Is it me ~ Or is everything we buy made cheaper

[highonbetter]

I been eating out alot and buying different things lately, Is it me or does all restaurants and stores and fast food restaurants making things cheaper, but prices are up.
It was my grandma's birthday a few weeks back and we had red Lobster, and everything there has changed.the shrimp are paper thin. which makes me wonder.
I use to goto Wendys alot as a kid,and they had everything from salad bar to great burgers, Today i wont touch it. there terrible.
I don't even think beverages taste the same, We have a local beverage company called Faygo, and i remember as a kid walking to the store from my dads business and getting a glass 16 oz bottle for 35+deposit.. I recently had a cream soda from Faygo, and its not the same.its close.but its just not the same.
So my question is are all places cutting back, by cutting down and shortcuts ?

[The 6th Wilbury]

Uh... this is probably impossible to answer. Plus, your thread title doesn't match your post very well.

When it comes to food: for one thing, it's altogether possible your tastes have changed. I know there are many foods I hated as I kid that I'll happily chow down now. And likewise, I could compile a sizable list of foods I loved as a kid that I wouldn't touch today. That doesn't necessarily mean they're made differently or more cheaply.

As for Red Lobster, I've still never been to one of those. But I might need for a clarification on "paper-thin shrimp." The husks are paper-thin?

You mentioned Wendy's... after the E.coli scare in the 1990s, my guess is that fast food places are overcooking their burgers as a precautionary measure (or by some FDA or USDA mandate, for all I know). Especially if you prefer your burgers rare, you might have experienced a greater shift from your personal tastes -- even if the outlet used the same grade of beef for its burgers over the years.

As for soft drinks, non-diet sodas (or pop, as you would call it up there) are generally made with high-fructose corn syrup nowadays. I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm guessing you're of such an age that you drank pop sweetened with cane sugar. Many people -- myself included -- prefer cane sugar over corn sugar.

Faygo reportedly uses sugar in its glass-bottled drinks, corn syrup in its canned and plastic-bottled beverages. You mentioned drinking it from the 16-ounce glass bottle as a kid -- was it the same container this time around? If not, then you probably threw back the corn-sugared version.

All this said, it is also very possible that some of your favorite chains have chosen to cut corners. Taco Bell went under scrutiny after just such an accusation, summarized here. With so many of these larger companies protecting their exact recipes (e.g. KFC's "11 herbs and spices"), we may never know the exact composition of the ingredients, which means we'd have a tough time knowing for certain that a store has taken a cheaper route.

[highonbetter]

As for soft drinks, non-diet sodas (or pop, as you would call it up there)


It's weird you say that, I was actualy in my mid 20's before i had a person ask me whats a pop? I guess for us its like calling a banana a banana.its just normal.
And as for the shrimp. yes they look like there cut in half.there about 1/4 of the size they use to be.

[jrw5001]

Originally Posted by highonbetter

And as for the shrimp. yes they look like there cut in half.there about 1/4 of the size they use to be.

Maybe you've just grown 4 times the size you used to be.

[The 6th Wilbury]

Originally Posted by jrw5001

Maybe you've just grown 4 times the size you used to be.

I've had this discussion with my dad, who swears candy bars are way smaller now than when he was a kid. I always assure him that the regular-sized bars are currently around two ounces in weight, while the king-sized bars are about twice that. When he was a kid in the 1950s, the nickel bar was about two ounces while the dime bar was around four (in fact, Baby Ruth called its dime bar a "quarter pounder" back then).

"The bars are the same size," I tell him. "You're just larger now."

[sc00ter1]

If you want to know why fast food burgers taste different it's because they are probably a mixture of 80ish% decent quality beef and the remainder is a filler called pink slime which for safety's sake should probably be cooked until it no longer resembles meat, every state also has their own rules I'm in North Carolina and unless you grind your own beef in house you can't cook it less than medium well
Check out the links if you are unfamiliar with pink slime
Pink Slime Ammonia-infused Hamburger Additive

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution: 70% of America's Beef is Treated with Ammonia - YouTube

6th I'm only 31 and I swear the candy bars are getting smaller while going up in price

[highonbetter]

A girlfriend who does blood work at the hosp. i wont try to spell it. i know it starts with a P. She said a guy came in for blood work and it showed all this in his work. She wondered what he ate that contained so much fat.he told her 2 double hamburgers at mcdonalds.
There food has so much fat content,that it makes nurses sick.thats bad

And as for the red lobster shrimp.there has to be someone here to agree with me. Its so paper thin. my 85 year old grandmother even said wow they got thin. everyone agreed. im 100% right there truly smaller

[The 6th Wilbury]

Originally Posted by highonbetter

And as for the red lobster shrimp.there has to be someone here to agree with me. Its so paper thin. my 85 year old grandmother even said wow they got thin. everyone agreed. im 100% right there truly smaller

I've never eaten at a Red Lobster (too many other seafood options when you live on a coast), so I'll take your word for it. I was more interested in your usage of the descriptor "paper thin," especially since you were looking for agreement. I've never heard someone describe any seafood that way, but it apparently runs in your family.

[highonbetter]

I pulled back the batter on one of them.and there was hardly no shrimp what so ever. all batter. thats what i meant by paper thin. yea theres no good seafood places around here.but if you want a steak.We have plenty of those