What are the worst food products?

I don't know if they still have them but Costco used to sell cheese-infused microwavable corn dogs. They smelled exactly like foot odor.

Hawaii's spam sushi is everywhere there and it's fucking disgusting. So is Loco Moco. I don't get it.

Otis Spunkmeyer has to be the worst name for a food company. Sounds like the name of the nerd character in an 80s sex comedy

Vienna sausages

Pringles, the “styrofoam” of the potato-chips world! 🥔

Potted meat

Pork rinds and circus peanuts

Mushrooms

Raisins

Olives

Water chestnuts

Beets

^^ baby tastes has entered the chat

Last week, I saw (but did not buy) a Reese Cup product in which the center was peanut butter and strawberry jelly. UGH. This one would have to rank in this tjread.

ALL products of Hostess and Drakes nowadays- both of those companies up until about 15 years ago made tasty junk food but both companies went bankrupt and were sold and resold untl the owners running them have ruined their products- just like Dunkin Donuts - with their HORRIBLE donuts that are much smaller than they used to be and N OT fresh unlike ca. 1980 when they emspasized the freshness of their donuts.

Cheetos

Twinkies

fish sticks

The U.S. certainly doesn't have the monopoly on Frankenfoods. Just look in the aisles of any Asian supermarket.

Okra

Uni Sushi

Long Pig

Chef Boyardee

Can someone please explain the popularity of Microwave popcorn? Just the smell alone always made me nauseous.

^^I loved Jiffy Pop when I was a kid. I would still eat it now, (is it still around?).

The entire range of Real Good frozen chicken products is inedible. It’s so bad it’s worse than nursing home food. There are similar products from other manufacturers that are OK for a lazy weeknight meal and I thought they’d be similar, but no. I threw the rest of the package away.

I wondered if Otis Spunkmeister was a real person like Orville Redenbacher, so I asked AI. Spunkmeister is a fake, made up cutesy old-fashioned name for a man who never lived. I only ever see these at gas stations or some budget motel breakfast stations.

Anything with that horrendous food dye shit on it that gets all over your fingers: Doritos, Taquis, Cheetos.

Gross.

Spunkmeyer means “swamp of jism”

"Food" like that linked at R18 could make anyone lose the will to live on a Monday night. A number of those ingredients are probably banned in the European Union--which isn't all that great about food safety to begin with.

Jersey Mike's hot subs.

R21 - Ironically it's the opposite - that brand is more expensive and known to use mainly organic, high-quailty products.

I've bought a few when on sale - I liked only a couple of their items. They always taste 'off' for some reason. I think it's the low-carb component. They are relatively lower calorie and healthy but...taste-wise, it leaves something to be desired.

Aspirational products containing rancid, chemical "truffle" flavour.

R22 - Preach! Shitty white bread, meh toppings. I don't get it. Step up from Subway, but that's not saying much.

But overall I'm not a huge fan of most fast food - Chick-fil-A is alright, but I don't understand why people lose their minds. Kane's is laughably mediocre.

I'm convinced some people will eat anything new or popular.

I always assumed Southerners adored Chickfila for the same reason they love Walmart, because they first popped up in areas where there was nothing comparable.

R16, there are a lot of gloomy gusses in my office just like you, LOL! They hate microwave popcorn, especially when I cook it! I prefer my popcorn well-done so usually put a bag in for 7-10 minutes. Several of my 'colleagues' complained to HR and now I'm not allowed to make it anymore. Now, when I get the munchies in the afternoon and need a snack I have to run down to the Panda Express and get some chicken and broccolli and even then they still complain! You can't win! LOL!

R26 - that and it's a Southern chain, fried chicken, and their religious bent, not being open on Sundays. Southerners eat that shit up. And their franchise model was really cheap to get into - like only $10k to start one, although the selection process is really strict - I think you have to show your Christian 'values' to get in.

I can't think there are too many areas of the US that didn't have a lot of fast food by early 90s.

It's one of those internet things - I remember people going on about their chicken sandwiches. And they are good and different, they're just not all THAT. Now the Popeye's chicken sandwich - fuck was that amazing. I think they've cheapened it recently though.

R18 hmm, I really like Real Good chicken products, and they're lower carb. Sorry they didn't work out for you.

I used to eat these in my youth (ah, youth - of the cast iron stomach days) - SLIM JIMS. Yuck. Mystery meat and lord only knows what else. GREASY AND SLEAZY.

OP - your muffins are dry and dusty.

When I was a kid I thought the Swanson fried chicken TV dinner was the grossest thing ever. I don't know if those are even made anymore.

also, piss elegance with no taste payoff: Poached sole Véronique, Crêpes Suzette, Canard à la presse, etc.

While dated, those are at least real meals cooked from scratch with real foods/ingredients (if done right), R32. And the taste payoff depends on the talent of the chef. "Food products" implies anything highly processed.

Muffins shouldn't be "moist." Sliminess is one of the things that makes Spunkmuffins so repulsive.

That’s it, r34! You can see the humidity of the muffin inside that nasty see-through plastic wrapper

Wet muffins are banned from the DL cafeteria!🤢

Ramen noodles

are the blueberries berries or some kind of imitation.

Gooey Nutella, Italy's and Piemonte's pride, is one of the unhealthiest processed breakfast foods that is nevertheless beloved by many Mediterranean people. Ferrero, the company that produces Nutella, has such excellent marketing that they can still make the chocolate-and-hazelnut spread seem like a traditional, healthy, wholesome Italian food for the whole family. In actual fact, the company is ruining large parts of the Italian countryside with its hazelnut monoculture and pesticides, and its ingredients (which include nasty palm oil) haven't changed in 50 years. Yet a Dutch investigative journalist (a resident of Italy for many decades) received death threats after publishing a negative story about the company (not from the company itself, mind you, but from 'ordinary' Italians).

Ask the average Amsterdam resident what they think about the "Nutella shops" that have been popping up all over the place in the past 15 years:

Schnackwell'sh cookiesh.

Any cheese sold in a spray can.

r40 Fat Free... yet loaded with sugar. Lizsha, you've been had!

Red delicious apples, and specifically the pre-sliced and bagged ones distributed in school cafeterias

[quote]Last week, I saw (but did not buy) a Reese Cup product in which the center was peanut butter and strawberry jelly.

I accidentally bought peanut butter and jelly M&M's a few months ago. I thought they were almond M&M's, the bags are about the same color. Put one in my mouth and oof, what a terrible surprise.

"Put one in my mouth and oof, what a terrible surprise."

That's how I got HIV!!!!

No wonder cancer rates are through the roof

Great Value spray cheese. It's chemicals, modified milk ingredients, and 90% salt.

R17 The Shop Rite where I live in NJ still sells Jiffy Pop.

I’m amazed it’s still around, but someone must be buying it.

I had a Whopper for the first time in years ($14 for a med combo meal). It was absolutely horrible. I had about half of it (I was starving) and threw the rest out. Horrendous.

[quote]Jersey Mike's hot subs.

I think most of Jersey Mike's stuff is good. We don't normally get take-out, but we have one close by and we sometimes opt for it.

R39 - of all the terrible products out there, you chose Nutella? The thread isn't about a product being unhealthful. As for the environment, almonds and almond mild production are a scourge. As is beef.

Jesus.

Pop tarts

Vienna Sausage

Olive loaf

Circus Peanuts and Candy corn.

r51 - everything you named is spot on! And I can't stand any of them!

[Quote] I wondered if Otis Spunkmeister was a real person like Orville Redenbacher, so I asked AI. Spunkmeister is a fake, made up cutesy old-fashioned name for a man who never lived.

It might help if you spell the name correctly.

R49 I agree. A Whopper used to be my go-to burger, it was a very good. Now? Ugh.

Anything Entenmann's in a box. Might have been great years ago but now it's just stale sweet stuff.

Ditto for anything Little Debbie.

I bought a box of Little Debbie's Christmas Tree Cakes on a whim in December and they were delightful!

Tootsie Rolls. Hard times “chocolate” candy that must have been a treat during the Great Depression, but it shouldn’t have been necessary past 1939.

Last July I got a fresh bag of Tootsie rolls and they were soo good. They were in a red white and blue bag so I knew they were made recently - they were still soft. Perfect. Best ones I ever had.

I have never eaten anything from Subway, mainly because that pretend “baking bread” fragrance that they pump out onto the street makes me gag.

Cheap milk chocolate tastes like vomit to me. Or wax.

British Sandwiches (the square ones with the rinds cut off), and some spice/flavour combos that the British are fond of like sausages + anis.

In my mid-teens, I was working with a guy who was eating vienna sausages and mayonnaise. I told him that the vienna sausages looked like baby penises and he lost his shit at me.

[quote]Cheetos/Twinkies

I initially read the second item as Twinkles (the Storybook Cereal).

[quote]The Shop Rite where I live in NJ still sells Jiffy Pop. I’m amazed it’s still around, but someone must be buying it.

I liked it as a kid, but it was notoriously difficult to make successfully. I'd end up with burned popcorn or lots of "old maids." Maybe I enjoyed the challenge.

McDonald's Cripy Chicken Sandwich . . . at least those served at the 2 McDonald's near my house. It tastes like it was fried in the oil used for the Filet O' Fish. Odd thing is, nothing is really COOKED there anymore. If you go in, you'll see the workers pulling beef patties and FoF from drawers!!

R65 - that's very true. I remember McD's used to have grills - but you're right. They're pulling stuff out of heated drawers. Not sure how all of that works.

I remember a couple of friends having part-time jobs at McD's in the 80s - they had to make a certain amount of the menu every hour. It then sat and if it wasn't used, it was thrown away every hour. Something like that.

Massive amounts of food waste.

Anyone ever of Headcheese?

My dad loved headcheese and Braunschweiger. I never partook.

R65, I worked at McDonald's in HS and it had an actual grill where burgers were cooked and the pancakes were made. Two separate fryers for fries and the FoF. Our store didn't waste food, though, We got to eat items if the 'freshness' time expired.

One day it snowed heavily and NO ONE was coming in. The manager, joking, said 'fire five Macs' and the patties were put on the girll. We all laughed and the manager let us sit down and eat them.

Back then, we were wore blue and white uniforms with caps and I had white nurses's shoes. I'd come home from a shift and smell like fries for HOURS!

Sorry to derail the thread.

Our barn cats love potted meat and it is dirt cheap.

R69 - probably why it tasted better back then. Were you there when the big fry shift happened and beef tallow was replaced with vegetable oil?

I still like McD's fries - consistently at the top in the business - but their fries used to taste even better at one time. Most of McD's stuff is consistently above average - unlike SOME chains I know.

Take a lesson In-n-Out - if all you do are burgers, fries and drinks - they should all be good. Not that bullshit you try to pass off as fries - nobody cares if they are 'fresh' if they taste like shit.

The stuff that passes for bread at Subway's. I always thought it was half sawdust and half chemical waste.

R69, I worked there in '77 or '78. I'm pretty sure they still used beef tallow tack then. I still miss the fried apple pies. That was the only thing I never got tired of eating.

If your shift included a meal break, you got free meal. By the end of my first month, I'd eaten pretty much everything on the menu at least 3 times. I used to love their scrambled egg and sausage breakfast. Never liked the McMuffin, though.

R73 - the 'big' breakfast? I remember the scrambled eggs tasted like actual eggs and the sausage tasted like one expected. This was 40 years ago though.

The egg in the McMuffin can sometimes be a little off-putting with the super-dry cooked egg-yolk. Other times I don't notice it. I think they changed it some years ago, because I recall that egg dryness years ago and haven't really tasted that in a long time. (McMuffins are my go-to for breakfast on the go)

R74, they used to use real eggs. They'd crack them into round molds. The yolk has to be cooked throgh to prevent salmonella lawsuits. I remember people coming in and asking to see the egg shells to make sure the eggs were real because we wouldn't make the eggs over-easy or soft-scrambled.

My problem with EMc's are the texture of the egg and hate Canadian bacon.

I agree about Tootsie Rolls, but I enjoy an orange Tootsie Pop every couple of years.

I’ll add Hershey Kisses except when added to peanut butter cookies or those reindeer noses Christmas treats in which a kiss is melted on a bite-size pretzel and a red or green M&M is pushed into the warm kiss.

I second the poster who mentioned Swanson's TV Dinners, and will go further by identifying their salisbury entree as the worst of the worst! One of the most vile dinners I've ever had the displeasure of digesting.

R77 here. Salisbury steak entree.

R55 Funnily enough the only donuts I like are Entenmann's donuts.

[quote]British Sandwiches (the square ones with the rinds cut off), and some spice/flavour combos that the British are fond of like sausages + anis.

What kind of sandwich has a RIND?

[quote] Tootsie Rolls. Hard times “chocolate” candy that must have been a treat during the Great Depression, but it shouldn’t have been necessary past 1939.

That’s what you think, r57

R11 types fat.

I've been taking antacid tablets as a calcium supplement, usually fruit flavored. I tried the CVS brand tropical fruit ones and they were pretty good. Then I went back to regular CVS fruit and they taste disgusting to me now.

Any off-brand generic Pop Tart "pastry" is bound to disappoint.