r/fastfood • u/LoverOfGayContent • 1d ago
Question Have my taste buds changed or has dast food gotten worst in taste
I'm honestly confused. I'm thinking about getting fried chicken tomorrow but honestly don't know where to go. I gave up on popeyes a few months ago. People online still talk about how amazing it is but I've been to several in my area this year and they all have this weird taste to the meat. Oddly enough for several years wingstop had the same weird taste but recently doesn't. However the amount of seasoning they put on. The wings is so inconsistent I've given up on them too. I stopped going to kfc for nearly a decade because their fast food became nearly inedible to me. I tried them again last year and it was good but again very inconsistent. Sometimes the chicken had this weird sandy texture.
It's not just fast food. I haven't been to jack in the box in months and haven't ordered a burger from them this year. The last few times i had a burger there i literally threw most of it away. I had a chicken sandwich where the skin was so hard i actually had to peel it off to chew it. I literally started throwing out Wendy's fries a few years ago and i think i only went there twice last year and was underwhelmed each time.
The thing is it just feels weird to me that in just a few years time i went from eating fast food daily to once a week at best because it just taste so bad. Especially the chicken. It's hard to describe but so many places that fry their chicken seem to have this weird taste that I just don't remember. I think someone on the popeyes sub mentioned something about shortening. It's not the skin that taste bad but the actual meat. I almost feel like companies are forcing me on a diet. Part of me even wonders if covid changed my taste. I will saythatt ever since covid I'm more sensitive to the taste of sugar. I still like sugar bit I can taste smaller amounts of sugar in food and too much sugar is disgusting to me. But I'm not tasting sugar in fast food. It just taste bad now. I had church's last week and threw most of it away. The skin was only ok but the chicken just tasted off in a way non fast food chicken doesn't taste.
13
10
u/Mike14029 1d ago
Way way worse taste and quality of food,I cannot eat at any of the fast food restaurants I used to eat at 20 years ago
10
6
u/69Nova468 1d ago
At my age of 72 nothing seems to taste the same anymore, I can understand that with fast food but things I make from old family recipes just isn't the same .
5
u/Sortalma 1d ago
Your taste buds change as you get older so it’s something to think about. But much of it did get worse. I would say overall chains like Wendy’s, portillos, those got worse. McDonald’s, Taco Bell I think stayed consistent if you don’t have a bad location. Burger King somehow got better lol
2
u/LoverOfGayContent 1d ago
I never liked McDonald's burgers so i haven't eaten enough to tell a difference. My local Burgerking in particular was trash and I use to prefer Wendy's. Honestly I haven't had Burgerking for lunch in almost two years. So they may have improved. My local Burgerking literally had so many people quitting that one day they didn't have anyone who knew how to cook. I felt bad for the manager. She tried but they literally didn't know how to make a bacon king. I'm not into Mexican food that much but i did enjoy taco bell last year when i went a few times. So I'm not sure if it's me or the particular places I liked the most gave gotten worst. I have specifically seen other people on reddit complain about the weird taste of popeyes chicken. For the longest time i assumed they were not changing the grease often enough.
2
u/trpclshrk 1d ago
I used to really taste the flame grill/smoke flavor in BK, now it’s mostly just bland for me
5
u/groovynermal 1d ago
Everything has gotten worse. Chicken, however, it seems to me has been hot garbage for the last 3 or 4 years. Chicken breast bigger than a turkey. The white meat is tasteless, even when done "right" by the fast food places. Hated the taste of chicken thighs, but at least they have flavor. About the only chicken I will go out of my way for lately.
5
u/LongjumpingEssay367 17h ago
Woody chicken breasts are everywhere. I dont remember seeing any 25 years ago
3
u/Remote-Emu7817 20h ago
I know this isn’t fast food but I ate frosted mini wheats the other night and they were tasteless.
2
u/LastBallade 1d ago
It's gotten worse and way more expensive, to the point that the convenience just isn't worth it anymore.
3
u/SewAlone 14h ago
I'm an old, but I stopped liking it years ago. I mostly stick to bowls now from places like pita corner, chipotle, halal bowls, bipimbap, etc. or street tacos, birria, stuff that is fresh and around the same price as ff.
4
3
u/MiddleCapital1875 1d ago
The opposite. I very rarely eat fast food - maybe twice a year. But when I have Taco Bell, for example, I find I can't stop thinking about how awesomely delicious is was. The aroma, textures, mouthfeel...
I'm convinced a lot of fast food has been engineered to instill cravings for more.
5
u/killybay22 1d ago
My mom always swore BK used to blow flavored smoke in the air to get you to stop in...lol
3
u/slickedjax 21h ago
Ever since I fixed my diet, unhealthy foods have started tasting so much better to me when I do get to eat them
2
u/TheLegendTwoSeven 1d ago
They have “food science” people who use additives to try to make the food hyper-palatable. That’s why the ingredients are always a huge paragraph.
It reminds me of how the cigarette companies researched the right combination of additives to make the nicotine absorb faster and more powerfully, so people are more likely to keep smoking.
2
1
u/potliquorz 1d ago
It could be you if everywhere you go you get the same results. Having said that I have never liked Wingstop and KFC as it exists now is dead to me. Popeyes is inconsistent and can be the worst with a wrong order everytime or the best just depending on location and luck basically.
I get fried bone in chicken at Publix and air fry it at home to ditch some of the grease, buy it cold if you can and mind what it looks like because Publix fried chicken is not created equal, might have had Mikey on chicken and he messed it up.
The weird thing is sugar is the same way to me, if it is warranted it's fine but if I'm not expecting it I HATE it with a passion.
Bojangles beans are nasty to me but baked beans with a ton of sugar tastes fine, if you put sugar in collard or turnip greens I just can't understand why. It ruins it.
Sugar in coleslaw and potato salad, maybe a pinch to balance the vinegar but sweet? No way Jay.
1
u/LoverOfGayContent 23h ago
Even if it were everywhere i went it's different things. I don't taste that weird taste at kfc but i do at Popeyes and churches and use to at wingstop but not anymore. At JFC it feels like they are inconsistent with the breading. So sometimes the texture of the breading is weid and meally. I went to Florida two years ago and damn was that publix chicken good. Heck they have Randall's where i live. One store the chicken is decent to good. Tge otger store is ok to disgusting. But even when I walk in the store with the bad chicken it smells bad. I can never understand how anyone doesn't smell tgat chicken and think it might have gone bad.
1
u/TomBug68 1d ago
Church’s is solid classic fried chicken when it’s fresh & hot. If you’re in the Seattle area Ezelle’s is the GOAT
2
u/VendettaKarma 7h ago
The food has become as terrible as the grey buildings they are being served in
2
u/Gold_Repair_3557 1d ago
It all tastes the same to me as it did twenty years ago. I just haven’t noticed any change except for the obvious price.
1
u/LoverOfGayContent 1d ago
Interesting. I use to love popeyes. But within the last 18 months the taste if their chicken seems really off to me. I've literally thrown away six boxes of chicken from different locations. It's specifically tge meat and not the skin. Wingstop had the same taste to me for a few years after the pandemic but recently doesn't. I just can't describe the taste but it's bad and taste wrong. I recently experienced the same taste at churches. I haven't experienced it at KFC but my issue with them is occasionally it seems like a new person breads the chicken wrong and it's almost like a shake n bake texture.
2
u/trenchanttrench 1d ago
I feel like the prices sour people on fast food and in turn we don’t think it tastes as good
1
u/LoverOfGayContent 1d ago
The prices haven't upset me as much as other people. However I don't think I'd pay more money for food just to literally throw ut in the trash because it taste inedible to me. It's maybe been a year since I bought a burger at jack in the box because I just kept throwing them in the trash.
1
3
1
32
u/trpclshrk 1d ago
I don’t know if you’ll find this completely relevant, but I think about food being worse almost every day. However, I’m old, and a heavy smoker. But BK, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, seem particular flavorless to me, unless I drowned them in a sauce. Pringles have no seasoning compared to 30 years ago. Even peanut butter and cookies sometimes seem blander. Some is prolly my personal situation, but I do believe some is the food as well