Do you agree?
(midwest.social)
LadyButterfly she/her
General Memes & Private ChuckleAll of this is a superdose of ultra processed additives rolled in preservatives and denatured carbs artificially flavored with the metal parts used for pouring and assembly. Nothing was lost.
When I was a kid I LOVED oatmeal creampies. Now that I'm an adult I still love creampies, just not the oatmeal ones.
I will eat toasted Poptarts once in a while, but I think I enjoy the aroma more then the taste.
Yes, all of that stuff is awful... until you eat a gummy, then it becomes your life force.
When I was little Zebra cakes were my jam. I tried them again a few years ago, and they did not hold up
Palm oil ruined most of these. Leaves that greasy film in your mouth.
Always has been 🧑🚀🔫👨🚀
I tried twinkies because of zombieland.
Major disappointment.
A lot of the US stuff really is an acquired taste. If you didn't grow up with it, there's a fair chance it won't work for you.
I can't and I don't anymore. My sweet treat is frozen blueberries with 2% milk, nuts, and cinnamon.
Nothing in this picture is worth getting fat over. And, it all tastes so fake once you start paying attention. Yes, disgusting.
I still have a problem with pastires from the bakery. So it's a good thing the nearest bakery is 50 miles away.
But yeah, I have little tolerence for sweet anymore.
I can only handle the nutty buddy.
I thought those little debby Swiss roles were disgusting when I was a kid.
I loved all of the hostess stuff but I haven’t bought any in over a decade because fuck Union busters.
Never heard of any of the products in this picture, except I've heard of Twinkies but only because of Zombieland guy that was obsessed with them. I'd probably try one if you gave me one for free, just to see if it was any good.
None of it looks very appetising though tbh. I like real food not this fake american shit
Yeah exactly, tbh even as a kid I probably wouldn't have been that interested in those, I was always more into my cheese and my saucisson, only exceptions I go rabid for at any age on the sweet side are kinder and Nutella lmao.
I wouldn't say disgusting but definitely not as good as one remembers them to be. I don't know if that is your palette getting more nuanced and things getting more shitty.
Ho hos / swiss rolls / ding dongs hold up
someone gave me a twinkie on halloween... wow.... not sure if it's enshittification or nostalgia but goddamn, greasy as fuck flavorless foam snack jfc
I've been attributing it to enshittification. At a minimum, changing recipes
When the Twinkie brand was bought out from bankruptcy, I tried it again for the first time in a long while. Had the same reaction as you
In the 70s I seem to remember twinkles having a banana stuffing that was infintielty better than the shitty vanilla. They have been enshittifying for decades.
now we have two points. soon we'll have data!
I can agree, they are lower quality now and they were not that good decades ago. Hard pass.
I look at these like chips ahoy cookies. They were once pure unadulterated treats not unlike what you would make at home but without the hassle. Over time they altered the recipe slightly. Many many times. And now chips ahoy cookies raste like sweetened cardboard with little tiny bits of what would be the minimum standard of what could be called chocolate. Ill still eat em if theyre in the house. But i know there are far better cookies to be had.
Why anybody buys chips ahoy at the grocery store when there are likely way better recently baked cookies in the bakery area is beyond me. They are infinitely better.
Cheap and familiar.
This. Oreos have changed a least 3 times since I was a kid, and the newest ones don't even tickle the fancy anymore.
Oh, yeah, it's disgusting, but that's not gonna keep me from eating almost everything there.
'disgusting' is how much they charge for that stuff these days.
Yeah, they taste like sadness. You think they are going to be rich and flavorful but they are mostly bland and overly sugary.
Idk if my memory is fucked up or if they were better as a kid.
It's all the same 3 ingredients formed into different shapes with different artificial flavors injected into them
They were better. Optimisation is filling everything with palm oil and other cheap replacements. Few ingredients may be hard to notice, but it all gets optimised to the point of inedibility. We have full shelves with hundreds of choices for those all to be sad and gross. Not to mention bad for the farmers and the environment.
Someone else mentioned that transfats were making them taste better too.
I’m sure enshitification isn’t helping either though.
Trans fats don't affect taste - human taste buds don't activate for any fat molecule.
Trans fats were used because they keep longer, unsaturated fats go rancid in air, hydrogenated fats (which contain some portion of trans fats) keep better. Saturated fats (e.g. butter) can keep for very long times.
For packaged food like this, the oils used would (previously) be hydrogenated so they could push the expiration dates out and avoid waste. Now, they just either use saturated fats directly or add extra preservatives.
Not entirely true. The shift to ever cheaper oils and other industrially optimized shortening does change the eating experience.
None of that was ever good. Trailer park breakfast food.
Don't pretend 5o know what we eat.
They're bland for the same reason little pink hot dogs are bland. They're for little kid taste buds.
You are right that they were always shitty, but they've also enshittified further nonetheless, just like everything else.
Yes but once you get old enough it's delicious again and you don't care if it kills you.
I still love zebra cakes but I rarely get them, also love the Christmas tree cakes when they have them, but I limit myself to buying them after thanksgiving
I will say, they don't taste the same as they did when I was a kid, but they did change the recipe over the years
I loved those two as well. Now I have mild fatty liver so I'm avoiding saturated fat and excess sugar the best I can -- the only two ingredients in the zebra cake/holiday cake.
That's because the quality of food has decreased so capitalists can increase profit margins.
The oatmeal cream pies are probably the only things there that I still have some appreciation for, but even then I gotta scoop out like half the filling. Nutty buddies used to be a favorite of mine, but then I discovered good peanut butter.
Yeah, in retrospect, I really do think a lotta these have cheaped out and reduced quality.
Those oatmeal cream pies still look really good to me on the shelf, but I suspect I'd enjoy them a lot less than I remember if I actually bought them. And regret it later.
Nah. Still really good. Just don't eat more than 2 at a time. Your body can't handle it anymore.
The double decker ones are a trap. Share, or plan on saving half for later.
Excuse me, but did you say double decker oatmeal cream pies? Why have I never seen these before?
https://www.littledebbie.com/double-decker-oatmeal-creme-pie-single-serve
So it's a convenience store food. That explains why I haven't seen them. Still, I may have to seek one out next time I'm in the US.
Seriously though, they are a trap. It sounds delicious until you start eating it and realize it's way too much.
Yeah, and the ratio is off.
I'm down with OCP
(Oatmeal Cream Pies)
(not omni consumer products)
Agreed on the oatmeal creampies. I'll still get those for road trips.
That and star crunch!
To be fair, I found most of these disgusting, as a child; I think Cosmic Brownies were the only ones I ever enjoyed.
<clears throat>
<taps mic>
That's some fancy looking American Cuisine.
<drops mic>
<tries to run away>
<trips and falls>
My father likes to eat this stuff. He knows it's gonna kill him. He knows it's probably why he can't lose weight. I stopped trying to influence him and I just tell him how I eat because I like to share. My little brother is going into medicine and can't seem to grasp that 'dad doesn't want your medical opinion, he wants his little debbie treats'
He'll figure it out.
Maybe dad will too.
Wow it's all super stuffed things, here in Italy we have the opposite problem: it's all so "balanced" that when you have craving for something sugary we don't have many options.
Cosmic brownies are pretty good emergency stock. They're calorie dense and have a pretty decent shelf life.
On the whole, no I don't agree, though some items do seem to have suffered a decline in quality
They're just not the same without the trans fats. Who knew the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was doing so much for the flavor. Guess I'll have to live a lot longer with these nasty snacks now that my arterial endothelium isn't swelling with atherosclerotic plaque.
Seriously, the new recipes are awful and I'm grateful for that fact.
so many euphemisms for sex all in one place
I still like ho ho’s, if they like ding dongs.
Zebra cakes, for when you love black booty and white booty
It's just sugary carbs filled with more sugar
Except nutty buddies
Those and oatmeal cream pies for me
The most disgusting change in that picture over time is the prices.
I mostly agree but there is always at least one guilty pleasure that I've got my eye on.
I don’t think honey buns can get bad. It’s basically a glazed donut.
Yeah, I agree entirely. I could of mowed down a box of those at any given time as an adolescent. They all taste disgusting now and I probably haven't had even 1 of any of those in 5+ years now.
The formula has changed to replace any expensive ingredient with cheap seed oils and additives. I bet you there are no real eggs, sugar, or fats in those products anymore. Just high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and emulsifiers.
The product has also changed from what you remeber.
Naw, still great.
I've started using them as a cheap alternative to sport gels. They got a ton of calories and are super cheap. If you're just doing a long run you don't need the 2:1 glucose/fructose ratio.
I used to sneak those after breakfast in elementary school. Now I'd probably puke just smelling them.
I don't see them in this picture, but the Hostess orange cupcakes still slap.
Bottom left, unless that's the yellow ones? I was just here to say the regular chocolate hostess cupcakes are hella good still. Hostess got truly terrible like a decade ago and shutdown, I think the new producer improved the quality. Bought some on a whim a few months ago and was shocked that it wasn't garbage.
Yeah once you pass 40, that is completely a no-go-zone.
I would hope it happened well before that.
Who's Chyna Jenkins?
This is all I want to know.
We will never settle the rest.
I dunno, man. I'm okay with metal shelves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito
The one thing I have to admit I enjoyed when I visited the US a long time ago, was the glazed donuts from Costco. Way over the top sweet, but I did like them. I wonder if they still hold up.
Little Debbie Nutty Bars 4 life!
unfortunately I think I will never be immune to a cosmic brownie
Me in my 30s, specifically requested cosmic brownies as part of a care package someone sent me from the US to Sweden. I'd kill for them
Honeybuns still hit
I never really liked hostess style stuff anyways, so I guess no because I started as a disliker! I could still probably find something I'd eat though.
Oatmeal creme pies, and maybe zebra cakes on occasion.
Can’t agree, I did a cross country road trip recently, those swiss rolls were just as good as I remember them as a kid lol
I once bit into what you USians call a "cookie" - it was an Oreo.
It's not a mistake I will ever make again.
I went to the US once and brought back a bunch of chocolate bars like Snickers, Twix and KitKat, which we also have in Europe, because I was curious how they compared.
The difference was night and day. The US ones tasted like pure sugar encased in wax, where in the European version, the chocolate was much nicer and you could actually taste the ingredients, and not just sugar. Though I also find them too sweet for me.
Ah I'm partial to the occasional Oreo. They're nice and crunchy and pretty low calorie.
I did a summer in the US in my youth and one of my favourite snacks was "double stuff" Oreo with half a Kraft cheese slice on either side.
I'm curious to know what I'd think of it now.
In my defence I went there a waif of a human and was exercising a lot so was insatiably hungry.
Wow, kraft singles with double stuff Oreo. I imagine they granted you citizenship on the spot.
I did feel very American eating it in fairness. All I would have needed was a nice Glock and I think I would have been in like Flynn.
That would get you acceptance into the world of Redneck, but not necessarily American. Lol
(I say this with rednecks in my family tree)
If you ate it in Europe it was probably toned down already too. But yeah the sweet snacks they have in the US are kinda gross.
Don't even get me started on their chocolate
I liked Nutty Buddies for a one-week period fifteen years ago in which me and a bunch of (metaphorically nutty) buddies went to an unused farm and lit fireworks, shot skeet, and horsed around at all hours eating way too many Nutty Buddies. Not once since, and every time I see one I think of that time.
I won't touch the stuff anymore, but it's a fond memory.
This reminds me of my first and last experience with Southern Comfort.
That tracks lol
Sugar is something humans crave. So unless you get less-human by aging, I suggest you try a couple of them instead of seeking attention.
None of it is bad. Some of it is quite good, in fact. It's just a value proposition. As you get older, the flavor payoff on superfluous calories needs to be way higher.
I think I've had absolutely none of those.
I agree but I know people who are quite old and still eat this shit
I feel sorry for you folks who can’t enjoy. Bunch of nerds doing their best impression of uppity food critics.
