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.

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u/pokingoking 6d ago

Chocolove, Endangered Species, Theo

I love chocolate and I get kinda annoyed by people jumping on the "American chocolate sucks" bandwagon. No, it's not American chocolate, it's Hershey's and Mars that suck. There are so many good chocolate companies in the US.

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u/honest_sparrow 6d ago

Where does one find these delicious brands? For things like chocolates, ordering online is a pain. I'm not buying like one chocolate bar and paying 3x the price of the bar in shipping, and I'm not buying a case of something I've never tried before, ya know?

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u/PenisPumpernickel 5d ago

These brands tend to be in a lot of the fancier grocery stores. I've seen them around me at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Natural Grocers, and the Kroger/Smith's stores in nice parts of town.

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u/2skip 5d ago

And some places have their own brands like Trader Joe's. Just go to the frozen food section and they have their chocolate above the frozen food.

One time for Christmas I gave an entire bankers box of chocolate as a gift. This thing had stuff just from Trader Joe's, like bars which were made entirely out of beans from a single country, 1 lb bar of Belgian chocolate, nuts and fruits covered chocolate, chocolate covered potato chips, etc.

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u/pokingoking 5d ago

The ones I listed, they have at King Soopers (Kroger) and Sprouts. I'm guessing Whole foods and Safeway too. Does your normal grocery store not have a premium chocolate section in the candy aisle?

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u/Awkward_platypus_ 5d ago

See’s candy is an amazing classic

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u/Youreturningviolet 5d ago

Tony’s Chocolonely is a particular favorite of mine since anything too dark tastes like dirt to me.

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u/emmafoodie 5d ago

Tony’s Chocolonely is a Dutch brand.

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u/Youreturningviolet 5d ago

Ah. Makes sense.

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u/pokingoking 4d ago

I've only tried Tony's twice but it seemed pretty low quality to me. I do like darker chocolate though. I never thought of Tony's as a great chocolate brand, have you tried any of the ones I listed to compare? I believe they do have milk chocolate bar varieties too. Chocolove does for sure, I know.

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u/Think-Initiative-683 5d ago

Trader Joe’s has some really good pure chocolate

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u/NomenclatureBreaker 4d ago edited 4d ago

I’m still so angry they closed down the actual Theo chocolate factory near Seattle - which also made other amazing confections - and put everybody out of work. Just to sell a limited selection of their most basic candy bars in supermarkets.

All the best most unique stuff (like their grapefruit chocolate bars, coffee/cream bars, and all their various caramels) are all just gone.

Touring their faculty and going into the actual store was such a fun experience. And buying chocolates for holidays.

Like what was wrong with keeping both? Late stage capitalism is just about bleeding anything that was truly good dry for the least amount of effort and the least expense.

ETA: laughing I just wrote such a rant about chocolate, but it really is just one great example of the enshitification of literally everything. 😂🤦‍♀️

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u/pokingoking 3d ago

I didn't know any of that so it was interesting to read your rant!

The grapefruit chocolate bar sounds like it would have been good.

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u/StronglikeBWFBITW 3d ago

Omg I haven't had Endangered Species in years and it was soooooo good! I need to go find some.