I’m 60. Everything tastes different. At least some things taste better now.
I wouldn’t be that harsh; Hershey’s milk chocolate tastes the same to me now as I remember it when I was a kid. And the cheap dime-store chocolate easter bunnies have always tasted like flavored wax.
on the side of non-packaged foods, when I was a kid I hated (hated) baked potatoes, chili, and this beef/cheese/macaroni casserole my parents made. The last one literally made me gag.
now I happily eat all of them. I don’t know what it was about them I hated.
My kids always balked at foods that touched on the plate. We had divided plates for them. But any kind of casserole was out. Then they became teens and ate anything that didn’t bite first. At least the older 2 did. The lil’wrekker has always had food issues due to stomach pain and nausea. She likes lots of foods, she is afraid to eat some things, though. My big no-no is wild game foods. Which is crazy, cause all my husband does is hunt and fish. And I ain’t got no sympathy for bambi, believe me, I just ain’t eating her. Sorry to shit on the brands and taste thing, I had to share.
I’ve noticed this too, especially ravioli. It makes me sad, because ravioli. 
Pop Tarts were the first item that came into my mind when I read the title of your post…I had my first Pop Tart in the late '60’s and they tasted the same to me through the early '80’s…by the early '90’s when my oldest was introduced to them, my immediate thought was they were thinner, more ‘cardboardy’, just a really cheap version of what I knew in my childhood…
KFC is definitely not as good as it used to be, but I’m not sure exactly when the change happened. I just remember being shocked when I had KFC after a few years of not having any, and it was just nothing like it used to taste. Popeye’s hasn’t changed at all, so it was really obvious.
Have you ever tried Brown & Haley Cherry Mountain Bars? It’s basically the same type of candy as Cherry Mash bar but probably better. (I wouldn’t know for sure because I’m deathly allergic to both of them.)
Sonic onion rings used to be easier to eat. They are so hard now, it’s difficult to get a handle on the taste. I think they were softer and people thought 'soggy maybe. They probably ran it through a focus group or something stupid like that.
Another vote against Twinkies. When I was a kid, the filling was like soft, fluffed-up frosting, similar to what you’d get if you whipped up some Oreo filling. There was a subtle but definite shortening component. Refrigerating it made it firmer. Well, I bought a package a few years ago. The filling was a marshmallow filling, no shortening inside, nothing at all like before, and had a different taste and texture. Refrigerating it had no effect on the texture. I’d venture to guess it has to do with removing [trans fats] shortening from it. Maybe it’s less unhealthful, but its not like anyone ever ate Twinkies to get healthy.
capri sun drinks those things were liquid crack to kids… pretty much flavored corn syrup but then the fda and parents got involved and the original maker licensed them out to Kraft and there not as good … in fact that fda report pretty much changed most of the big named fruit drinks for kids …
The first thing I thought of was Red Delicious apples. That’s all we ate as kids and I recall them being good. Just awful now. Green grapes were all we ever ate as kids. If there were any other grapes at the store, they had seeds in them. Green grapes are always disappointing now. It may be because the other grapes we have just taste better.
Graham crackers seem different. They’re smoother, crisper and less tasty. Saltine crackers don’t taste the same either. I liked when they came in break apart rectangles. I think at one time they were even in large squares - 4 break apart squares.
Cheapo chocolate is even worse than it was.
McDonald’s fries tasted better when they were fried in beef tallow (pre-1992).
Wendy’s hamburgers used to be a lot juicier before the e-coil scare of a couple decades ago ruined every fast food hamburger in the US. Now they are all over cooked. And the Vegans/Vegetarians ruined every fast food fry in the US by insisting that beef tallow be removed from the cooking oil. Oreos changed to Kosher in 1997 and got rid of the lard in the filling. Healthier food recipes do not lead to better tasting foods.
And the KFC products sold now are a pale imitation of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken of my youth. Other than the fact that it is still probably chicken there is little resemblance. Even the gravy is blah.
As I’ve frequently complained – Breyer’s Vanilla Ice Cream. It used to be made of four ingredients – Milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. You could read it on the side of the box. They even bragged about it in their advertising.
Then I 2006 their corporate parents started screwing with the recipes for the ice creams, adding Tara gum and other gums and stabilizers. It makes a big difference in the consistency and the flavor. Now Breyer’s is just like most of the other ice creams out there, and I’ve stopped buying it.
There are still some basic ice creams out there, but you have to look for them.
Tomatoes for sure. They are bred now so that you could play baseball with them in a pinch.
Wendy’s fries too. Changed about 6 years ago around here. They’re still pretty good, not as good as they used to be though.
I suspect that canned spaghetti/ravioli and what not was always very sweet to appeal to a kid. But it sure seems that Campbell’s tomato soup has gotten sweeter or something. Used to be pretty darn good.
Breast milk. Loved it as an infant. Now? Not so much.
My teenaged daughters are militant vegans. I blame them and their ilk for ruining a lot of my favorite foods. Sometimes I get so angry, I sneak a couple chicken nuggets into their corn nuggets!
…just kidding, they’ve converted me into a part-time vegan (I still need a scrapple, cheesesteak and Dungeness crab fix once in a while)—some of that veggie-stuff tastes pretty good.
Not so much something that tastes different as something I can’t find anymore: Bravos. They were a non-Doritos brand of round nacho tortilla chips that had a much more warm, umami flavor than Doritos or regional brands. Haven’t seen them in ages, though. This would have been the late 70s/early 80s.
Bannanas. They used to taste sweet and delicious. Then somewhere in my 20s (1990s) every one started tasting bitter. Even if I let them over ripen. I haven’t found a decent bannna since, even the organic ones.
Marion Kay Spices sells what they claim (obliquely) is the original Original Recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders, himself, contracted them to make the spice to his specifications for the restaurants he still controlled (Canada, I think) after he sold his business and became unhappy with the shortcuts Corporate took with his recipe. I’ve yet to try it, as it is sold in a $30 25oz bottle, enough for a 100 lbs of chicken. Plus, you have to buy a 3lb bag of fine flake salt with it. Too much chicken for me. If interested, go to their site (easy to Google) and search for 99x.
The Chef-Boy-Ardee pizza kits I used to absolutely LOVE as a child are incredibly nasty. I bought one a few years ago as getting kids to “help” make the pizza is part of the fun…until you eat it. Blech. In fact, anything Chef-Boy-Ardee or Spaghettios is just foul. Awful.