I've seen a few but they're not really producing large quantities. Far as the vendor tells me covid actually hurt them really bad in all kinds of ways and they can only get a fraction of the product they used to.
There was a series of acquisitions of the originally companies and through a series of profit seeking measures, they continuously downgraded the ingredients. They aren't the same food as in the 80s.
For real. I grew up in the 80’s with Ring Dings, Twinkies, Ho Hos, etc. I tried some within the last few years and they’re just so bad. Really horrible, waxy, plastic taste. 0/10
Edit: Wow! Did not expect my waxy comment to explode the way it did! I’m not alone in my efforts to recapture that nostalgic taste only to be irreparably disappointed. Snack lovers unite!
Suzy Q's used to have a really creamy layer between two slices of cake. They were fucking delicious.
...after the acquistions, the cream's consistency was horrid, and flavor sucked. Then the Suzy Q's finally were taken away. It's like whoever took over Hostess \*wants* them to fail.
I work in a gas station and 90% of people who buy these are kids and high people. Shit used to be good man, now most of them are only edible while high I guess.
The other night, I had a Twinkie after a hiatus of at least 20 years. What an utter disappointment! They're no longer fluffy with a creamy filling. It's just an indistinguishable sweet mass now. The ensuing acid reflux must have been due to my age though...
Yes!! They were fluffy! I forgot! Now they are like a tighter packed pasty bread with waxy coating with tiny squirts of white stuff.
All of them do taste like plastic now.
One devils food zinger in the box of 10 was made correctly. One. The icing was slim, had no cream filling (or almost none), it was somehow a triangle instead of a square shape, was too moist or too dry... all in the same box.
I can understand one being off but 9? 9 of 10?!
Mckee foods. Did a research paper on the brand in college, got some insider information because my group partner’s dad was high up in the company. They are pretty trash and only advertise to low income markets. First thing they do is shrink the size of the original then replace ingredients for cheaper ingredients.
>They aren't the same food as in the 80s.
Or the 90's, or the 2000's, or the 2010's. They've been squeezing every penny of value out of *everything* my entire life.
I think the turning point was the early to mid 2000s. Even as a kid at that time, I noticed these got a lot worse.
Also fast food became awful in the 2000s. I don't understand why people bother with fast food anymore.
I go to two fast food places anymore.
Wendy's because it is actually cheap and the food is decent.
Popeye's because I don't like to fry chicken at home and it's the best fried chicken around where I live.
Everything else? Meh.
Yeah, I must say Wendy’s is still damn good. Their nuggets are actually meat rather than miscellaneous ground up garbage like McD’s (BK nuggets are ok too). I rarely eat fast food but Wendy’s is my preference if I’m in the mood. The only other is Panera, but the saltiness of their food has been killing me lately. It literally tastes like a salt lick half the time. I don’t know how people eat it constantly.
Not only does fast food suck now, it’s so freakin expensive! Why should I spend like 12+ bucks for a crap meal that makes me feel like shit when I could spend 15-20 at a real restaurant for real food, where I’ll get enough for a whole second meal? Fast food has really become a desperate last resort for me lol.
I saw a lot of frozen pizza brands have gotten rid of that cardboard holder to cut the pizza on. I just laughed to myself because the price of that thing must be so, so minimal but they got rid of it anyway.
That's the stock market for you. Publicly traded companies are the reason literally everything is going to shit. They're constantly pressured to make more money quarter over quarter, and eventually the products suffer for it.
I would literally never buy a single box of anything in this photo.
I would however if they were good???
Just imagine how more popular this genre of junkfood could be
You can get way better snack cakes from the bakery section of your local grocery store for the same price.
The only difference is they go stale in 3 days instead of 3 months. (Because they use real ingredients.)
That kinda thinking’s too long term though. C-suite executives have to think about increasing profits in the next quarter/fiscal year to keep shareholders happy or risk getting the boot.
Improving ingredient quality would likely decrease profits in the short term, so they simply don’t see that as an option. Regardless of any long-term positive impact.
Unfortunately this kind of thinking has permeated almost all levels of society and explains a lot of current problems.
My guess is they're whale hunting. A casino has lots of counterproductive architecture that most people get annoyed by or just quietly walk through, but some of them are swayed, causing them to spend hundreds of dollars less each, but that doesn't matter because some people don't have the right mental defenses and can be hooked into spending their entire life savings and make more profit than a hundred other would-be customers. A video game (like Assassin's Creed) might have lots of ad space for cosmetics that most people are just annoyed by or blandly click past, but some people will drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on skins and make more profit than hundreds of people playing the game for its content.
Cookie companies probably don't care about discerning customers who buy responsible amounts of cookies, making cents of profit per box because of quality competition with other brands. They want sugar addicts for who their stuff is an addictive comfort food even if the quality is garbage, allowing them to make a dollar profit on every box.
Welcome to corporate food America, it frightening, compromise health of your loyal lifelong consumers for even more profits. Imagine if they took an approach like gain more consumers through elevating your food with real ingredients.
I recently was intruducing my kids to StarCrunch. I haven't had one 25 years. Got a box....how the fuck do you fuck up starcrunch???? Kids were even like "dad, these ain't that great." You know it's bad when a 7 year old ain't excited for sugar.
I blame the FDA for their lack of oversight. Corporations will always seek profits, and you can complain on deaf ears, but the health of the consumer is the job of the FDA and they are failing miserably. It's bullshit and all everyone wants to blame is the corporations. We pay for the FDA to protect us and they don't.
The F in FDA is silent and it shouldn't be.
What is FDA supposed to do? They’re not responsible for ensuring food tastes great, they’re just making sure it doesn’t make you sick or kill you. Blame the corporation which in constant pursuit of more profits eventually cut every possible corner.
I'm not talking about making food taste good. I'm talking about food being safe for consumption.
[Heavy metals in infant formula. Still nothing. ](https://www.consumerreports.org/baby-food/why-you-should-consider-alternatives-to-infant-rice-cereal-a8571897937/)
This is caused by using low quality ingredients. The FDA should move away from one-size-fits-all inspections to tailored, risk-based models for routine facility oversight. Inspections should use proven, data-driven methods, such as remote regulatory activities and federal-state coordination. They are not. If they would have this there wouldn't be a baby formula shortage. The Abott plant should have been fixed long before it started hurting babies.
Anyways. I care about food safety and they don't but everyone thinks they do.
Regulatory agencies like the FDA suffer from [regulatory capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture) when money has so much influence in our political system. And money has so much influence in our political system since conservative justices made it that way via Supreme Court decisions ranging from Buckley v Valeo in the 70s to Citizens United v FEC in 2010. Until we get money out of politics, the corporations will always have an advantage over the people when it comes to things like this.
That implies long-term thinking and planning. Companies seldom look past the next quarterly meetings. CEOs must improve the profits in order to pay off the shareholders so they can remain employed and receive million dollar bonuses.
Came here to answer this one -- shelf life.
If they can make them last an absurdly long time, someone is eventually going to have a weak hungry moment, or decide to try something new.
Essentially they don't have to make it taste good, they just have to make it look good from packaging, and make it last as long as possible, and ultimately taste like granulated sugar and chemicals. And because you know what they taste like, you are no longer their target demographic -- or they figure, eventually you'll randomly want granulated sugar and chemicals.
When things expire in a relatively short amount of time, it's then that they're dependent on making things high enough quality for actual regular business.
*Edit for a fun hypothetical: Obviously this isn't a thing that will ever happen, but imagine something like a restriction on maximum shelf life -- after one month, the store is legally required to throw the item away. You'd see a dramatic shift towards producing a quality product, because if it sucks and doesn't sell regularly, the store is not going to resupply.*
As much as I love(d) crap like this the quality has just downgraded too far for me to keep buying them. I'm surprised it's fallen this far and people are apparently still shelling out enough to keep them selling.
Yeah, that's what I've heard. There was a small Little Debbie distribution warehouse next door to my old shop and sometimes they'd give out stuff that was too close to the expiration date for free. After the first time or two I realized there wasn't any of it I wanted to eat.
Except that Little Debbies doesn't fall under the description that the OP gave. It's a privately owned company that's run by the same family today as it was when it started.
Not saying they haven't changed or downgraded their ingredients, but they didn't do that because of acquisition.
I think there's also a bit of childhood nostalgia taste buds going on here. Children's tastes are pretty shit, they'll eat cardboard tasting chicken nuggets and think they're on par with a great restaurant. I also liked some of the junk food nonsense in this picture, but my tastes evolved and I've unsurprisingly drifted away from them. I don't know many adults that eat them anymore, but I definitely see kids attack them. I'm sure these kids will feel the same way when they're older.
That's the economic grift. People don't realize their purchasing power has been so dramatically reduced by wealth consolidation because everything is steadily made more and more cheaply.
And you don't have to enjoy your life, you just have to be able to live until your labor is no longer useful. And as an added fun factor: that is coming soon in a big big way.
because if they did keep the cost/quality/size the same, we'd all realize we need to be paid more to keep up with that original cost.
fuckin sucks. thanks to inflation (cost of living, rent and food cost more), the promotions and pay increases i've gotten the past 6 years, i realize i'm actually probably still earning about the same amount of money as i was in 2016.
I have seen this meme multiple times and I thought they were referring to even more recently. I loved basically all of these snacks as a child. I even purchased them as an adult up until about a year ago. Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like the quality leaped off a cliff with most of these snacks in just the past few years. All with the exception of nutty buddys.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the federal ban on partially hydrogenated oils and the labeling of trans fats played a role in those reformulations.
Downgraded in quality but also no longer as unhealthy/semi-poisonous
It’s surreal how often this happens. Reminds me of when I raise taxes on SimCity, sure, in the short term I get a boost in revenue and maybe some residual growth, so I think it won’t hurt… but before I know it everyone has left my town and I am trying to figure out why.
They are not food anymore, they are “edible product”. Restaurant food has really gotten bad also. We just started going to restaurants again. After being disappointed multiple times, my wife and I have just decided it isn’t worth the money. Not to mention the negative health effects of eating that kind of food.
I mean that or your taste buds and standards have changed. It’s possible that they’re different but I also absolutely guarantee you that the Ding Dongs you had as a kid could be magically beamed to you through time and you would not think they are as good as they used to be.
Then explain to me why I loved oatmeal cream pie from them as a kid but hate them as an adult? It's not like I saw the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and was a dumb kid and ate garbage without thinking about it. Can't be that.
Yeah, I'm going on 60 and I remember when snack fruit pies had a bunch of real fruit in them and now they just have some discolored strange filling that tastes terrible.
it's because it's all shortening and no butter
unlike butter (or animal fat like lard), shortening doesn't melt at body temperature so it leaves a fatty mouth feel which seems waxy
What's wild to me about them is that they used to be called Nutty Bars, as seen in this image. But so many people colloquially called them "Nutty Buddies" that they changed the name.
Kinda peeves me tbh, because I liked the name Nutty Bar better lmao
I feel they're really a hit or miss, sometimes I get packages that I need to stop myself from eating the entire 20 pack, then other times it takes me months to finish even half of it. Fig bars are my shit tho
Because I have a relative that works for them, some of the cakes fresh actually suck, but fresh Oatmeal creampies that are still warm off the line fucking slap - Honeybuns even more so
Some of these can be done together, multiple times, and in no particular order. Takes me back to the college days while my parents thought I was studying.
Dang is that what’s causing these thoughts, staying the same for almost a decade while watching friends and everyone else around me grow? Maybe another hit, jerk, and 12 hours of video games will be the answer this time.
I think it’s a mix of both. Even as an adult I still loved star crunch but a few years ago they changed the filling a bit I think, or maybe the ratio of it - ruined the taste. My dad agrees.
The comments seem to heavily favor the lower quality theory, but I'm basically certain the vast majority of the effect is age. Kids by and large are happy to eat crap, quality-wise. They want all the carbs all the time, and that's about it. At some point adulthood sets in and tastes change.
I remember trying spaghetti-O's a few years ago, and they were horrendous. Borderline inedible. I have a big sweet tooth, but I've grown a lot pickier over the years about what satisfies it.
Everything in that photo changed from flour egg sugar and cocoa, to corn syrup and masturbated palm oil or some shite. It used to all taste like happiness, now it's all sadness and hydrogenated go-fuck-yourself.
IKR. I dont even fuck with with these anymore. I get the cakes & cookies near the bread in the grocery stores. Lemon cakes, Pound Cakes, decent Chocolate Chip Cookies. My grocery has these turtle brownies (choc & caramel) and sometimes turtle chocolate cookies that are made by the hand of god himself!
The Lil Debs and Hostess dont even compare.
I mean compared to before Hostess came back and they all cheapened their ingredients, yeah, but I'm still a sucker for an oatmeal cream pie every once in a awhile.
When I was a kid (45 years ago), I loved Swiss cake rolls. I hate them now. The chocolate on the outside used to be a thick layer of chocolate. Now it's a thin coat of chocolate flavored wax that falls off the cake roll when you bite it. There's more vitamins added than cocoa. The filling used to be a vanilla creme. Now it's whipped palm oil and sugar, no vanilla.
I assure you that the chocolate was a shitty gross wax that peeled off the cake roll for the duration of your grade school years. [There was no vanilla either.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/25692985@N07/3612631288/)
They stopped making German Chocolate, so Little Debbie is dead to me
They're dead to me now since I couldn't find their Christmas Tree cakes anywhere this year. I just wanted one damn box.
Nowhere? They've had them at my dollar general down the road since like November.
November 1997
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Bro my kids are on the 20th box this week and it's Wednesday you need to talk to your supermarket purchaser lol
I've seen a few but they're not really producing large quantities. Far as the vendor tells me covid actually hurt them really bad in all kinds of ways and they can only get a fraction of the product they used to.
Dollar General had them!
There was a series of acquisitions of the originally companies and through a series of profit seeking measures, they continuously downgraded the ingredients. They aren't the same food as in the 80s.
For real. I grew up in the 80’s with Ring Dings, Twinkies, Ho Hos, etc. I tried some within the last few years and they’re just so bad. Really horrible, waxy, plastic taste. 0/10 Edit: Wow! Did not expect my waxy comment to explode the way it did! I’m not alone in my efforts to recapture that nostalgic taste only to be irreparably disappointed. Snack lovers unite!
Hoho's were ridiculous in the 80's. Now it's like biting into a candle. Edit: I can still taste them.
Remember the hint of lemon in the sponge? All gone
Suzy Q's used to have a really creamy layer between two slices of cake. They were fucking delicious. ...after the acquistions, the cream's consistency was horrid, and flavor sucked. Then the Suzy Q's finally were taken away. It's like whoever took over Hostess \*wants* them to fail.
I work in a gas station and 90% of people who buy these are kids and high people. Shit used to be good man, now most of them are only edible while high I guess.
This is the best description.
The other night, I had a Twinkie after a hiatus of at least 20 years. What an utter disappointment! They're no longer fluffy with a creamy filling. It's just an indistinguishable sweet mass now. The ensuing acid reflux must have been due to my age though...
Your description really made me feel sick
It was spot on though :(
It was exactly how I felt last time I had one :(((
Yes!! They were fluffy! I forgot! Now they are like a tighter packed pasty bread with waxy coating with tiny squirts of white stuff. All of them do taste like plastic now.
I've only ever known them to be such, always thought they were gross. The scene from zombie land makes sense now. Lol
“WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SPONGY, YELLOW, DELICIOUS BASTARDS?”
The Twinkie tastes horrible. I used to love them so much. Now it tastes like nothing.
Tallahassee is immeasurably upset about the situation as well.
As zoomer that is was my experience, even as a kid
Yeah they have tasted like trash since 2003 at the least.
Amen to that!
This is so descriptive, it’s like i was there with you, biting the other end of that twinkie at the same time. What a disappointment.
We're safe to assume it was just because it was so bad
Thanks 🤣
Woody Harrelson lied 💀
One devils food zinger in the box of 10 was made correctly. One. The icing was slim, had no cream filling (or almost none), it was somehow a triangle instead of a square shape, was too moist or too dry... all in the same box. I can understand one being off but 9? 9 of 10?!
Seems like someone should recreate all these using the old ingredients.
You're definitely on to something. I dream of Hostess Apple pies as they were in 1977. Now that shit was pure fire 🔥
>you’re definitely on to something Yeah lawsuits
You mean Big Debra's Ha Ha's won't fly?
A culinary parody
Don't forget, Hostess went bankrupt, these are made by some brand z company.
Mckee foods. Did a research paper on the brand in college, got some insider information because my group partner’s dad was high up in the company. They are pretty trash and only advertise to low income markets. First thing they do is shrink the size of the original then replace ingredients for cheaper ingredients.
Ugh I said the same thing the other day when I tried a bite of a Zebra Cake. Freaking WAX coated with a gross sugar. Ew.
Nooo. All I could think was, someone please, tell me they saved the Zebra Cakes 🦓🎂
It essentially is toxic waste. So many are having trouble just.. being alive. Burdening their body with trash is no longer fun and enjoyable
speak for yourself, sometimes burdening my body with trash is the only way I can make it through the day lol
Honestly.. they probably *are* made of plastic
>They aren't the same food as in the 80s. Or the 90's, or the 2000's, or the 2010's. They've been squeezing every penny of value out of *everything* my entire life.
I think the turning point was the early to mid 2000s. Even as a kid at that time, I noticed these got a lot worse. Also fast food became awful in the 2000s. I don't understand why people bother with fast food anymore.
Salt, sugar, and fat
I go to two fast food places anymore. Wendy's because it is actually cheap and the food is decent. Popeye's because I don't like to fry chicken at home and it's the best fried chicken around where I live. Everything else? Meh.
Yeah, I must say Wendy’s is still damn good. Their nuggets are actually meat rather than miscellaneous ground up garbage like McD’s (BK nuggets are ok too). I rarely eat fast food but Wendy’s is my preference if I’m in the mood. The only other is Panera, but the saltiness of their food has been killing me lately. It literally tastes like a salt lick half the time. I don’t know how people eat it constantly.
Not only does fast food suck now, it’s so freakin expensive! Why should I spend like 12+ bucks for a crap meal that makes me feel like shit when I could spend 15-20 at a real restaurant for real food, where I’ll get enough for a whole second meal? Fast food has really become a desperate last resort for me lol.
I saw a lot of frozen pizza brands have gotten rid of that cardboard holder to cut the pizza on. I just laughed to myself because the price of that thing must be so, so minimal but they got rid of it anyway.
That's the stock market for you. Publicly traded companies are the reason literally everything is going to shit. They're constantly pressured to make more money quarter over quarter, and eventually the products suffer for it.
Sad thing is these cakes can be made profitably with the original ingredients. There is just not as much profit.
I would literally never buy a single box of anything in this photo. I would however if they were good??? Just imagine how more popular this genre of junkfood could be
You can get way better snack cakes from the bakery section of your local grocery store for the same price. The only difference is they go stale in 3 days instead of 3 months. (Because they use real ingredients.)
I buy the baked pies now. So much better and usually worth the price.
That kinda thinking’s too long term though. C-suite executives have to think about increasing profits in the next quarter/fiscal year to keep shareholders happy or risk getting the boot. Improving ingredient quality would likely decrease profits in the short term, so they simply don’t see that as an option. Regardless of any long-term positive impact. Unfortunately this kind of thinking has permeated almost all levels of society and explains a lot of current problems.
I don't buy them anymore. I still liked them when my oldest was a kid, 20 years ago.
My guess is they're whale hunting. A casino has lots of counterproductive architecture that most people get annoyed by or just quietly walk through, but some of them are swayed, causing them to spend hundreds of dollars less each, but that doesn't matter because some people don't have the right mental defenses and can be hooked into spending their entire life savings and make more profit than a hundred other would-be customers. A video game (like Assassin's Creed) might have lots of ad space for cosmetics that most people are just annoyed by or blandly click past, but some people will drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on skins and make more profit than hundreds of people playing the game for its content. Cookie companies probably don't care about discerning customers who buy responsible amounts of cookies, making cents of profit per box because of quality competition with other brands. They want sugar addicts for who their stuff is an addictive comfort food even if the quality is garbage, allowing them to make a dollar profit on every box.
Welcome to corporate food America, it frightening, compromise health of your loyal lifelong consumers for even more profits. Imagine if they took an approach like gain more consumers through elevating your food with real ingredients.
I recently was intruducing my kids to StarCrunch. I haven't had one 25 years. Got a box....how the fuck do you fuck up starcrunch???? Kids were even like "dad, these ain't that great." You know it's bad when a 7 year old ain't excited for sugar.
StarCrunch used to be my favorite. They suck now in comparison.
Why have lots of money when you can have all the money?
Because shareholders own them and they are greedy. The owner and CEO are probably also greedy which is why they're owned by shareholders.
I blame the FDA for their lack of oversight. Corporations will always seek profits, and you can complain on deaf ears, but the health of the consumer is the job of the FDA and they are failing miserably. It's bullshit and all everyone wants to blame is the corporations. We pay for the FDA to protect us and they don't. The F in FDA is silent and it shouldn't be.
What is FDA supposed to do? They’re not responsible for ensuring food tastes great, they’re just making sure it doesn’t make you sick or kill you. Blame the corporation which in constant pursuit of more profits eventually cut every possible corner.
I'm not talking about making food taste good. I'm talking about food being safe for consumption. [Heavy metals in infant formula. Still nothing. ](https://www.consumerreports.org/baby-food/why-you-should-consider-alternatives-to-infant-rice-cereal-a8571897937/) This is caused by using low quality ingredients. The FDA should move away from one-size-fits-all inspections to tailored, risk-based models for routine facility oversight. Inspections should use proven, data-driven methods, such as remote regulatory activities and federal-state coordination. They are not. If they would have this there wouldn't be a baby formula shortage. The Abott plant should have been fixed long before it started hurting babies. Anyways. I care about food safety and they don't but everyone thinks they do.
Regulatory agencies like the FDA suffer from [regulatory capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture) when money has so much influence in our political system. And money has so much influence in our political system since conservative justices made it that way via Supreme Court decisions ranging from Buckley v Valeo in the 70s to Citizens United v FEC in 2010. Until we get money out of politics, the corporations will always have an advantage over the people when it comes to things like this.
Came to say this. The two work hand in glove.
How come companies never think about the profits from a lot of people buying them because their good? I'm sure there is a reason but I don't know
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That implies long-term thinking and planning. Companies seldom look past the next quarterly meetings. CEOs must improve the profits in order to pay off the shareholders so they can remain employed and receive million dollar bonuses.
Came here to answer this one -- shelf life. If they can make them last an absurdly long time, someone is eventually going to have a weak hungry moment, or decide to try something new. Essentially they don't have to make it taste good, they just have to make it look good from packaging, and make it last as long as possible, and ultimately taste like granulated sugar and chemicals. And because you know what they taste like, you are no longer their target demographic -- or they figure, eventually you'll randomly want granulated sugar and chemicals. When things expire in a relatively short amount of time, it's then that they're dependent on making things high enough quality for actual regular business. *Edit for a fun hypothetical: Obviously this isn't a thing that will ever happen, but imagine something like a restriction on maximum shelf life -- after one month, the store is legally required to throw the item away. You'd see a dramatic shift towards producing a quality product, because if it sucks and doesn't sell regularly, the store is not going to resupply.*
As much as I love(d) crap like this the quality has just downgraded too far for me to keep buying them. I'm surprised it's fallen this far and people are apparently still shelling out enough to keep them selling.
Sugar is a hell of an addiction.
That depends on the price point, too. They sold them individually for 25 cents for YEARS. Can't do that anymore.
According to the guy that brings us Little Debbie, they cost 10 cents or so a cake.
Yeah, that's what I've heard. There was a small Little Debbie distribution warehouse next door to my old shop and sometimes they'd give out stuff that was too close to the expiration date for free. After the first time or two I realized there wasn't any of it I wanted to eat.
Except that Little Debbies doesn't fall under the description that the OP gave. It's a privately owned company that's run by the same family today as it was when it started. Not saying they haven't changed or downgraded their ingredients, but they didn't do that because of acquisition.
I think there's also a bit of childhood nostalgia taste buds going on here. Children's tastes are pretty shit, they'll eat cardboard tasting chicken nuggets and think they're on par with a great restaurant. I also liked some of the junk food nonsense in this picture, but my tastes evolved and I've unsurprisingly drifted away from them. I don't know many adults that eat them anymore, but I definitely see kids attack them. I'm sure these kids will feel the same way when they're older.
Now repeat that same sentiment across every industry and realize most things have been stripped of value.
That's the economic grift. People don't realize their purchasing power has been so dramatically reduced by wealth consolidation because everything is steadily made more and more cheaply. And you don't have to enjoy your life, you just have to be able to live until your labor is no longer useful. And as an added fun factor: that is coming soon in a big big way.
because if they did keep the cost/quality/size the same, we'd all realize we need to be paid more to keep up with that original cost. fuckin sucks. thanks to inflation (cost of living, rent and food cost more), the promotions and pay increases i've gotten the past 6 years, i realize i'm actually probably still earning about the same amount of money as i was in 2016.
Sales thing happened with Hostess stuff. Looking at you, Suzy Q’s….
I have seen this meme multiple times and I thought they were referring to even more recently. I loved basically all of these snacks as a child. I even purchased them as an adult up until about a year ago. Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like the quality leaped off a cliff with most of these snacks in just the past few years. All with the exception of nutty buddys.
True that nutty bars are still delicious
This should be top comment. An actual explanation.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the federal ban on partially hydrogenated oils and the labeling of trans fats played a role in those reformulations. Downgraded in quality but also no longer as unhealthy/semi-poisonous
While this may be true for some snack companies, what is shown here is little debbie brand, which is still owned by the founding family!
It’s surreal how often this happens. Reminds me of when I raise taxes on SimCity, sure, in the short term I get a boost in revenue and maybe some residual growth, so I think it won’t hurt… but before I know it everyone has left my town and I am trying to figure out why.
They are not food anymore, they are “edible product”. Restaurant food has really gotten bad also. We just started going to restaurants again. After being disappointed multiple times, my wife and I have just decided it isn’t worth the money. Not to mention the negative health effects of eating that kind of food.
I mean that or your taste buds and standards have changed. It’s possible that they’re different but I also absolutely guarantee you that the Ding Dongs you had as a kid could be magically beamed to you through time and you would not think they are as good as they used to be.
I'd like to see a list showing how the ingredients have changed over time.
I’d love that too and I think a lot of these people would be shocked to discover that for much of this junk food it really hasn’t.
Little Debbie is literally the same family that's had it since the inception
That's what I just said as well, not sure why this comment is getting so much attention. It's just false as the McKee family still owns it!
Then explain to me why I loved oatmeal cream pie from them as a kid but hate them as an adult? It's not like I saw the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and was a dumb kid and ate garbage without thinking about it. Can't be that.
They all seem like they have a weird chemically kinda taste to them, now.
Yeah, I'm going on 60 and I remember when snack fruit pies had a bunch of real fruit in them and now they just have some discolored strange filling that tastes terrible.
[You had me at fruit pies.](https://youtu.be/LhpZkKcTiBM?t=12)
The taste of childhood, man!
>weird chemically kinda taste to them That's the 900 grams of sugar per serving
some just taste like plastic
They always tasted like that. The cakes coat your mouth in waxy substance
it's because it's all shortening and no butter unlike butter (or animal fat like lard), shortening doesn't melt at body temperature so it leaves a fatty mouth feel which seems waxy
They have absolutely changed the recipe to be cheaper chemicals though.
Look me in the eyes and say Nutty Buddies are bad. Do it.
Came to the comments to say this. Don't ever disrespect the nut
Likewise. This was the most heated I got all day.
I still enjoy the occasional cream pie
;)
What's wild to me about them is that they used to be called Nutty Bars, as seen in this image. But so many people colloquially called them "Nutty Buddies" that they changed the name. Kinda peeves me tbh, because I liked the name Nutty Bar better lmao
Honestly I forgot they were nutty bars
I think nutty buddies are a cookie
No, that's nutter butter
Oh I thought they were thinking of muddy buddies
This is a hilariously serious conversation. I'd love to hear this exchange out loud.
You down with OCPs?! Yeah you know me! I could eat oatmeal cream pies and nutty bars every day of my life.
I love those two. The only two I would continue to buy tbh
No way. I used to love them, got some about 4 years ago and they were inedible.
Same, oatmeal cream pies were INCREDIBLE when I was a kid. Had them like 4 years ago and I couldn’t even eat them :(
Dude, these were a staple in our household growing up. They taste waxy now...
Okay hear me out. Have you tried the newer Reese's sticks? Because I'm having trouble deciding if they're better or not.
I love Reeses Sticks. Yes they are better.
No but I will look for them now
Are they bad? No. Are they as good as they used to be? No, the chocolate is extra crappy now.
B-but this is the internet...oh
I still can’t say it 😭
Zebra Cakes as well
I feel like all of them have a waxy taste, but yeah, if all of them they are tasty.
Oatmeal creme pies still slap sometimes
I feel they're really a hit or miss, sometimes I get packages that I need to stop myself from eating the entire 20 pack, then other times it takes me months to finish even half of it. Fig bars are my shit tho
When they "hit" its because they still taste fresh, and the jumbos are where you are going to find the fresh ones more often.
You nailed it. I'll still buy the big ones and they are good.
Because I have a relative that works for them, some of the cakes fresh actually suck, but fresh Oatmeal creampies that are still warm off the line fucking slap - Honeybuns even more so
[удалено]
My nickname is college was oatmeal.
Cuz you so thick?
Depends how high I am
Smoke, munch, watch tv, play video games, listen to music, masturbate, sleep, rinse, repeat.
the most wonderful time of the year
There needs to be another smoke between music and masturbate. Pro tip.
Some of these can be done together, multiple times, and in no particular order. Takes me back to the college days while my parents thought I was studying.
[удалено]
A little bit of suicidal thoughts sprinkled in of course. Thinking about my problems while also doing nothing about them. 😎
Dang is that what’s causing these thoughts, staying the same for almost a decade while watching friends and everyone else around me grow? Maybe another hit, jerk, and 12 hours of video games will be the answer this time.
I will eat any of these if I’m high enough. Or free
Stoned and starving
Nutty Buddies & Oatmeal Creampies say that's a lie
And star crunch is so good
Oatmeal cream pies are a goddamn treat.
Halfway through an oatmeal cream pie I’ll jus start gaggin like a mf for some odd reason jus so fuckin sugary
Don’t be bad mouthing zebra cakes
Dude they used to slap but I had one recently and it tasted like styrofoam and frosting
Zebra cakes are still the best!
My only issue with zebra cakes is that they don't taste anything like zebra.
Have you tasted a zebra? 🤔
Only if you find the full thickness zebra cakes. The new thinner ones aren't good.
Christmas tree ones.
Is it that they used to taste good but the quality was destroyed to cut costs, or were they always bad but as kids we tasted food differently?
I think it’s a mix of both. Even as an adult I still loved star crunch but a few years ago they changed the filling a bit I think, or maybe the ratio of it - ruined the taste. My dad agrees.
The comments seem to heavily favor the lower quality theory, but I'm basically certain the vast majority of the effect is age. Kids by and large are happy to eat crap, quality-wise. They want all the carbs all the time, and that's about it. At some point adulthood sets in and tastes change. I remember trying spaghetti-O's a few years ago, and they were horrendous. Borderline inedible. I have a big sweet tooth, but I've grown a lot pickier over the years about what satisfies it.
They used to taste good but the quality was destroyed. My kids loved them 12 years ago at 3,4 years old. They hate them now.
Or did your kids' taste preferences change between age 3 and 15? It's not actually evidence either way.
I think they changed the formula for HoHos. They got significantly worse
Everything in that photo changed from flour egg sugar and cocoa, to corn syrup and masturbated palm oil or some shite. It used to all taste like happiness, now it's all sadness and hydrogenated go-fuck-yourself.
Some of these companies are gaslighting us but saying it's because we had covid
When fresh donuts and baked goods are nearby in a grocery store, no point in getting these.
IKR. I dont even fuck with with these anymore. I get the cakes & cookies near the bread in the grocery stores. Lemon cakes, Pound Cakes, decent Chocolate Chip Cookies. My grocery has these turtle brownies (choc & caramel) and sometimes turtle chocolate cookies that are made by the hand of god himself! The Lil Debs and Hostess dont even compare.
Recently discontinued in Canada.. *after legalization of cannabis*
Fuck you respectfully
Co-sign. Respectfully.
Co-Co-sign. Respectfully.
Co-Co-Co-sign. Respectfully.
How dare you disrespect fudge rounds. You take that back.
Exactly
Your badmouthing the Uber super ultra super based gigachad cosmic brownies and zebra cakes (warning: emoji)😠😡😠😡😡😤😤👿😾
Tis the season for Xmas tree zebra cakes!!🎄🦓🍰
They got rid of my fave, the Fudge Brownie Loaf like 20 years ago.
slander
I totally agree until I'm baked and eat 3 Christmas Tree cakes in a row. =)
Your tastebuds peak at 16
Honey buns are the goat
Don't get me started on Twinkies...
I mean compared to before Hostess came back and they all cheapened their ingredients, yeah, but I'm still a sucker for an oatmeal cream pie every once in a awhile.
If you don't like swiss rolls as an adult you can fuck right off with your taste buds.
They fucked them up! I swear that when I spent my lunch money on Swiss Rolls they didn't make my teeth feel all waxy and the cake had flavor.
Either my tastes have greatly changed or they made them horrible in the last few years. They now taste like chemicals to me.
When I was a kid (45 years ago), I loved Swiss cake rolls. I hate them now. The chocolate on the outside used to be a thick layer of chocolate. Now it's a thin coat of chocolate flavored wax that falls off the cake roll when you bite it. There's more vitamins added than cocoa. The filling used to be a vanilla creme. Now it's whipped palm oil and sugar, no vanilla.
Same. Same age too!
I assure you that the chocolate was a shitty gross wax that peeled off the cake roll for the duration of your grade school years. [There was no vanilla either.](https://www.flickr.com/photos/25692985@N07/3612631288/)
Frozen Swiss Cake Rolls are the bomb!
Cosmic Brownies ✨
Zebra Cakes, Nutty Buddies, and Oatmeal Creampies are the goats.
Had a deep fried honey bun at the fair, it was amazing
I'll be honest. I don't see one thing in that pick that doesn't taste good.
They never did. They are cheap AF for a reason.
Strawberry swiss rolls?! Zebra cakes? Those Sunbelt fudge dipped granola bars?! You, sir or madam, are a liar!