People in the UK are saying it about Cadbury too. :(

That explains a lot. I used to live the raspberry ones so much and couldn't wait to share them with my two girls.

All I got was, "Dad, these suck."

So I tried one and was just baffled. It did suck. I chalked it up to my taste buds changing, but this makes much more sense.

Chocolate has gotten worse and worse too.

It's also because they're shit. I loved them once, too. They were shit then, too. I just didn't realize how shit this shit was because of the sugar high. Every few years you just cone more to your senses. Shitty chemical sugar foods are worse than any drug.

That's fucking interesting. I'm one too but haven't been back once in five years. Partly because it's hard to travel en famille halfway across the world (but mostly because of the good reasons not to).

What's the vibe like? I hear shit has gotten weird.

I have not but I might have made that mistake in the future. Thanks for the warning. It's so weird that off-brands for everything appeared as cheaper lower quality versions and then the world went to such shit they're now the higher quality version.

How are so many things now worse quality and higher priced than their own knock-offs? They should all be committing Sudoku in shame.

If you can get them, the Clover Valley ones ($1.85 @ Dollar General) are pretty good, although the fig filling is golden rather than brown.

psssst... Nature's Bakery are dope.

Speaking of fig newtons. We started getting dried rosselino or Salem white figs in bulk and just having those instead. So much better than any fig newtons thing.

Disgusting and artificial is American, both our people and foods.

I never tried them, but I once read their box in a US supermarket and I'm surprised that they could be made lower quality.

Pastries like that should basically be made from flour, water, sugar, fruit, baking soda, and butter. Pop Tarts are not actually food, though. They have an ingredient list as long as your arm full of disgusting and cheap edible food-like substances.

is there a reason moat European pasteries seem so organic and like they weren't made in a sterile environment?

It's a lot of childhood marketing associating things like cartoons and commercials for the product. Because they were expensive and sugary, parents would make them a special indigence.

As a child I used to love them when I could get them, then I had a real pastry with jam in the middle never went back. I was so upset about how much better a real part was and why we never have them, when they were basically the same price at the time. But we lived in the county, so an hour-long drive to get them every other day made no sense, either.

Maybe it's just me, but I ran through a lot of typical heavily marketed food items for kids when I was one, and always ended up hungry an hour later. Learned early on how much of that stuff was garbage.

It helps a bit if you toast them. That's what the "pop" part means.

Late 40s here so same, it's definitely not nostalgia. I was a chonkey bastard so I'd get the s'mores ones once they came out and eat the crust ring on the outside then pull them open to gorge on the sweet s'mores innards.

There's so little filling now that both halves seem bare, and the things are so thin and brittle they crack into a dozen pieces in the attempt.

Pop tarts are infinitely shittier than they were even 5 years ago, it's not just you. I bought one pack last year and never will again. They are trash crackers that feel like some bean counter went "yep still frosted on top, filling in the middle, good to go". Now they are trying to sell "super stuffed" variants too that still don't meet the old standards. Fuck poptarts.

That's not exactly true.

Yes, most of it is manufactured by a co-packer. And these co-packers also make similar products for other brands. But each one (usually) has their own recipe. Sometimes the differences are very minor, others can be drastic. Sometimes they have specialty ingredients (e.g. Himalayan sea salt instead of regular salt, or a partner brand). Sometimes the co-packer offers a standard recipe as a starter for the smaller brands.

Historically, the brand-name used a higher-quality recipe, worthy of the higher sale price. Generics would use something cheaper, comfortably taking the lower end of the market. Costco's Kirkland brand is famous for going a step higher than the major brand, which is very unusual for a house brand.

Yeah, the weird part being that the off-brands are now better quality than the name brands. When they suddenly drop in quality to match everything will taste like sawdust and tears.

Back then I tried an off brand Lucky charms and it had a weird after taste. They're all so much better now. I'm all about those dog food sized bags of Golden Grams and Korn Pops.

Marshmallows are cheaper than grains, also are we calling the grains luckies?

I once bought them in a "american sectuon" in a supermarket, because i kept seeing them on tv. I couldn't believe that people would actually eat sweet cardboard and like it.

I think baking tarts is a sex crime.

If it has "equity" or "capital" in its name you are fucked.

Ya. I really noticed the recent decline in pringles. As cheap and crappy as they were before, they are noticeably way worse now.

The "hot ones" are good, though. I still prefer the Pringles style Lays buffalo wing flavor, but those are damn hard to find.

What the fuck is happening to WinCo's bulk food prices though? Ive bought there for decades and it's now more expensive per pound than boxed Quaker oats(General Mills) granola sold in the same store, WinCo!?!

I almost lost my shit last month trying to reconcile how it could happen. Is WinCo doing target enshittification? Is GM reducing gouging?

I've also noticed yogurt pricing is not competitive some times with grocery outlet.

It's like a cracker sandwich with the same amount of filling you'd get by lightly buttering toast.

I don't like my food raw. You should see how black my m... ok, that started to sound like a sex joke. But really I burn the shit out of meat.