impress the rest of us. I have a feeling their toupee is running a little tight these days.

Untwist your pannies, R100, perfume is a 'product' and as such a perfectly legitimate thing to discuss in this thread.

Thank you for the reply, OP. I will begin searching for pre-2000s Farnesiana. My dream (long discontinued) find is Ipanema by a French brand (Satellite) that did some of the best niche frags I've ever sniffed and then discontinued all but 1 of them. Maybe all by now?

The quality of Q-tips is inconsistent.

It is, r108. My last batch of brand-X Q-Tips was so bereft of cotton (or whatever they're using instead these days), I made sure I bought Q-Tips brand Q-Tips. They're just cotton-sparse.

Before the Consumerist blog shit the bed they talked a lot about how companies would do stuff to slightly lower quality and keep it in the same price range.

Smaller packaging, a little of this, a little of that.

Me, I'd rather pay the extra buck or two for the good stuff. But I suppose people want a bargain version too. I thought that's what store brands were for, though.

Remember those yogurt covered raisins? Now Welch’s brand DOESN'T HAVE A RAISN in it, it’s artificial goo.

God knows what they are feeding us now that all the agencies have been slashed big food unregulated.

To all the people commenting about Oreos, try Newmans o's they are so much better. The chocolate cookie part isn't too sweet and has a strong chocolate flavor while the filling is just sweet enough.

Thanks a bunch, R113!

r79=toothpaste size queen

Heavy cream.

Nearly every brand, even those labeled organic, have guar gum, carrageenan, tara gum, or mono/diglycerides in them as thickeners. If you want to make homemade ice cream to avoid the artificial slime, you'll have to do some legwork to find cream without additives. I can't find it, even at Whole Foods. Trader Joe's is said to have it, but I can't find one without the slimy additives.

New (U.S.) regulations require cream to be ultra pasteurized, which affects its ability to whip properly for whipped cream, so they add thickeners. So for homemade ice cream, I have to buy Haagen Dazs.

R88 you are not petty. I'm also annoyed by ignorant enthusiasm. It's fine to love your favorite brand, but don't enthuse that it's the real deal when you've obviously never read the label.

Haagen Dazs ice cream bars are not as good as they used to be.

Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi both taste AWFUL now. I never drink full-calorie Pepsi, but Pepsi Max in particular used to be delicious. Now it tastes like it's gone flat within seconds of being opened.

Diet Coke is still good esp the mango Diet Coke

[quote] Ben and Jerry's to Haagen Daz

Both have declined in quality since they started to be featured in grocery stores, but Häagen-Dazs is still better than B&J's, yes.

Haagen also has a more varied variety of flavors. B&J flavors have goofy names and are kind of similar, as most have chocolate in them in one form or another.

Aldi also has delicious European chocolate bars for less than $2. The milk chocolate was my favorite.

My body.

Fellow dairy enthusiast here R116 (i.e. R88) - I am always on the lookout for high quality cream [insert sex joke here]. The UK has better milk and dairy than North America (at least widely available). Also, even within a country it can differ. For example here in Quebec we have something called 'creme a cuisson' (cooking cream) that, while still containing stabilizers, lacks the gummy/disgusting mouthfeel of 'whipping cream' and 'country cream.' We also have local small, hipster type dairies that do very expensive but completely free from bullshit cream. In other provinces they've never heard of cooking cream and look at you funny if you ask for it.

The UK has amazing cream. It's worth a trip to the southwest/Devon/Cornwall for the clotted cream alone. Sounds disgusting but if you're into dairy (and oh, god, I am) it's heaven.

And yes, everyone. I know I type fat.

Socks and underwear disintegrate within a year of purchase as if by design. T-shirts develop weird little holes in them.

I have a Ralph Lauren shirt that's more than 30 years old and it still looks new. What has happened to clothes that makes them fall apart so quickly now?

I'm surprised nobody has said Datalounge. Is it still as good as it was 25 years ago? Does it taste different? Does it hold up to repeated washings?

R125 Zara happened. Zara's fast fashion business model was so effective that every other brand is copying it and that's why most clothes today are made extremely cheaply, made to only last a little while and also use every thin fabric. Zara is also destroying the idea of long seasons. If you're curious there is plenty of info online about Zara's effect on the industry.

I think I'm finally going to give in and buy from thrift stores instead since all the cheap materials being used today just are uncomfortable.

Mrs. Fields’ Cookies – They were incredible when they became popular in the late-1980s. Business sold. Recipes changed and quality declined. I recently bought some. It had been a while. Now, the cookies are flat and bland.

There used to be a Competitive Reality show about food products and the regular people trying to make a go of their homemade items. The goal was to get packaged and sold in stores.

Invariably, each contestant was told that, to bring costs down, they no longer could use real Georgia peaches, or true bourbon, or whatever else gave their specialty its distinctiveness. Noooo; henceforth it was to be powders, flavorings, additives, etc.

That is our packaged food today.

[quote]What has happened to clothes that makes them fall apart so quickly now?

Planned obsolescence. My parents' washing machine worked fine for 50 years. I'm still using my grandmother's blender. These were everyday brands. Now things are run on the model that you change your stuff every few years or less, paying for it each time. We went from LPs that lasted a few decades (with care) to CDs that were soon replaced by digital files that became incompatible with each software upgrade, and now the model is that you don't own recordings, you pay money for a subscription and then spend money and time futzing with song lists.

R124, I had clotted cream near Clovelly and thought it was awful!

Here in the States one is advised to seek out true farm markets. I'm lucky enough that my area of Pennsylvania is chock full of them.

[quote]But I suppose people want a bargain version too. I thought that's what store brands were for, though.

Kroger's store brands are hard to find nowadays, they seem to have replaced Kroger brand with a higher-quality store brand called Private Selection. They're more expensive than brand names sometimes but can be really good, especially their desserts like macarons and biscotti.

Hy-Vee still has store brands but they are uniformly awful.

R127, Zara is absolute shit. The clothes look good in the stores but they disintegrate after a month. Not even H&M is that bad.

Zara has good to excellent bedroom linens. just saying.

R128- Mrs Fields were THE BEST cookies ever! -At least up until 1995 when I would go to BLOOMINGDALES in White Plains NY and buy two of them fresh out of the oven.

R125, do it before all the good stuff is gone.

I am lucky to live on the UES and I hit the Goodwill and other shops around. There’s a lot of garbage, but I’ve gotten terrific old good things. Found a nice old Ralph Lauren pique polo. Compared it to a recent purchase and it’s unbelievable. The fabric of the shirt itself is twice as thick, the collar is twice as thick and so are the buttons! Cut is more generous and there’s even twice as much stitching. Sweaters of real wool, thick and heavy. Sometimes the cut/tailoring is more boxy, but it’s always better quality.

And now I’m spoiled. When I go to regular retail stores, I’m amazed at how cheap/thin/poorly made everything is. Shoes with vinyl soles, nothing is lined, etc.

What is 'Zara'? Clothes for obese fraus?

[quote]My body.

May have declined in quality, but I'll bet it's increased in QUANTITY.

R124 But you type fat with an intercontinental flavor! xoxo

[quote] Kroger's store brands are hard to find nowadays, they seem to have replaced Kroger brand with a higher-quality store brand called Private Selection.

Kroger's and their associated brands are the devil's asshole. Worst customer service ever, and I refuse to shop there on principle.

r131, would the area be north of Philadelphia? Bucks County had better food options.

So much of the fruit sold in grocery stores in the U.S. is like plastic display produce— it’s strictly for looks, not consumption. The fruit in other countries isn’t as pretty or as uniform but it still has flavor.

Zara’s men’s clothing is of low quality and poorly made. The clothes remind me of Party City Halloween costumes.

Zara = Old Navy

I thought Zara was the Spanish version of H&M.

Krystal burgers have shrunk 18% and the meat-to-bread ratio is now about 8% to 92%.

And they are rarely steamed anymore, with the bun on top while the meat cooks on the griddle.

I still buy them occasionally but not nearly as often.

I've been able to get some well-fitting clothes at Old Navy and H&M that are still going strong a few years later. Not sure what the quality is like at the moment, though, as I haven't bought anything there too recently.

Sony Electronics products. Up until the late 1990s they were the best quality you could buy. Now they are at best comparable or less comparable to other electronic brands.

In the 80's when I was high school/college I had an occasional obsession with Campbell's Pork & Beans.

It was a weird junk food product but I loved it. Little beans in a greasy tomato/pork sauce with one (always just one!) little cube of white pork fat floating on the very top of the can when you opened it. Disgusting! But it was sooo good. The cans were also kind of half-sized. Sometimes I'd buy one and just eat it out of the can with a spoon.

Decades later (the 2010's) I see on the shelf and the memories come flooding back. I hadn't had it since the 80's I buy a can take it home and open it. It looks almost the same. There's the little pork fat cube! But it seems... different? When I taste it I can't believe it. Any trace of pork fat or grease has been replaced by a bizarre, thin, sweet syrup. Sure enough I look on the label and the second ingredient is corn syrup. I think they took out all the fats! I couldn't even finish it and my memories were ruined. Boo!

R149 I find Libby's Vienna Sausage, and Underwood Deviled Ham Spread both suffered the same fate.

ACURA's- The used to score high in road tests and reliability. Now according to Consumer Report's they are generally unreliable and score poorly in road tests.

Coronavirus.

I think Honda/Acura really suffered from the Fukushima disaster, more than other Japanese manufacturers. It might be just my perception, but I think it was at that time and after when they tried to fix their most immediate production operations and neglected R & D.

Hormel Chili stopped using kidney beans and replaced them with navy beans some years ago. Too bland and weird. The navy beans are mushy with a mashed potatoes flavor. I switched to Campbell's Hot and Spicy. It isn't the least bit hot and spicy so I add my own heat so not a problem.

Yes, r141! Mostly Lehigh and Northampton Counties, but Leesport and Kutztown in Berks County as well.

I had a McDonald's chocolate thickshake the other day for the first time in a few years. They've definitely changed the formula. It was disgusting: I threw it away.

Poppers! They were great in the 70s and 80s - then the government banned them and the formula kept changing.

[quote]Fragrances are absolute garbage now.

It's the fascist EU Government. All the fragrance houses are being forced to reformulate, including Chanel, because stuff like oak moss and other additives have been banned because a few people are allergic to it. So everyone is being forced to suffer due to a few. It's affecting all the classic fragrances like Diorissimo. But even before then reformulations were getting out of hand due to ingredients becoming expensive or a desire to meet different markets. e.g. Gucci's Envy or Paco Rabanne's Calandre: once great fragrances which are now ghosts of their original selves.

Such much ice cream now has glucose (instead of sucrose) and stablisers and gum in it now to slow melting. It's disgusting. Even premium brands are guilty. It's becoming very very difficult to source out pure ice cream: expense is no guarantee. I pay $15 a box containing four small fruit pops: but they're made with pure fruit or chocolate and cream with no shit.

I yearn for Calandre and Diorella. And Beene's Red. Sigh

I recently (forgive me) had a sudden craving for a McDonald's cheeseburger, in all its weird ketchup-mustardy grossness. It cost only a dollar or two, and seemed exactly the same as in my distant boyhood, flattened and oozy, with sliced pickles and sad little onion specks. So it satisfied that particular craving and didn't set me back much.

Most of the food we grew up with is full of high fructose corn syrup instead of pure cane sugar. There is a difference. Coca Cola is so protective of their secret recipe yet doesn't care it doesn't taste the same as it had for almost a 50 years.

R161 Interesting. I find the McDonald's cheeseburger to be one of the most "changed" items I know of. My main issue is that the bread is now cottony and stale. The rest of it, I don't remember. However, maybe they have changed back to an older, better version. A friend says it depends on the store, and that the McDonald's nearest me is "actually very good."

Anyway, I'm on day 11 of a "viral upper respiratory infection," so I wouldn't be able to perceive any quality differences today. Maybe next week. (God help me, PLEASE, next week. This cough HAS to go away!)

Oh, and I don't like the French fries anymore, either (or didn't the last times I had them, 3 years ago and more).

Everything is crap now. Even designer labels.

We need new products and services based on new companies and new concepts.

All these legacy brands have been stretched to the max.

Even Brooks Brothers has decided to suck. They no longer include pockets on their most basic item, the original version of the Oxford cloth button-down. And they want $140 for each one. Sure...I want a shirt I can't put my cellphone in.

R165-agree on the BB shirts. They suck now.

R163 I didn't notice a difference in the bread on my cheeseburger, but I didn't remember the buns being all that great in the old days. Probably last ate there 10 years ago, more often in my childhood.

R149 I agree about Campbell's Pork & Beans. Removing trans fats from all these products killed them.

r128 Similarly Famous Amos cookies was the like if heroin and food had a baby, they were originally sold in malls and were more like crispy blobs than the traditional cookie shape. I think I would prefer Chips Ahoy today.

Toilet paper has shrunk so in width that like half the holder is bare. They got smart and all the brands did it so it's not like we can switch. Kirkland used to be good but I think it shrunk too, even if it didn't it got way to rough. It used to be the best.

There is a McDonalds off the main shopping street in Geneva Switzerland that is good. All Swiss McDonalds are acceptable because they have to serve Swiss produced food. Anyway this one pay attention to texture and delivers a tiny McDonalds hamburger that tastes like beef and the bun is toasted and - wait for it - actually has crisp edges.

I agree R161 - McD's hamburgers and cheeseburger taste unchanged to me from my 80s childhood, including the bunsm which in my memory were always cottony and shitty as the other poster described them. It's almost strange to find something like that, that hasn't changed in so long. To be fair (and yes, I weigh 500 lbs and am typing this with a wand attached to my head) whatever chemical flavour cocktail McD's uses in their burgers is FUCKING DELICIOUS.

Geoffery Beenes' Red is my favorite fragrance of all time.

Thanks for the reminder r160.

I got Smartfood white cheddar popcorn recently and it was awful. It's way different than how I remembered it. Tasted like all filler and not like white cheddar goodness.

R174, Smartfood popcorn has also become rife with rock-hard, unpopped half-kernels that will break your teeth. The bags should have warnings on them.

r137 is everything I expect from a Datalounger: Ignorant of today's top brands, possibly hasn't been to a mall in the past two decades but manages to be insulting as well. Also would rather post than google and come back to share what they think after 30 seconds of education about the brand.

Seriously, ZARA has been a major player in fashion in the U.S. for more than a decade and in Europe before that. And its clothes are actually kind of small, not the place a big or tall person would shop.

Frosted Flakes and Pop Tarts now taste fake, not like they did in the 70's/80's.

OP and R10 Peanuts are dirt cheap... that makes now sense... maybe fatass Gen Z wants even more sugar so they had to take out peanuts for more caramel.

Taco Bell’s nacho chips used to great in the 70’s and 80’s. They were firm and crispier. Then they changed to a lighter chip. It gets soggy 10 seconds after the fake cheese is put on.

Lipton tea used to be a blend of pekoe, orange pekoe and black tea. Unilever bought it and now it is just black tea.

Democratic presidential candidates.

As opposed to freshly heart-attacked, spitting old Bernie Sanders, R181?

Sperry has decided that the Topsider brand shall self-destruct. I've sent back at least three pairs in the past twelve months or so. The inner sole now becomes quickly corroded by foot sweat, even when I'm wearing socks, and the shoe quickly becomes uncomfortable. The inner sole decomposes in some shoes. The expensive version, the Gold Cup, became unwearably lumpy in just a couple of wearings.

I know this news will have some of you kicking up your heels, but Topsiders had been my most comfortable shoe for decades, and I have yet to find a shoe that fits as well.

My miltown doesn't knock me out nearly as fast as it used to. And don't get me started on my Seconal.

Do they still make Seconals? How about Tuinals?

Bucks County would never have declined in quality.

r185 I would expect as much from someone who wants toonies

[quote]Tuinal was the brand name of a discontinued combination drug composed of two barbiturate salts (secobarbital sodium and amobarbital sodium) in equal proportions.

R183 Try these. Rancourt makes great versions of preppy staples. I’ve got a pair of their bluchers and they are terrific. All made in Maine.

Kraft Dinner, which I believe is Kraft Mac & Cheese in the U.S., is not the same as I remember from my childhood. Now, it tastes like cardboard. Annie's is much better.

What bothers me is the incredible shrinking products. I have an elderly aunt that I shop for. She has one guilty pleasure. Every Friday night she bakes herself a DiGiorno four cheese pizza. Hot Friday night and then leftovers Sat & Sun lunch. They just keep getting smaller and smaller but the not the price of course. A year ago you couldn't get the box in the standard plastic grocery bag. Now you can get two in one bag. Now it's just Friday night and Sat lunch.

Thank you, r188. I guess $250 is the price to pay now (vs. the now $110 Sperry).

[quote] Interesting. I find the McDonald's cheeseburger to be one of the most "changed" items I know of. My main issue is that the bread is now cottony and stale. The rest of it, I don't remember. However, maybe they have changed back to an older, better version. A friend says it depends on the store, and that the McDonald's nearest me is "actually very good."

The onions are almost non-existent now.

Ah! The obvious:

Yo' Mama.

I (perhaps weirdly) find a number of McD's products unchanged since my 80s/90s childhood. Cheeseburgers, Big Macs, Quarter Pounders (my fast food love), their standard chicken burger thing. It's actually occurred to me before that they specifically *hadn't* changed (i.e. before convos like this one).

R189 is right about Kraft Dinner, though. Very different to my childhood, mushier and less flavoursome now (yes, I know that flavour was delicious artificial magical chemicals). Kraft Singles also fucked. The orange ones only. Mushy, thin, sticky, they completely lack the smooth, bouncy texture they used to have.

I recently bought some retro board games to play with my nephews and nieces-Life, Clue, Monopoly.

They were all so cheaply made with paper-thin boards and slight plastic playing pieces.

So disappointing

Kraft mac & cheese - had it for the first time in years recently. They aren’t even noodles any more but strips of pasta

The quality of hot trade really seems to have declined lately.

I wouldn't say they are quality but I just had Starburst jellybeans and Golden Grahams and that shit was definitely not the same. Gross. Everything is turning into a piece of crap. R195 Oh yea. All those games made today are complete junk. The life board is no longer 3D. I went and found all real vintage copies of those games. I have LIFE from every decade starting with the first edition through the 90s. A few different Monopoly's including one from England and the big wood collectors edition. I also have all the different CLUE versions including the collectors edition with the actual figures of people. I break them out at parties and people go crazy. It immediately takes you back. The early versions of LIFE are a completely different game that some people hate and I always have to read how to play it. I even have MALL MADNESS, SWEET VALLEY HIGH (which is a favorite with my nieces), WELCOME BACK KOTTER, E.T., WHEEL OF FORTUNE. The ANNIE board game. Haha. I really want FIREBALL ISLAND but that shit is like $300 - $500.

i bought some Kool-ade lemonade recently and it tasted awful. Didn't taste a thing like lemonade. I don't know how these companies stay in business.

R50: Try out Kerry Gold butter and cheddar cheeses. They're both very good.

The problem is continued and increasing reliance on brands. As one said upthread: Corporate America cheapens everything for more profits.

Eat only freshly prepared foods. Ok so gmo veggies aren’t tasty and meat is stuffed with chemicals but at least you’ll have some control than over something you eat out of a box or can.

Yes R175!!! I got the Wegmans brand White Cheddar popcorn last week and couldn't believe how fluffy, dry, and fully popped the kernels were compared to Smartfood. I didn't realize how damp and unpopped Smartfood was.

But the Wegmans brand isn't as good as Smartfood used to be either. It was too buttery and not cheesy enough.

Yes R175!!! I got the Wegmans brand White Cheddar popcorn last week and couldn't believe how fluffy, dry, and fully popped the kernels were compared to Smartfood. I didn't realize how damp and unpopped Smartfood was.

But the Wegmans brand isn't as good as Smartfood used to be either. It was too buttery and not cheesy enough.

Well, SMELL Miss R176.

Smell her!

R202, I've switched from Smartfood popcorn to Angie's Boom Chicka Pop brand, and it's better quality, with less of an issue with unpopped kernels. I haven't had very good luck with store brand popcorn (I'm on the West Coast, so no Wegmans out here) but I'm continuing to try out different brands. Never going back to Smartfood though. I need my teeth.

I don't think bananas taste like they did years ago. Have they hybridized them to the point that the taste could have changed?

Look out for anything that contains cheese (frozen pizza, hot pockets, etc....) because it's not pure cheese. There are frozen brands that have to place "with real cheese" on it so I'm assuming others might have some kind af reformulated cheese substitute. Gross.

Peanut M&Ms have been mentioned but I don't think anyone mentioned that about two years or so they started putting smaller peanuts in them. Because of this, the candy tastes different because of the chocolate to peanut ratio, and I personally no longer like them.

They must have gotten complaints because now they sell a version of the Peanut M&M's which are labeled, "Mega," which have larger peanuts... which is basically just what they were before they changed them.

[quote]I don't think bananas taste like they did years ago. Have they hybridized them to the point that the taste could have changed?

Well I think you can taste the difference between Dole & Chiquita.

Didn't they crack down on using ambergris as a perfume base as well? That would alter everything.

If you want to eat great tasting bananas try organic ones. They only cost a little bit more, but they're worth it.

Xander was eating a Twinkie on an episode of Buffy I was watching recently and it was like twice the size of a modern Twinkie. All Hostess products are shadows of their former selves.

I don’t know about quality, but the box of Wheat Thins you now get at the grocery is Lilliputian, the size you used to find only at a convenience store. The old “normal” size is now called giant or something like that.

Someone mentioned Oreos in another thread.

People are talking about crackers- My favorites are Snacklins- they’re like vegetarian pork rinds

Trans people. Remember when you'd see the busted trannies walking the streets for Johns, cat-calling people, each other - and referring to themselves as trannies? They had a sense of fun about it. The "theys" are a snooze fest and have of them can't even bother to attempt styling a cheap k-mart wig or look passable (They Smith - that means YOU).

Also, Snapple. They used to have glass jars, interesting flavors like Orange Iced Tea - and the snapple lady. Whoever bought snapple fucked it all up.

Can't believe how shitty some clothing has become. I used to buy name brand socks & underwear at TJMaxx, and it would last reasonably long. Lately, I've bought stocks (Adidas or Nike) that didn't even make it a year. Also, boxer briefs are.....messed up? Especially with everything having 5% spandex or some other stretchy hybrid. No support.

Bought a Bissell vacuum three years ago, have replaced the handle twice. It's a pivot- style vacuum, and the handle is a thin angled piece of cheap plastic secured to the other plastic part with a single screw. So of course the handle ends up fracturing. Also the hose piece between the base & upper part cracked. All three times I contacted Bissell directly and they sent me free replacement parts. They obviously know there are quality issues.

Other quality issues: the home I moved into recently has a lot of builder-grade finishes, and they are looking like shit. This is an old house, and they pulled out all the old windows and doors and put in new ones. Some of the new stuff is already showing wear & tear. New doesn't always mean "better", especially on a house.

R216 and you didn’t dare fuck with those trannies. They were not afraid at all to shank a bitch.

The “theys” are such fragile crybullies.

Anything made in China.

Snapple diet lemon iced tea in plastic bottles tastes like Pledge. It tastes ok in glass bottles.

[quote] I recently...had a sudden craving for a McDonald's cheeseburger

Don't do it often but I get them three at a time, and two milks.

Fudgsicle.