Rock candy. Who thought it was a good idea to give kids huge sugar crystals?
Quisp cereal, which has that awesome Jay Ward mascot on the box. The last time I tried it, the overpowering sweetness almost knocked me off my feet.
Sno-Balls. I bought some recently and they had the consistency of foam rubber.
The colors are also disturbing to me now. I’m pretty sure those colors aren’t found anywhere in nature.
This. Unlike some of the other posters, I still like Bugles, though I think they’re not quite the same as they used to be. Or have I killed off some taste buds? I wish they hadn’t stopped making the corresponding snack,Whistles, which were tube shaped and cheese flavored. I would love to know if they were as special as I recall.
We could start a sister thread about things you love today that would have made you hork when you were younger. I never used to like onions, for instance, but I could almost eat a red onion like an apple now. And I remember tasting Scotch whiskey when I was 21, thinking it wasn’t so great. 
I’m not sure it counts as “food,” but my contribution to this topic is bubble gum. As a kid, I’d buy packs of Bubbleicious or whatever; the Baskin-Robbins bubble gum ice cream, etc. But my God, as an adult, bubble gum is completely revolting.
banquet tv dinners…there’s a reason they’ve fallen to kids lunches and dollar stores …
Fish sticks used to actually have fish in, what that is now, I have no idea
I won’t say never, but I generally avoid ketchup now, despite using it all the time as a kid. It just seems a lot more sweet to me now. I would love to find a ketchup that was less sweet (and likely less sour in proportion), so it would taste like the way I remember it tasting. Also, maybe just less strong in general, so I could use it on foods without overpowering them.
I had forgotten about candy pebbles. Hard candy that looks like rocks. Link to something that looks similar, but I would buy it at gift shops. I don’t remember any flavoring except sweet.
I’ve had Bugles fairly recently–as they showed up at a store my dad frequents and he would buy them–and they tasted the same as I remembered them. However, I did notice there are two different brands now. The ones I had were Tom’s brand, but there’s also a General Mills brand, which was the original. According to Wikipedia, Tom’s Snacks licensed the ability to make and distribute them from GM, and they apparently fry them in a different oil.
Also, interestingly, Tom’s claims theirs are gluten-free, containing no amounts of the allergens you are required to declare on your packaging in the US, while GM has “may contain wheat ingredients” under their ingredients. I suspect it may be a difference in what they run on their equipment.
oh god, toms… I remember toms vending machines it was the equivalent of going to a dollar store for snacks it was all awful tasting knockoffs of popular brands … one strategy they had was they’d put say doritos in and then their crappy knockoff for like half price …
Treacle dumplings. I loved them, my teeth hurt even thinking about them now.
French Fries - I’ll eat a few fresh and hot. I rarely finish a bag that comes with a combo meal.
fluffernutter - I haven’t bought a jar of marshmallow whip since college. Too sweet.
I still like peanut butter and jelly every now and then.
Hot dogs - - I quit buying packages from the grocery decade’s ago. Too salty and they give me indigestion. I’ll buy a chili cheese coney a couple times a year. That’s enough nostalgia for me.
I agree with other posters that Chef Boyardee is terrible now. I loved CB’s beef ravioli in my childhood.
I quit buying sugar cereals about 10 years ago. I used to snack on Sugar corn pops and Sugar Smacks. I’d probably still like them but don’t buy. I know they aren’t healthy. I still eat cereal for breakfast, usually corn flakes or shredded wheat. I don’t add sugar.
My guilty pleasure is Velveeta. I still buy it and enjoy on crackers or a ham sandwich. The best cheese dip in the world is melted Velveeta.
Yep, these and Ding-Dongs, which were basically Hohos in hockey puck form (I think they used to be called Ding-Dongs but the name evolved into King Dons or something similar. Or maybe King Dons were a knockoff brand).
There used to be Chef Boyardee (I think) cheese ravioli in cans. It was appalling, of course, but it was edible. I never cared for that mystery meat paste in the ‘beef’ ravioli, canned or frozen. The canned macaroni and cheese was horrendously overcooked, but the taste was not too bad.
My mom used many delicious recipes. However, these did not include several convenient foods that I now think are nasty. Shake-n-Bake. Pizza where the dough, sauce and “cheese” all came in a shelf stable box. Nasty, off-brand spiced ham when camping in wet weather. Any canned noodle with sauce.
I liked bologna as a kid. Haven’t bought it in years, but fried it is probably not terrible.
As a child I enjoyed sugary pop and a million other forms of sugar. Too sweet! And what’s up with dipping a stick of chalk in a sea of powdered sucrose? However, the part of me that despised gin and tonic as a university freshman has definitely evolved…
I won’t say I never eat it, because sometimes it’s just what is available on a road trip, but I have lost my taste for fast food, particularly burgers and fries kind of fast food. A Happy Meal used to be such a treat when I was little. Now, if we are getting fast food, I prefer soup, chili, or baked potatoes. Or, sometimes sides and biscuits from a chicken place.
I still enjoyed Chef Boyardee until a few years ago. Last time I bought a can of the overstuffed ravioli, though, it was bland as hell. I did notice that the label boasts that it now contains no preservatives, artificial flavors, or artificial colors - I wonder if that was what made it good.
Not that we ate them all the time, but my brother and I ate these as a kid, but I would not touch the stuff today: Franken Berry, Count Chocula, and Boo Berry (Monster Cereals). I am guessing kids these days would not know who those characters are any more.
I like this part:
In February 1972, Franken Berry cereal included an indigestible pigment that turned some children’s feces pink, a symptom sometimes referred to as “Franken Berry Stool”. Heh-heh
The monster cereals are rereleased around Halloween. They show up at Target and likely other places, if you get nostalgic for a taste.
Except for the Chef Boyardee shit, there isn’t much mentioned so far that I wouldn’t happily eat (in moderation).