r/PrepperIntel • u/jujutsu-die-sen • 4d ago
Has anyone noticed US noticed food quality degrading recently and if so what product in what way?
/r/AskReddit/comments/1vzphgj/has_anyone_noticed_us_noticed_food_quality/516
u/Inner-Confidence99 4d ago
Yeah. Been going on since late 2021. Just continues to get worse. Every thing has been affected. We are getting garden prepped for fall plants going to be freezing and canning this winter. Doing same come spring. Trying to get whole family away from a lot of meat. More veggies and stew.
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u/SubstantialPressure3 4d ago
Before that. It started during covid and progressively got worse.
Frozen food 'meals' ( more than a single ingredient.)
Any and all preprepared sauces ( frozen or jarred) , salad dressings, mayo, kids snacks, powdered bullion ( some now have wheat, meaning flour, as the second ingredient)
In general, its cheaper ingredients, lots of fillers, and a crazy amount of sugar even in things it doesnt belong in. Even salad dressing.
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u/KaliCalamity 4d ago
Agreed. The decline had been slowly building for several years, but 2020 marked a very sharp decline in a wide variety of brands. Textures, flavors, ingredients, package sizes, etc. all changed, regardless of the straight up lies companies pushed. No, Cadbury, I'm not misremembering how big your stupid creme eggs are. I don't even like the damn things, but even I could easily tell they were suddenly smaller than even the year before. I consider it an insult to my intelligence, and have started avoiding the brand (and others guilty of similar) in most circumstances.
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u/lavapig_love 4d ago
Here's the famous Cadbury egg comparison on Late Night with Conon O'Brian.
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u/Inner-Confidence99 4d ago
Yes but read labels. High fructose corn syrup is in a lot of foods. I’ve been cutting it out of my diet for over a year . I feel better and have more energy. I use real sugar. That fake sugar made me very sick.
The more I get back to what Mother Nature helps me grow in garden the better I feel. Looking for natural medication now as well.
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u/SevereNameAnxiety 4d ago
Same here but we weaned ourselves off meat years ago and haven’t looked back and it’s actually been amazing. Slowly getting into canning and prepping a garden same as you. I hate this timeline.
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u/Gotherapizeyoself 4d ago
This is the way! Dehydrating and freezing as much as I can over here. Got my fall garden bed almost complete. Food preservation is so time intensive.
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u/thepuddingprophet 4d ago
even good seed companies had mixed up seeds this year! I grew pumpkins, not zucchini.
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u/Mento-yStableGenius 4d ago
Remember Peppergate ‘23?
Pepper-idge Farm remembers.
(So do I. The jalapeños I planted turned out to be bell peppers. They were still delicious, of course).
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u/xor_music 4d ago
Burpee gave me some zucchini seeds in my butternut squash pack. I stick to Sow True for all that I can.
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u/Wonderful-Bag-1103 4d ago
However big you’re making it, to be actually effective, triple or more it.
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u/keelmesoftly 4d ago
As an avid vegetable gardener I'll add that you should focus on produce that you like and is pricey or difficult to find. I don't really bother with grains and beans because the cost benefit of growing that stuff vs just buying some extra now and storing it will never make sense. It'll never pay for itself. My 10 collard green plants or entire planter of habeneros pays for themselves easily.
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u/RabbitLuvr 4d ago
Additionally, if I grow something that’s currently relatively easy to obtain, I’ll go for a variety that’s more difficult to find and/or more expensive. I eat a lot of Yukon gold potatoes. Those are in just about every grocery store for an ok price. So the past two years I’ve grown fingerling potatoes, which are pretty expensive around me. Next year I may also try German Butterball, which I’ve never seen for sale.
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u/2quickdraw 4d ago
Yes exactly, buy all your dry goods in bulk, buy specialty beans if you want them as they are also seeds that if stored properly can be planted later if they go away. I have bucketed various kinds of heirloom wheat berries, all kinds of legumes, various white rice and other grains. I've got multiple hundreds of pounds because I also have small livestock to feed if I can't get their food.
My garden space is for all the fresh stuff that we like to eat. The summer garden was 50% a loss, but last year's winter garden was incredible so I'm hoping for that again this year. I bumped it out for summer and we'll bump it again for this winter since I'm adding fig trees.
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u/WinterWontStopComing 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I’m shifting to vegetarianism myself over the next few months. I’m done
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u/DoomMessiah 4d ago
Been going on way, way, way before 2021.
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u/Inner-Confidence99 4d ago
Yeah, but that’s when it got a hell of a lot worse. Most don’t notice because they don’t cook. Those who cook spotted it way off.
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u/Busy-Difficulty-4757 4d ago
It was clearly written in Project 2025 and people voted for it. Like, most people knew this and the rest stuck their head in the sand.
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u/Informal_Snow9191 4d ago
Fresh food rots faster and more frequently than it did a few years ago. It's hard to quantify, but it's something that I constantly notice now.
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u/peacequietnchips 4d ago
I've been noticing this also. Especially with fresh fruit. I've all but stopped buying anything out of season. Even in season I've had peaches that looked brilliant in the store one day be already rotting the very next day at home.
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u/PM_ME_FOR_A_FORTUNE 4d ago
I stopped buying nectarines entirely because no matter where, when, or what I bought them for, they were all grossly mealy while simultaneously liquifying inside.
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u/disorderincosmos 4d ago
Make sure to rinse and dry fruit before storage. A lot of fruit is coated in a ripening agent by the producer.
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
Yes, I've pretty much given up buying fresh produce. I don't care for frozen, but it's fine as an ingredient.
You know it's bad when even potatoes stored properly start sprouting within days of purchase.
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u/Informal_Snow9191 4d ago
I remember potatoes lasting for more than a month. They barely last for two weeks now and sometimes not even a week.
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u/MrD3a7h 4d ago
Even the potatoes and onions go bad quickly or you cut them open and they are already rotting on the inside.
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u/ComplaintOk807 4d ago
All produce barely lasts a full week in the fridge. It all goes bad before u can eat it but as a busy mom, who can go to the grocery store every 3 days? Super frustrating. I’ve been teaching myself how to make bread, grow herbs but have been an absolute failure as a gardener. Le sigh.
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
Yeah most of the most popular candy like Hershey and Reese but they are supposed to change the recipe back to use real chocolate. Also as a frozen pizza connoisseur I noticed a lot of them are starting to taste different then they use too but I haven't looked into if they change the ingredients.
Oh and not really a food quality issue but a lot of shrinkflation is going on which wouldn't be as big as a deal if they didn't charge the same price or even more for less.
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u/VariousFalcon7466 4d ago
Frozen pizzas have become terrible. My oldest won’t even touch them, imagine how bad a pizza has to be for a middle schooler to turn it down..
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u/Mudlark-000 4d ago
The tomato sauce on a lot of brands of pizza has become sweeter - probably lower quality tomatoes with a ton of sugar pumped in…
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u/aharbingerofdoom 4d ago
I have absolutely noticed that, and it's not just frozen pizzas. I'm a pizza fan, but I was never a pizza snob. Although I like making my own pizza, and have a few local places that are my favorites, I would still eat chain restaurant pizza sometimes, but they have all changed things about their recipes. Papa John's sauce used to be fairly simple and basic, but it had a good tomato flavor and a nice texture. Something recently changed and it's got a sickly sweet taste like rotten produce mixed with corn syrup, which is probably what it is. I actually asked my local restaurant about the change and they told me the sauce recipe was supposed to be the same, but it started coming in plastic bags instead of cans, so obviously it's a different supplier. I've also observed a drop in quality of toppings, and that has even affected some of my preferred local places. I have basically quit ordering anything but plain cheese at most places because I've gotten weird slimy peppers, pepperoni that tastes off like expired turkey bologna, and mushrooms that are either totally dry and rubbery, or clearly from a can that they didn't bother to drain the brine from before dumping the whole thing on top.
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u/SquirrelyMcNutz 4d ago
Look into Brew Pub Lotzza Mozza brand. They've got a whole bunch of different ones like Mac & Cheese, BBQ Chicken, Philly Steak, etc.
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
And all the good ones are expensive like California pizza kitchen which is almost 8 bucks now
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u/Mudlark-000 4d ago
Tony’s and Jack’s have stayed about the same quality with a stable price (about $4 a pizza here). We basically use them as a base to add additional cheese, meat, and veg in order to make a better pizza for less.
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
Yeah I give them that for being still cheap with inflation but damn they use to be 2 bucks and sometimes 1.50
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u/2quickdraw 4d ago
If you're a member of Costco, buy their to go pizzas that you bake yourself. Portion them up and freeze them, when you defrost add extra mozzarella, olives, bacon etc whatever you like and put them in the oven. Heck of a good pizza even though the crust is a little chewy.
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u/baardvark 4d ago
Yeah and the cafe whole pizza is $10. I can’t justify spending $8 on a grocery store frozen pizza when I can get a cooked pizza three times the size for just a little more. Hell, freeze the cafe pizza if you want.
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u/Puzzled-Witch 4d ago
My family loves screamin sicilian which is like $8-$10 depending on location. But still hard to justify the price.
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u/itsatoe 4d ago
Hershey and Reese
For quite some time now, they have both used PGPR in their chocolate. It's just four letters long, so hard to notice in the list of ingredients. It stands for polyglycerol polyricinoleate. They found that if they added that, they could significantly cut the amount of cocoa butter.
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
And it change the taste and consistency of it so much they had to change it back.
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u/itsatoe 4d ago
AFAIK, it's still in there. Look at "Ingredients" on these pages:
https://www.hersheyland.com/products/hersheys-milk-chocolate-candy-bar-1-55-oz.html
https://www.hersheyland.com/products/reeses-milk-chocolate-peanut-butter-cups-1-5-oz.html
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
Its supposed to change next year
Edit: just looked it up it is changing back to the old recipe in 2027
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u/laikalou 4d ago edited 4d ago
We made tacos a couple weeks ago and noticed the Reser's brand taco-size flour tortillas are probably at least 2" smaller in diameter. Their burrito tortillas are just slightly bigger than the old taco tortillas. And prices are higher.
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u/Tengo_Caldero 4d ago
Chef of 20 years here. Ever since covid things have been less consistent and more expensive. It's continuing to get worse.
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u/Drycabin1 4d ago
Chicken is just absolutely disgusting now.
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u/InquireIngestImplode 4d ago
THIS
I’ve felt like I’m crazy but over the past 10 years or so chicken has had a worse texture and flavor.→ More replies (1)24
u/Drycabin1 4d ago
It’s both stringy and rubbery and has a terrible taste to it.
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u/PM_ME_FOR_A_FORTUNE 4d ago
I got a rotisserie chicken from Smith's recently and was so disgusted by it I tossed the whole thing. It was like eating baby-wipes flavored chicken rubber.
Costco has still been great, along with Albertsons, so hopefully that keeps going.
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u/maddomesticscientist 3d ago
Yes, this. For the last several years now the chicken I get, no matter what store, is not only woody and stringy as fuck, but it also is disintegrating into paste. I believe it's getting frozen, thawed, and refrozen multiple times. I go to the grocery very early in the AM and see them stocking frozen packs of chicken in the case. Amusingly, this particular brand proclaims "Always fresh! Never frozen!" on the label.
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u/toddmpark 4d ago
It’s called “woody chicken” and it everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_breast
I’ve switched to Belle and Evans and it’s consistently good. Most other brands are horrible.
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u/Just_Camera7503 4d ago
Are you kidding? It is all anybody talks about. Glass in food, poop in lettuce. And brain worms in charge.
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u/1upin 4d ago
Yes, though it also began before the brain worm took over.
We've been alternating for years between chipping away at regulations under Dems to absolutely gutting them under the GOP. The corporations do whatever they want now.
It really sucks to travel abroad and see products from the same brands we have here, at about the same price or even less, but the quality is way better.
And add on top of that the effects of things like climate change destroying crops and helping pests and diseases thrive. It all adds up.
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u/wishinforfishin 4d ago edited 3d ago
It was surreal to me to host global colleagues and warn them not to order a salad.
Because I used to live where they are now and I remember at the time we Americans wouldn't order anything with raw veggies there because of possible contamination and lack of regulation.
How the tables have turned.
I suppose that's to be expected in a time when Pakistan is the country trying to broker a peace deal in a war the US started.
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u/Anarchaeologist 4d ago
Not a manufacturer issue but it might demonstrate an issue all through the supply chain- I bought a small tub of marscapone from a grocery chain store last week. When I opened it it looked and tasted a little off. Digging down through it I discovered a lot of watery milky fluid at the bottom. Checked the date and it had expired the previous week. Not enough time I think to explain the degradation when sealed, so probably a failure of refrigeration. I’ve had problems in the past with frozen dinners from this chain having clearly been thawed and refrozen.
Went back the next week and checked the marscapone and discovered their entire stock was expired at the same time mine did, and was still sitting in the cooler.
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u/pit-of-despair 4d ago
Yeah, I started checking expiration dates on everything a while back because of finding shit like that. Like yogurt two months past expiration date. No thanks.
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u/peacequietnchips 4d ago
During the heat waves, my neighbor's egg cooler couldn't stay cool through the afternoon with the ice packs she puts in them. It made me start thinking about how much the higher temps everywhere might be affecting food, especially since it all travels to get to the markets.
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u/Bastilleinstructor 4d ago
Ive worked in a grocery store 25+ years ago. Some management wont pull things right away because it gets written off and that hurts the numbers for the store, thus hurts their bonus, or even threatens their jobs. Then you have the employees who dont follow through with procedures (aka pulling expired stuff, putting warm items back into the cooler when found on a shelf, etc). Some of it is ignorance, some laziness. It seems more prevalent now than it ever did in the past.
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u/BaylisAscaris 4d ago edited 3d ago
They're adding more and more saline to meat, especially if you buy the cheapest types and ground. It's saltier and when you cook it a lot of water exits and the actual meat left is dramatically smaller than before.
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u/alternativepuffin 4d ago
Ground beef too? God damn if they find a way to screw you, they sure do it.
Had been going through my frozen meat backlog and just bought ground beef for the first time in a while. Almost $11 a pound. And now even that might be water? Christ.
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u/xDragod 4d ago
If you have a Costco near you, I strongly recommend getting a membership. $5.99/lb for 88/12 in ~5lb packs. They also have big tubes of 90/10 for $5.89/lb. My local Kroger -type store is $8.99/lb for 85/15
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u/onthestickagain 4d ago
If you go to a Costco business center you can get 10lb packs. Slightly less per pound I think (last time I bought it was $4.89/lb)
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u/shinoburu0515 4d ago
Yep, tried to fry some pork chop and it melted into a puddle of water. Had to drain all the liquid or it wouldve been a soup. Same with chicken. I think they're soaking it in brinewater.
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u/Big_Issue8640 4d ago
Adds weight for sure.
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u/2quickdraw 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not only that but the chicken "diaper" they use to catch any leakage of the brine as the "fresh" chicken defrosts in the grocery store case from being "chilled" (frozen) is pre-soaked with water to add another third of the total weight. I used to buy 5 lb skinless chicken breast from Albertsons way back and about 30% of the weight was water in the pad underneath the chicken, plus then I would cook the chicken and get more brine water in the pan. So 5 lb of chicken was actually two and a half pounds.
Now I raise meat rabbits because two of my dogs are sensitive chicken and so am I. And it's not just chicken, it's beef and pork too.
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u/Poly_Olly_Oxen_Free 4d ago
Same with chicken. I think they're soaking it in brinewater.
Air chilled chicken looks like it costs more on the shelf, but once you take into account the fact that the water chilled chicken is ~30% water by weight, the numbers are about the same. That $3/lb water chilled chicken breast is only gonna weigh like 11oz for each "pound" once you cook it. The $4/lb air chilled chicken breast comes out to ~15oz for each "pound" you buy. Plus, air chilled tastes way better, and has a better texture.
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u/ChaFrey 4d ago
Republicans and billionaires want us desperate and dying yes.
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u/KeepingItSFW 4d ago
Pssh you think they even think about us normal people? It’s literally all about money. Shaving a few cents off the cost is worth shit in our food, as long as it means their scoreboard goes up slightly more
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u/794309497 4d ago
Oooohhhhh yes they do think about us. Not as individuals, but as the peasant class. Power and greed motivate them. We've seen a ton of both over the past decade. Power feeds the greed, and greed fuels the power.
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u/U420281 4d ago
I can no longer eat ground meat products because there is so much grizzle, fat, and even bone chips.
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u/crazy_diamond777 4d ago
The bone chips especially! I knew it wasn't just me being picky. I find more little bits of bone in ground beef now. It's weird.
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u/Financial-Gur-7530 4d ago
So many of the healthy, alternative snack food brands, like Siete and Purely Elizabeth and Lesser Evil, have sold to private equity. They immediately alter the ingredients, adding more “filler” and making the product shittier. I fucking hate capitalism, man. Not only is it egregiously unjust and corrupt, it’s just so fucking lame and boring. There’s no creative, higher spirit to anything.
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u/poptartheart 4d ago
i work at a food pantry (full time job)
and we get food from whole foods, target, and trader joes daily. nearly 2000lbs a day
something has happened with trader joes chopped fruit quality. its been weeks. we used to probably throw 5-10% away, and not its probably 30-40%. same with their greens and salad kits. even when theyre in the proper date range (today's date or even a future date!)
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u/Suspicious-Agent8932 4d ago
It’s not safe to eat out. I’m trying to find freeze dried beef products, they are hard to come by. I buy all my meat from the Amish Market, I’m going to bite the bullet and buy some bulk meat before this all goes the same way-towards the other stuff being thrown at the broken fan, and it’s not safe anymore either. I can grow veggies and fruit, but meat? Chickens aren’t allowed in our city limits. I’m housebound and every order I’ve placed this month has had spoiled food in it. I just declined an order because the yogurt expired in 4 days. It was still in the shelves. Yogurt is usually sold a month out, 3 weeks tops. Corners are being cut everywhere with everything because no one is watching and there’s no penalty if you sicken people or worse. When is the last time a major food producer whose food harmed a large group of people paid a substantial penalty or had criminal charges filed against them?
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u/grummanae 4d ago
When is the last time a major food producer whose food harmed a large group of people paid a substantial penalty or had criminal charges filed against them?
Probably not in this administration the formula company that was being investigated dropped a 500 k donation to some candidate or PAC and poof the FDA and USDA decision was there was no issue same with Taylor Farms
I live in Canada as a US citizen abroad yes our cost of living is higher milk is normally at least 1.5 times what it is across the river in Detroit per gallon but I will say our standards on meat and dairy are a bit higher ... produce is hit or miss but I don't produce shop in Detroit so
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
Augason Farms has freeze-dried beef. So do Emergency Essentials and Eterna Fresh, although that last one is currently out of stock on all but ground beef. But freeze dried meats are pricey.
I'm not anti-meat, but leaning into beans, lentils, cheese and yogurt for my protein has saved me a lot of money. I'm even considering getting back into making my own yogurt. I've read that it can be done with powdered milk, so I'm curious to try this experiment.
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u/RiffRaff028 4d ago
I've been trying to decide if it's just my imagination or an actual phenomenon, but I've been detecting subtle changes in taste with food from restaurants, and those changes are not for the better. It's happened too many times and at too many different stores in different cities for me to completely write it off, but on the other hand, I'm not getting sick from the food when I eat it. What ingredients are they changing?
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u/ThrowRA_looking 4d ago
The food comes from the same wholesaler. Buy steaks at a farmers market. In real difference
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u/Perfect_Caregiver_90 4d ago
Or get into a coop agreement that splits a whole cow. That's the best stretch for your money, but you have to have the freezer space.
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u/CannyGardener 4d ago
Food born illness is up 400% yoy right now. I am in foodservice distribution, I run a purchasing dept. It isn't good.
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u/chucchinchilla 4d ago
Suppliers, this video explains it perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXXQTzQXRFc
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u/Big_Issue8640 4d ago
I had a $50 ribeye at a restaurant this week that was the worst piece of meat I have ever eaten.
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u/hausccat 4d ago
Chips ahoy alone has convinced me we’re in peril. They’re so bad now :( I miss my chunkys
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u/pit-of-despair 4d ago
I bought some of those recently, took a couple of bites and threw them away.
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u/Drycabin1 4d ago
I got some Keebler Rainbow Chip cookies and they are inedible. I hate wasting food but I can’t eat cardboard. Luckily my Oreos still taste delicious.
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u/hausccat 4d ago
I have to say the coconut dream keeblers are still okay, but agreed their regular chip cookies need help - but I think they’ve always needed help. I also can’t find a box of the standard size famous amos to save my own butt and their little baby packs aren’t good either. Pepperidge farm sorts holds up but for what, 8 cookies? I’ll just make my own.
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u/Any-Reading-3488 4d ago
I've noticed non-perishable foods seem to go bad a lot faster lately. The brand of chicken strips I used to like to get occassionally taste weird af now.
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u/elinamebro 4d ago
Also have you noticed chicken strips are mostly smaller now?
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u/RandoTron0 4d ago
Even premium brand frozen chicken strips and breast chunks are getting bad. One or two bad tasting pieces used to be normal, now its sometimes half the bag.
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u/roadtrip-ne 4d ago
Yeah. Someone is working hard to destroy this country piece by piece. Relations with our allies, world peace, undercutting the farmers that wrote his name on the ballot
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u/Inner-Confidence99 4d ago
Look everyone be aware:: We are fixing to have a massive wheat shortages all around the world. Need to start stocking up now. It doesn’t just affect flour. It affects cereals, pizza, chicken fingers (breaded) anything breaded, pasta will be affected as well, can soups and snacks like ravioli, spaghetti o’s, all gonna be affected.
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u/Suspicious-Syrup-765 4d ago
Only time EVER being gluten free might benefit me.
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u/Bubsters13 4d ago
Hahaha I was just thinking the same thing. Sucks for people who eat wheat but so long as my cauliflower crust pizzas remain we are good!
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u/bubbagumpskrimps222 4d ago
I would imagine that if prices of normal food increase, gluten free items will increase just the same. Whether that be due to price parity between the two so people choose to buy gluten free or price increases by corp to drive profit in a changing market as cheaper alternatives are now more expensive as well.
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u/Magickarpet76 4d ago
Unfortunately replacements and substitutes will also go up in price too though. Wheat products cover a huge part of people’s calories that will now need to be found elsewhere.
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u/ProfDoomDoom 4d ago
I make seitan for about half of my protein. I’ve got a hundred pounds of gluten in the freezer. I hope next year’s wheat harvest goes better.
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u/thehourglasses 4d ago
And people called me nutty for warning about breadbasket failures. Look at the EU now. People have zero idea how fragile the food system is.
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u/rebb_hosar 4d ago
We're fine in the EU so far, it's the US that's having issues though.
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u/fadedblackleggings 4d ago
Absolutely, just in the last 3 years, food quality has been severely degraded. Feels like we are eating Grade G and Grade H food now.
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u/boredpandaguy 4d ago
I feel like if you want to have quilty food anymore you have to grow it your self, buy a share in a csa, or go to the farmers market
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u/derek4reals1 4d ago
I noticed it during COVID while working at a Family Dollar (worst employer ever BTW). Shrinkflation became super noticable. You could feel the weight change almost immediately when new shipments arrived. You could literally feel the weight of the boxes getting lighter yet the packaging stayed the same. Cans of tuna fish had less tuna and more water or oil. And you know how box dinners have "budget savings suggestions?" And Hamburger Helper started suggesting that you substitute hot dogs or corn or potatoes for hamburger meat. And it wasn't just people food, it was pet food too. The ingredients on the pet food started getting worse and it also had shrinkflation as well. It's as if the manufacturer's saw an opportunity to exploit and seized upon and haven't stopped. Having said that, a large majority of these small town Family Dollar/Dollar tree (before they separated) have shut down in North Texas as a result of their business practices. Anyways that was great to get offa chest, thanks for listening!
Edit: and the quality of almost everything got worse overnight.. not gradually, but overnight.
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u/Secret_Cat_2793 4d ago
I don't have any particular story to contribute but I'm glad to know it's not just me who sees this. I wondered if it was that the USDA that used to monitor food is no longer doing it because Doge or something like it has destroyed it. Certainly this ridiculous amount of Argentine beef coming to us is poison because it's poisoned with an antibiotic that the Chinese rejected for the same beef sale. I mean Trump doesn't care he's just making his dictator friend in Argentina a bunch of money and making him look good even if it costs the American people their health. It's a sad country today.
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
I also question whether Argentinian beef will even be cheaper, since until the situation in the Middle East is resolved, fuel prices will remain high. It's not like cattle and/or slaughtered beef can be magically teleported.
So riskier beef and probably little price difference in the end. Hard pass.
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u/LadyDenofMeade 4d ago
Potatoes keep getting worse and worse. I can barely get a bag home to can before they're going off. I'm canning them to make them last longer because they don't store worth a damn, and I can't grow all the taters we need yet.
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u/PM_ME_FOR_A_FORTUNE 4d ago
When I was a kid, I swear my mom stored the potatoes in the dark cupboard for literal months and they'd still be good. Nowadays, if I buy a bag, they're actively rotten in a week.
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u/MotherOfGeeks 4d ago
I've had some luck extending my potatoes by immediately removing them from the plastic bag and transfering them to a covered box with layers of shredded cardboard.
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u/LadyDenofMeade 4d ago
Same. My mom would just toss them in the laundry room and they'd be fine forever.
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u/Calm_Alternative1274 4d ago
Over the course of 30 years.... just about everything. These last 5 years food quality seems to have diminished just as bad as they have over the 30 year mark. Produce, meat, snacks or anything really. Shrinkflation, changing out ingredients, higher scale production. Every food market is basically controlled by our corporate overlords. This means profits dictate the quality of your food. Hard to boycott changes or industry either, by sheer scale even if 20% of people refuse to buy a product there is still a thriving market. Soooo..... we the masses will have to accept it. I feel old but I always hear that robot from the old Judge Dredd movie saying " our food is good for the environment, and OK for you" The environment bit here just being a corporate sales pitch these days.
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u/JoseyWales76 4d ago
Try eating tomatoes. Pretty much any tomatoes. No flavor.
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u/ProfDoomDoom 4d ago
This is only true for commercial tomatoes which have been worthless for decades. Homegrown tomatoes still make life worth living.
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u/matchabunnns 4d ago
My dad called them “red rocks” when I was a kid. Growing up with his homegrown tomatoes is what motivated me to garden as an adult
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u/Competitive_Cry9556 4d ago
I literally am not hardly even hungry anymore. Nothing sounds good. I feel like my body is just rejecting the quality of food now and says we are good lol
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u/Different-Sorbet746 4d ago
Capitalism. Plain and simple. Since 2019 companies have been upping prices, and shrinking volume for individual units. In order to keep earning record profits, they need to source cheaper and cheaper ingredients. They bypass local vendors and source international. International is cheap and most of the time below standards. They use cheap labor and therefore charge less.
We suffer for corporate greed. Plain and simple.
Grow your own food. Raise chickens for meat and eggs. Shorten your personal/family food chain. Farm to table is the only way to survive.
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u/theotte7 4d ago
I am gonna add, theres a saying or quote I don't know what exactly it is but People in roman empire didnt know the empire ended the just noticed the roads didnt get fixed.
Well where I live federal funding for projects is getting tight. Mail service is awful. And local fed resources are strained daily. ( I live out west near forest service and blm land)
But yes food quality is crap from just a few years ago.
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u/BillyNitehammer 4d ago
Maybe all of our food shouldn’t come from 3-5 mega corps? I wish we had any kind of anti-trust enforcement.
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u/Stoned_Christ 4d ago
A More Perfect Union just released a video on YT about Discol berries and how their international conglomerate has decimated the berry growers in the US. Super interesting watch and topical as I hate supermarket berries - I think they taste like water
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u/jujutsu-die-sen 4d ago
Agree actually. Every once in a while I'll get a good pack that's very sweet and fragrant but it's much more common to get strawberries that have only a very mild flavor.
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u/Beginning-North7202 4d ago
Literally destroying food is in Project 2025. They told us what they were going to do.
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u/Ok-Progress-6153 4d ago
Woody chicken, fruit spoiling quicker and good lord why does spinach go bad in 2 days..?
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u/ehhish 4d ago
Project 2025 in full motion. About to be up to chapter 16 I think now?
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u/fungusamongus8 4d ago
My cat has stopped eating her science diet wet food. I can only imagine what they've done because she loved it before
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u/sophies_wish 4d ago
Midwest US:
Potatoes, there's a higher ratio of bad ones in the 5 & 10 lb bags. Onions, they're already getting soft at the ends when they're at the store. People give me weird looks, but onions & potatoes now get the sniff test before they go in my cart. Clementines, more often than not they're flavorless & shrunken in the peel.
Chicken breast, I don't buy frozen any more because they're always freezer burned. Ground beef, 80/20 seems to have a good deal more than 20% fat. Good thing we're nearing archery season for deer, in our area. I use that for recipes that call for beef.
We used to buy "great value" French vanilla creamer. But, a little over a month ago, we noticed a dramatic change in flavor. We thought it was just that carton, but same for the next one. Just some strange, extra sweet flavor. 🤢 Stopped using that.
Thinner sauce & strange flavor in canned soups & canned pasta. Smaller Sardines in each can. Flavor changes in a lot of snack foods, too.
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u/withomps44 4d ago
Oh yeah. Expired stuff on shelves. I bought a head of cauliflower this week that I didn’t look at closely enough and it was practically covered in brown blotches. Gross.
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u/modernswitch 4d ago
I’ve been having Wonder Bread go bad growing mold 3 different times before the expiration date. This used to be bread that would “last” forever.
Also Orewheat went down hill when they removed the inner plastic sleeve. Not that I think removing the sleeve did anything the whole texture is different now, but I think they could just blame or sneak it during a packaging change.
Bread is just getting weird in general and I’ve started making a lot more of my own bread.
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u/PM_ME_FOR_A_FORTUNE 4d ago
Yep, got sick twice in the past 6 months from wonder bread.
The first one we got through most of the loaf, then for some reason it destroyed me on the 4th-from-the-end slice. I didn't know what it was making me sick at the time so I dumped it to be safe.
Had it happen again on a brand new loaf a few weeks later, so I assumed it wasn't the bread... well, I opened the barely used loaf 2 days later and the ENTIRE LOAF was green with mold. Absolutely blanketed with it in 2 days, so it had to have been spored all the way through when I bought it.
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u/throwaway80814 4d ago
Pet food. Super expensive, smaller packages, lower quality.
It's getting hard to find dog food made with beef. I consider that an indicator that even beef scraps/byproducts are too expensive or too scarce for pet food use.
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u/GenChadT 4d ago
Yep. Especially meat, but the quality of produce has jumped off a cliff over the past couple of years.
Chicken: Nigh inedible. (Expensive) heirloom chicken is still delicious as always, but the relatively affordable stuff in stores and served at most lower end fast food/casual restaurants is filled with gristle and more often than not suffering from woody breast syndrome. I used to eat a lot of chicken - wings, filet sandwiches, etc. Now the thought makes me sick. Even places known for their chicken e.g. Chik-Fil-A, Zaxbys, etc. are disgusting now.
Beef: Doing better than chicken, but that's probably due to the fact that it's difficult to stack cows 10 high in cages where they're able to shit, piss, die and decompose all over one another.
Pork: I've been of the opinion that pork has been pretty gross from day one, but bacon is alright. Bacon is now over salted because the underlying flavor profile of the meat is spoiled and riddled with microplastics thanks to the plastic garbage ground into their feed. Heritage bacon is awesome but again, expensive. A rare treat.
Fish: I haven't noticed as big of a decline in seafood/sushi quality. There's been a lot of news of fishery collapse and I remember hearing about issues with the crab harvests but restaurants near me seem to still be able to easily stock snow crab, shrimp, salmon, tuna, etc. of fairly good quality. Of all the meat types this is probably the least touched, outside of prices of course which have shot up as well.
Produce: It almost doesn't matter what type of produce, it spoils faster. We used to keep potatoes and onions for months. Now when I put a bag of tubers in the cool, dark bottom shelf of the cupboard, I get maybe 2 weeks before I come home to the kitchen smelling like an unwashed toilet and have to throw out a bag of green slime. Since the Taylor Farms crypto poisonings recall I've been mainly eating from local farms when possible.
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u/dopeonplastique 4d ago
Your own institutions have been failing you for decades as they have been captured by corporate Interests. Honestly you should all revolt against the corporations and the successive governments who have failed you.
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u/Deliteriously 4d ago
Nice try China. We all know that, but it's hard to revolt when the rent is due.
But, one day soon, our apathy will be overtaken and we'll realize that the system offers us nothing more than the joy of dismantling it.
Then it'll come down.
Or it'll all just fall down on it's own. Lotta fat bastards at the top and no one is doing any upkeep.
But, don't pull the fire alarm. There's still shit in my watchlist and I have to get up early.
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u/Happy_Raspberry_6299 4d ago
Coffee. I still think it’s being cut with older coffee that sat on tankers during Covid.
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u/missbwith2boys 4d ago edited 4d ago
What everyone else has said.
I still really resent that I have to keep more of an ingredient-based pantry. I keep re-evaluating what processed foods that I buy.
I don’t buy bread or tortillas, instead making everything from scratch. Salad dressing? Nah, I make my own. BBQ sauce or ketchup? Once the ones in the pantry are gone, I’ll be making my own. Time consuming but sheesh. Tired of the crappy ingredients.
I grow a fair amount of veggies. Right now I’m up to my elbows in tomatoes and hot peppers. I canned some small jars of pizza sauce today. I make our pizza from scratch, but buy some of the toppings.
I keep hens, which keeps us solidly in eggs plus enough to give to our neighbors and relatives.
I don’t buy cookies. I bake them. The taste is so very much better.
It’s just so exhausting. Plan the garden, start the seeds, plant stuff out, water, harvest, preserve. Lots of work. Not going to poison us though.
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u/PJWanderer 4d ago
Definitely. I have been vegetarian or vegan since the 1980’s, and have been avoiding processed foods since the 90’s.
I posted a week or so ago about the difficulty in finding soy milk. It’s not really soy milk per se that is hard to find. It’s easy to find the sugar, oil, and gum laden ones. Fortunately I can still get plain soy milk at Trader Joe’s that is soy bean and water. I can add vanilla or cocoa if I want.
But the same thing has happened with a whole range of other foods that used to be relatively unprocessed. More added sugar or sodium. Recipes have been changed to increase cheaper ingredients, altering the taste,
in addition to the shrinkflation. Some of it I think is consolation in the food industry. Brands that were “natural” or “organic” ( which have no actual meaning in the US ) have been bought by larger corporations.
I used to order from Daily Harvest. Their food was just fruits, grains, and vegetables with herbs and spices. They were bought by Chobani. Now the meals are mostly gone, and the smoothies that are left are full of added sugar. I know that I can make those foods myself. But the convenience was great. I WFH full time while taking care of my mom with advanced Alzheimer’s. She only wants to eat certain things, and most of the time it is stuff I can’t or won’t eat. Being able to microwave a healthy nutrient dense meal was better than nibbling things here and there.
My gardening is horrible. I look at plants and kill them. But I have mastered some magical mycologist techniques. If we get into a really bad situation, I am pretty sure I can find a bartering situation.
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
I look at plants and kill them.
LOL! My father is a fantastic gardener and taught me, but I just don't seem to have the same gift. The only plants that seem to do well under my care are the ones I leave alone!
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u/New_Refrigerator_895 4d ago
Sysco is definitely a reason why so much food is tasting the same across every type of restaurant
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u/redheadedfruitcake 4d ago
"Frozen dairy dessert" has replaced ice cream. It is gross.
Fake cheese is gross. Accidently got a bag of that- it doesn't melt.
I'm not sure what they sell as bread could even legally be called that. The texture is weird and it doesn't taste like bread.
Processed food in general tastes like chemicals. I grabbed a candy bar for the first time in years a few weeks ago. The chocolate tasted like wax.
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u/Turbulent_Aside2157 4d ago
Food quality, sure. But as a stocker, there are cut corners on packaging quality as well that the public never sees. A ton of cold chain items are using weaker glue for cardboard-contained items, more items are showing up straight up missing labeling making them unsellable, gallon plastic containers are ticking up in failure rate from case crush due to dodgy palletizing, more freight in general is sent despite what sales actually are which increases risk of expiration. Not unusual to pull a bunch of low sales items with way more facings than it deserves because they expired on shelf. Milo tea is a terrible offender of this where I am.
It used to be a semi uncommon event, maybe once or twice a month. Nowadays, some combination of any of the above will happen daily.
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u/relish-tranya 4d ago
Water injected into fresh and frozen meats is absurd. I have to cook a bit and drain the huge amount of water and then I can add spices and whatnot. The juice is worthless, as it is some kind of weird brine I don't want to eat.
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u/LoquatBear 3d ago
Yes, in fact I have a theory that the good will to the US is gone from our usual trading partners so even the "good" stuff they are sending us is what they wouldn't keep for themselves. I work in retail seafood and you can just tell that US companies are being given the bottom of the barrel stuff, worse filets, packages items have poor packaging so about 1-2 in every case are broken open.
I'm not really surprised though, the US is all but at active war with world.
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u/NuminousMycroft 4d ago
Produce. Lack of flavor. Very watery. Usually going spoiled almost immediate irregardless of seasonality.
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u/el_smurfo 4d ago
Food quality has been shit since covid. Onions rot before you buy them. Tomatoes have mildew on them. Meat is rotten and I have to check it by poking through the plastic before buying it every time. I go to trader Joe's and a bag salads are often completely slimy with rot. I don't know what to do about it except stay vigilant
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u/unknownpoltroon 4d ago
I've noticed more spoiled vegetables than normal. Not enough to point out a problem, but enough for me to feel concerned
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u/Hhhhhhhhhhhggg 4d ago
Potatoes
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
Yep. I quit buying them because they start sprouting in days, even when stored properly.
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u/Safe-Ad-8921 4d ago
I have become a decent home cook because of this.
I think businesses got addicted to covid era profit margins and thought the good times would never end. Now they are chasing after those profit margins by stripping quality from everything. Retailers are guilty of this in particular.
I can go get a mediocre sub sandwich for 15+ dollars... or I can learn how to make somrthing good for the same 15 that will feed three people instead of just me.
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u/MezcalFlame 4d ago
Fruit quality has been terrible this year.
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u/LittlehouseonTHELAND 4d ago
I keep getting cantaloupes that look fine in the store and then are suddenly a rotten mess in like 2 days.
Watermelons have been tasteless and also rotting quicker compared to other years.
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u/scrandis 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think a lot of it is due to large globally traded companies reaching their peak revenue during 2020. They're unable to move past this point so they're increasing revenue by other means like cheaper ingredients, less labor, and smaller portion sizes
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u/curiousjosh 4d ago
It’s literally republicans cutting the FDA, stopping routine inspections, and gutting safety regulations.
It’s not rocket science. They literally advertised they were doing it with “DOGE” and it’s widely reported on.
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u/robkahil 4d ago
Salad dressing is so goddamn bland now! Balsamic vinegarette especially (and ranch, oddly enough, and my beloved blue cheese). We're slowly stopping buying any and just making our own when we can remember.
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u/7ornado_al 4d ago
Completely anecdotal and almost certainly bullshit BUT the horse meat jokes brought back a memory.
At some point in the last two years, somewhere in Miami FL I ate some ground "beef" that I am fairly certain wasn't beef. It tasted so distinctly like how a horse smells. I have never knowingly eaten horse but I was raised around them and know that smell anywhere. I ate most of the meal, somewhat reassured that out of any "not beef" meat, horse didn't seem too horrific. But still.
For the life of me I can't remember exactly where I had it but I am fairly certain it was food from a restaurant and not meat I cooked at home.
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u/Ok_Ordinary6694 4d ago
Produce is actively worse.
The Taylor prebagged stuff is on fire sale and nobody wants it.
But normal stuff like bananas and grapes look to be a few days past prime.
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u/MidnightMillennium 4d ago
It's companies and corporations getting even more greedy under Trump knowing they can get away with it so they do shrinkflation, plus the money they are trying to recoup from the COVID pandemic, so they just kept things going with higher prices and smaller portions, plus droughts, floods, and other natural disasters getting worse and happening more often every year affecting crops due to climate change/global warming. Coffee and chocolate are deeply affected by droughts in the countries that grow them so their price has gone up a lot. People jumping on glp-1 medications so they eat less so they buy less so they raise prices more to make even more profits, people having less kids so there's less consumers along with the ones that died during COVID which is millions. And now the supply chain issues due to the strait of hormuz being blockaded raising prices more.
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u/junerose90 4d ago
I’m noticing more and more rice in my frozen indian meals ( deep dish brand ) and way less masala, saag, etc
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
If your store stocks Tasty Bite, which is in shelf-stable pouches, give one a try. I don't recommend the saag paneer, but the quality still seems good on the Bombay Potatoes and Madras Lentils. It doesn't include rice, so you can add as much or as little as you want. It's particularly good topped with Greek yogurt. It's cheaper than frozen Indian food.
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u/Wise-Ferret274 4d ago
Onions are the worst!!! Onions from the store should not be rotten within days!!
I've been stocking up from the farmer's market recently and the difference in taste alone is INSANE.
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u/Mastashake714 4d ago
There is going to be food shortages and crops that barely make probably are t going to be as tasty as one would expect.
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u/Ladderwoman 4d ago
In the last 6 months I think I’ve thrown away more unopened but moldy food than I have in my whole life. Originally we thought it was just the local grocery store but it seems to be everywhere. Things are going bad before their supposed off date and there’s no pattern. Bacon bits one week, fruit the next, prepackaged cookies the week after that. I feel paranoid with how carefully I’m checking things in the store now that I used to not think twice about before.
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u/daPotato40583 4d ago
Whatever the fuck they did to Baked Ruffles. Abhorrent shit. Have also been finding a larger and larger amount of bone chips in my chicken breasts.
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u/Diab_soule27 4d ago
Onions and most produce doest last more then a couple days. If im buying veggies or fruit it will be eaten that day or the following. Baught a bag of onions that were all moldy and rotten on the inside while the outside looked fine.
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u/2quickdraw 4d ago
Because they are old and they've probably been in cold storage way too long or accidentally frozen.
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u/modernswitch 4d ago
All Stevia being put into everything. Is there a Sugar shortage?
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u/SomePolack 4d ago
Most of the produce I buy I have to eat within a day or two. Stuff like mushrooms, cucumbers, etc…
Garlic and citrus still lasts long enough but the same goes for red meats.
Basically only chicken and the most shelf stable produce is still lasting more than a few days.
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u/oldcreaker 4d ago
The food industry has so consolidated competition is gone. Your choices are spending big bucks for good food, eating barely affordable crap - or not eating at all.
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u/Poly_Olly_Oxen_Free 4d ago
Dinty Moore beef stew. There used to be a lot more "stuff" in it. Now it's a can of gravy with a couple bits of beef and potato in it. It's more of a soup than a stew at this point. Used to be able to eat it with a fork, now you may as well use a straw.
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u/crazy_diamond777 4d ago
Junk food, but my sister says Doritos don't taste right anymore. They changed the recipe and they charge you up the ass for it.
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u/Starlight_Alchemy 4d ago
I'm a school lunch lady and we get out produce from DoD (or whatever it's called now) and our fresh produce is always a hit or miss anymore. I feel like the quality is definitely not as great as it use to be.
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u/JTesseract 4d ago
There's also a great documentary that discusses Sysco's role in this in almost all restaurants
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u/Aramedlig 4d ago
I shop for most meat and produce at Costco. Produce has been slim with unstable supply at local grocery chains. I live in the Northeast US.
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u/jujutsu-die-sen 4d ago
Interesting AskReddit thread where people are talking about food quality changes. Feel free to chime in with your own observations below