Poll: Has fast food been tasting worse to everybody else?

[TheRightToArmBears]

No, not really. I don't actually eat fast food often (usually once a week on a Thursday night on the way back from a night out, if that), but I can't say I've noticed much of a change. KFC has always been a bit too greasy for me, McD's is average but fairly cheap, BK's has some delicious- if expensive- burgers and Subway is the tits.

Subway is basically the only one I'll go to out of my own, sober choice (I'll eat pretty much anything when drunk. I've been known to use the 10 second rule on pizza slices dropped in the gutter on a rainy night). Can't get me enough of those meatball marinara subs.

 

[LetalisK]

I noticed a drop in quality in the surrounding McDonald's a few years ago in that they made saltburgers. Seriously, biting into one was like biting into a salt lick. Or it's always been that way and my palate is just getting more refined.

 

[TheJazzyH]

The taste of fast food in general hasn't really changed much to my taste buds, but I eat at such places much less than before due to all the unsavory business practices and the processing their food may go through. Burgerville is only fast food chain I remotely trust now, but sadly not everyone here may get a chance to try them, since they're only found in Oregon and Washington. Seriously, Burgerville is the only place I can find so far that serves halibut fish & chips. I've eaten at finer restaurants that stick to cod (which is cheaper and more common) for the same meal.

 

[Berithil]

Fast food has never tasted good to me. I'll only eat it if I'm in a hurry and I need to eat. Then again...

*remembers the wheel of British bleu cheese in the refrigerator*

...I was raised with spoiled taste buds. /culinaryelitist

 

[Launcelot111]

BK fries have gone downhill, and they no longer have rodeo cheeseburgers or cheesy tots, so essentially, I have no reason to go to BK drunk or sober. Good thing I found out about Steak n Shake...

Anyway, Chick Fila and Popeye's are still good, and they're the only fast food places I particularly care for, so I'm fine with everything.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I've only noticed a drop in quality with McDonalds. Mostly because it is almost guaranteed to make me feel sick. Which is a shame since it's the only 24-hr fast food place nearby. There's the Sal's, but it takes a while to get your food since it's all made from scratch, sigh.

A&W, on the hand, seems to have only gotten better since I was a child. They used to put a disgusting level of salt into their food, now it's actually a good amount. I love eating at A&W, too bad the nearest one is over a half hour walk away from me :/

jesus, only a mcdonalds/sals/a&w? do you live in the middle of nowhere, or is your area just very clean about what they eat?

i can personally go in a two mile radius from my house and be within 5 different fast food joints (if you include subway)

The Sal's and McDs are merely the ones that are 24 hours. There are more places to eat, like Tim Horton's (of course), Subway, Mr Subs, Santa Lucia, Gondola, a bunch more that I never go to so I can't remember the name of lol.

I should probably add that I live in the suburbs of Winnipeg, most of the space is taken up by homes, not businesses.

oh okay, i thought you meant as far as fast food goes, that was it lol.

and yeah, suburbs definitely have that effect, which i find almost funny, you'd think the fast food places would hoard all the land right next to suburbs or in an intersection between suburbs..

 

[tofulove]

if your looking for good fast food, go to in and out. http://www.in-n-out.com/

its the best fast food i know of.

From the first bite of your burger to your last french fry, quality is the most important ingredient of all at
In-N-Out Burger. We don?t freeze. We don?t pre-package. We don?t over-process. We just make things the old-fashioned way.

Our commitment to quality starts with our hamburgers. And our burgers begin with our patties. We make them from fresh, 100% pure beef. They are free of additives, fillers and preservatives of any kind. But the focus on quality starts well before we deliver our hamburger patties to our stores. We own and operate our own patty-making facilities in Baldwin Park, California and Dallas, Texas. Since we only serve burgers, fries and drinks, making a high-quality hamburger patty is everything to us.

In-N-Out Burger ProduceWe have always made every one of our hamburger patties ourselves using only whole chucks from premium cattle selected especially for In-N-Out Burger. We pay a premium to purchase fresh, high-quality beef chucks. We individually inspect every single chuck we receive to make sure that it meets our standards. Then our highly skilled, in-house butchers remove the bones. We grind the meat ourselves and make it into patties ourselves. These steps enable us to completely control the patty-making process and be absolutely certain of the quality and freshness of every patty we make. We?ve always made our hamburger patties this way.

In-N-Out Burger ProduceOur commitment to quality doesn?t stop there. Our lettuce is hand-leafed. Our American cheese is the real thing. And we use the best available onions and the plumpest, juiciest tomatoes we can find. All of our ingredients are delivered fresh to our stores. In fact, we don?t even own a microwave, heat lamp, or freezer. We even bake our buns using old-fashioned, slow-rising sponge dough. And we make every burger one at a time, cooked fresh to order.

Of course a great burger deserves to be accompanied by great fries. And In-N-Out french fries come from the finest, freshest ingredients we can find?potatoes shipped right from the farm. They?re individually cut in our stores, then cooked in 100% pure, cholesterol-free vegetable oil. Our shakes are just as genuine. Because we know a real shake can only be made with real ice cream. At In-N-Out, that?s the only way we?ll ever make them. Because when all you serve is burgers, fries and drinks, doing things the old-fashioned way is the freshest idea of all.

 

[Aramis Night]

if your looking for good fast food, go to in and out. http://www.in-n-out.com/

its the best fast food i know of.

From the first bite of your burger to your last french fry, quality is the most important ingredient of all at
In-N-Out Burger. We don?t freeze. We don?t pre-package. We don?t over-process. We just make things the old-fashioned way.

Our commitment to quality starts with our hamburgers. And our burgers begin with our patties. We make them from fresh, 100% pure beef. They are free of additives, fillers and preservatives of any kind. But the focus on quality starts well before we deliver our hamburger patties to our stores. We own and operate our own patty-making facilities in Baldwin Park, California and Dallas, Texas. Since we only serve burgers, fries and drinks, making a high-quality hamburger patty is everything to us.

In-N-Out Burger ProduceWe have always made every one of our hamburger patties ourselves using only whole chucks from premium cattle selected especially for In-N-Out Burger. We pay a premium to purchase fresh, high-quality beef chucks. We individually inspect every single chuck we receive to make sure that it meets our standards. Then our highly skilled, in-house butchers remove the bones. We grind the meat ourselves and make it into patties ourselves. These steps enable us to completely control the patty-making process and be absolutely certain of the quality and freshness of every patty we make. We?ve always made our hamburger patties this way.

In-N-Out Burger ProduceOur commitment to quality doesn?t stop there. Our lettuce is hand-leafed. Our American cheese is the real thing. And we use the best available onions and the plumpest, juiciest tomatoes we can find. All of our ingredients are delivered fresh to our stores. In fact, we don?t even own a microwave, heat lamp, or freezer. We even bake our buns using old-fashioned, slow-rising sponge dough. And we make every burger one at a time, cooked fresh to order.

Of course a great burger deserves to be accompanied by great fries. And In-N-Out french fries come from the finest, freshest ingredients we can find?potatoes shipped right from the farm. They?re individually cut in our stores, then cooked in 100% pure, cholesterol-free vegetable oil. Our shakes are just as genuine. Because we know a real shake can only be made with real ice cream. At In-N-Out, that?s the only way we?ll ever make them. Because when all you serve is burgers, fries and drinks, doing things the old-fashioned way is the freshest idea of all.

The sick thing about this blatant advertisement is that i once hit up a former friend of mine who worked at In-n-out how he liked his job. He proceeded to basically give me the exact same reply. It was the creepiest thing he ever did. It haunted me ever since. Him going into wide eyed detail about how he "hand leafs the lettuce"(wth does that even mean?) still winds up in my nightmares.

That being said their burgers are amazing. They treat their employees better than pretty much any other fast food place from what i hear from people that work there. I just wish their fries weren't disgusting, and the employees were a little less brainwashed sounding.

As for the OP: I agree. Fast food does taste worse on the whole. I've been noticing it too. Just another case of getting worse quality with a higher cost with so many things we all buy. Meanwhile corporate profits are at all time high and pay stagnation for employees.

 

[w9496]

Hardees has always been bad. It tastes okay going down, but you have to live with the stomach aches.

If anybody knows what Culvers is, then that place is still excellent. Their main seller is a ButterBurger, which is a burger fried with butter.

Worst ever has to be KFC, but the potatoes are still great.

 

[dystopiaINC]

growing up I had Burger King, Mcdonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell and KFC. The only notciable change in quality I can tell is that Mcdonalds and Wendy's have TERRIBLE fries now, i asked a manger why they fries tastes so different when they first started tasting bad, they told me they started using a new, "healthier" oil. really the fries are like semi hot cardboard now.

In Mcdonald's case their milkshakes specifically the shamrock shakes are terrible too, they changed them and jacked up the price (for a smaller cup i might add) and now i just can't drink them. Wendy's frosties are still great but they also switched to smaller cups that cost more than the regular drinks.

but in all the places I go I've found some real gems on each one of these places menu, I work for KFC at the moment and the chicken strips, chicken littles, and grilled chicken are fantastic (I used to hate kfc, in fact I chose KFC as a place to work because I didn't like the food)

so yeah to me at least there are some poor things abut current fast food, but I like fast food more than ever now that I can get it when ever I want. still eat at at least one place once or twice a week.

 

[Rakschas]

This is a serious case of "now that you mention it...."!

I believe experience with food and maybe age somewhat plays a role.
I am male and 29 years old. I've always liked fast food, but I'm not from the staates so there isn't that much "brand" fast food around. I've never really liked McD, but I've liked BK stuff. What i have a problem with in recent times is mostly the taste/texture of the bread and that meals dont come hot, but simply warm.

Another major reason why I believe to be more critical is because i like to eat at diners or order out and I've gotten some really good burgers and pizzas that way, probably affecting my personal standarts towards fast food.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

I don't usually do fast food, save for a little Taco John's like twice a year. But guy's, cooking is not chemical engineering. You can do it too. I mostly just freehand, but apparently that's hard for a lot of people so AllRecipes has some really great stuff there. Like all lemon cake. A cake, with everything lemony. Recipes are cool.

Here's a sandvich recipe for free.

Ingredients:
Bread (soft white)
Prime Rib
Lettuce [Not so frilly]
Cheese (thin sliced) [Havarti or Farmers recommended]
Tomatoes
Salt
Pepper

Directions:
Cook prime rib for 3 minutes per pound on low-med heat in oven, then let sit in oven for two hours. Remember, it's better to undercook beef and reheat it than to overcook it.
Cut prime rib into 1/16" thick slices.
Butter bread.
Apply meat to bread.
Sprinkle salt and pepper on meat to taste.
Add cheese.
Add Tomatoe.
Add lettuce.
Spread mustard on top bread if desired.

There ya go. Easy-Peasy.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I don't usually do fast food, save for a little Taco John's like twice a year. But guy's, cooking is not chemical engineering. You can do it too. I mostly just freehand, but apparently that's hard for a lot of people so AllRecipes has some really great stuff there. Like all lemon cake. A cake, with everything lemony. Recipes are cool.

Here's a sandvich recipe for free.

Ingredients:
Bread (soft white)
Prime Rib
Lettuce [Not so frilly]
Cheese (thin sliced) [Havarti or Farmers recommended]
Tomatoes
Salt
Pepper

Directions:
Cook prime rib for 3 minutes per pound on low-med heat in oven, then let sit in oven for two hours. Remember, it's better to undercook beef and reheat it than to overcook it.
Cut prime rib into 1/16" thick slices.
Butter bread.
Apply meat to bread.
Sprinkle salt and pepper on meat to taste.
Add cheese.
Add Tomatoe.
Add lettuce.
Spread mustard on top bread if desired.

There ya go. Easy-Peasy.

[Sarcasm] Why yes! I can make for instance a Pizza Hut pizza in my own home with just a generic pizza recipe. It's not like there are countless secret ingredients often of specific quality and quanity thrown in that I couldn't possibly know about or even get my hands on if I did that makes it's taste and texture vastly different to anything I could possibly make at home or anything. [/Sarcasm]

TIMESWORDSMAN, if it were as simple to make say, a McRib or Chicken Selects or whatever in our own homes as you claim it is, fast food would never had caught on as an viable alternative to homecooked meals.

 

[RevRaptor]

LoL If you can't even make the equivalent of a pizza hut crap fest then you really can't talk about cooking food.
Seriously I have yet to find a worse pizza than the hut's. I could easily copy it but ugg why would you ewww.

MacDonalds does seem to be worse now days but it was always garbage , I do like burger king though, its the right kind of trashy

 

[floppylobster]

Most likely (a) there are more and more preservatives in your food and your starting to notice and (b) as you grow older you are developing a palate, and you're lucky enough to be developing one that can detect (a). So congratulations. In a few more years maybe you'll open yourself up to new food experiences and enjoy them with your new ability to discern minute differences in taste. And then maybe in about 10 years you'll wince that you ever said something like "this thread is not for complaining about how healthy the food is, nobody cares about that anyway."

 

[Mr.Squishy]

No, not really, though I don't live in the US nor in a big city. We don't even have a McDonald's. Got a lot of local fast food shops, though, and they keep on delivering pretty good fast food.

 

[Dangit2019]

Tastes the same to me. Could be a decline in the individual restaurants you're going to.

 

[TheCrapMaster]

Well for me most fast foods have been getting a little more bland over the years, but for me i think it´s mostly because i use "snus" and that can make things taste more bland. So that might be the reason why i voted "a little".

 

[immortalfrieza]

LoL If you can't even make the equivalent of a pizza hut crap fest then you really can't talk about cooking food.
Seriously I have yet to find a worse pizza than the hut's. I could easily copy it but ugg why would you ewww.

I would bet any amount money that you and anyone else couldn't make a pizza that's even remotely like Pizza Hut's or any other fast food for that matter in their home, nobody can.

 

[Denamic]

As a single guy that is very lazy and hates to cook, I can often go for a couple of days without eating anything. After those days, a burger tastes like pure euphoria.