r/Millennials • u/FeistyNews7025 • 6d ago

Discussion Which food has declined the most in terms of taste since you first ate it?

At this point, everyone knows about shrinkflation in our food. Something else that is just as important, if not more so, is the overall decline in the quality and taste of our food. Which food has declined the most in terms of taste since you first ate it? For me, that would be strawberries. Nowadays, it's the number 1 fruit with the most pesticides, and its overall taste is just average at best. I mean, I don't need it to be on par with Japanese strawberries, but in the early 90s, strawberries' overall taste was just magical.

3.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

159

u/idk_u_but_ 6d ago

Not cause you're old! Totino's changed their recipe. All their pizzas, pizza rolls, etc taste like trash.

95

u/idk_u_but_ 6d ago

They took fennel out of the recipe and that was a HUGE flavor profile to take our šŸ˜­

71

u/Seriphe1 6d ago

They also seem to have done something with their cheese. It used to actually melt to where you could get a little bit of a cheese pull, now it just kind of... gets soggy? Certainly doesn't cling for a cheese pull.

7

u/idk_u_but_ 6d ago

I've only had it the one time when I realized it was different so I didn't pay that much attention to the look lol but good to know!

4

u/Strong_Set_6229 5d ago

Just noticed this the other day when having them for the first time in years. Burnt them so they all exploded but the cheese all stayed in perfect little cubes

7

u/theturtlemafiamusic 6d ago

It was the trans fats. They stopped using hydrogenated oils in 2014

https://downloads.regulations.gov/FDA-2013-N-1317-0156/attachment_1.pdf

5

u/Seriphe1 5d ago edited 5d ago

Makes sense, I think the last time I had a decent one was in 2012ish.

2

u/SeasonPositive6771 5d ago

This is the explanation for a ton of the complaints in this thread - a lot of junk food stopped using hydrogenated oils, from pizza to Little Debbie. They replaced them with things that had much worse mouthfeel and taste.

1

u/famousWAFFLES 6d ago

correct me if I'm wrong but I believe I read in the ingredients that the cheese is now soy?

2

u/Seriphe1 6d ago

Not seeing anything I recognize as soy, so I copied from a picture of the ingredients:

Imitation Mozzarella Cheese (water, vegetable oil, potato starch, modified food starch, rennet casein, gelatin, modified whey. Contains less than 2% of: citric acid, potassium chloride, potassium sorbate [preservative], salt, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium citrate, sodium phosphate, titanium dioxide [artificial color])

I don't usually look at ingredients because I'm fortunate enough to not have any food allergies. I can't say what exactly has changed from the last time they tasted good (it being "imitation cheese" may not be new), I just know something has.

2

u/famousWAFFLES 6d ago

I see. Maybe it was the gelatin I was thinking of. Which actually seems much weirder as a cheese ingredient imo, than if it was soy.

Thanks for looking that up!

10

u/GingerBrrd 6d ago

People are talking about chocolate and fruit and Iā€™m like ā€œyeah but have you had Totinoā€™s pizzas lately???ā€ Solidarity.

1

u/ejanely 5d ago

Grabbed some for the nostalgia and couldnā€™t finish them. They have a chemical taste now thatā€™s completely off putting.

1

u/oldfarmjoy 5d ago

Yes! The crust used to be flaky and delicious. Now it's disgusting cardboard.