• Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’m not sure what happened to fast food restaurants. Yeah, sure, they were unhealthy for us but they used to taste good. Now, the portions are smaller, they cost a lot more, they have the texture of wet cardboard with sauce, and it doesn’t taste good. I guess if all you have ever known is the fast food restaurants of the last 20 years then you probably never experienced a real Big Mac or Whopper from the 70s and even to the 80s. Somewhere around the 90s shit just started falling apart. Greed right, it’s always greed.

    • GreenPlasticSushiGrass@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I’m not a huge McDonalds fan, but I used to get lunch there occasionally because it was fast, convenient, and inexpensive. Now it’s none of those things. I think the self-serve kiosks somehow made things worse.

    • quams69@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      A quarter pounder meal is around ten bucks, so is a cheeseburger and fries from a local restaurant or diner. The attractiveness was cheapness and now it’s not even that

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Hard to find a restaurant burger near me for less than 20 bucks(usually with fries…usually)

    • Infynis@midwest.social
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      11 months ago

      Same thing that’s happening in every industry. When the objective of the company is profit, not the product, the product suffers.

      • ares35@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        29c and 39c here back in the early 90s, but couldn’t even compete at that with their next-door competitor (hardee’s) doing 25c and 35c

        • Naja Kaouthia@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Ah ha! That was the old price I couldn’t remember. Go through the drive through, order like 50 of them plain, toss in freezer.

      • nul9o9@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I dunno, I feel like McDonald’s fries being fried in beef fat made them the big hit back in the day.

      • MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        No, the food really did taste better, due to the cooking process and the different ingredients that were involved.

        For example, the fries were cooked in beef tallow; the meat they used was of better quality, and more nutritious. The bread was different as well—McDonald’s changed it again only a few years ago.

        Edit—Well, they’re changing their burgers again: wsj.com/business/hospitality/mcdonalds-burger-new-menu-2400d22b

          • pory@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ingredient quality does. The employee gives no fucks but if better beef is getting slapped on the grill the food will be better.

            • Ooops@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Or from which animal… More naturally grown meat has a completely different composition (also a much more elaborate texture) than the same meat from an animal quickly grown with a lot of growth hormones. But both are 100% beef.

              • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                What grade of beef trimming? What part of the trimmings exactly? What ratio of what trimmings, and how much fat is used comapred to the rest?

                Lipton is 100% “tea,” but its also the sweepings left after all the good parts of the tea leaves have been filtered out and sold as different brands.

                Thats what McDonald’s is doing.

                  • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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                    11 months ago

                    Im not a dietician or a rancher, but not all beef is created equal. Being “beef” doesnt mean every cow is the same nutritionally. Its not just a ratio of muscle to fat that affects that. What cattle are fed, how they are treated/slaughtered, how much time they roam all effects the nutrients in the meat. I guarantee all of the above are worse in the cattle McDonald’s uses, even compared to the 80’s.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        11 months ago

        Nah, I know for a fact that the Whopper has been enshittified since at least the 90s. It used to be one of my favorites but now tastes like shit and costs 3x the price.

      • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        No, McD’s has publicly changed various formulations over the years. Never for the better. Even just a couple years ago when they went to “never frozen” beef for some of their sandwiches - they tasted worse IMO, but I’m sure somehow it saved McD’s money.

        We’ve got a pub near us that costs about only 10 bucks more in total to carryout from there and feed my family on burgers and fries than if we go to McDs. But we get a large hand shaped patty cooked to our individual preferences, on a bun from a local bakery, generous portion of thick cut fries, and a better experience all around.

        It’s insane that McD’s prices are within spitting distance of the place. The drive-thru (and its related convenience) is the one and only benefit to McDs. I have reluctantly loved McD’s for most of my life, but there’s no doubt it’s gone downhill a few times, and for sure in the past few years. If they hadn’t also jacked up their prices it wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s really hard to justify eating there now.

        They’ve become as infested with corporate greed as every other company of any significant size.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          11 months ago

          There’s a McDonald’s in downtown Seattle that doesn’t even have a drive-thru. What even is the point?

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Yes, people like to forget where this particular brand of greed comes from.

    • renrenPDX@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I miss McDonald fries from the 80’s. Y’all just don’t know. They should bring it back for a limited time like the McRib, or offer both fries and label it as Classic fries.

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Basically. When companies are allowed to pick two from

        1. faster
        2. cheaper
          or
        3. better

        They usually pick faster or cheaper unless competition forces them to improve quality in order to survive.

    • Slowy@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I think one factor is probably “advances” in food science. Look how many ingredients go into an average fast food bun, for example… we have so many hyper-processed foods made with not just hella preservatives, but instead of wheat flour and butter it’s like wheat and corn starch, gluten, various vegetable proteins and several different oils, etc all recombined in a rather industrial way. It’s cheaper, and it’s sometimes specifically engineered to appeal to our palates, but it’s been taken too far imo. This is not just an issue in fast food by any means.

    • bstix@feddit.dk
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      11 months ago

      I dunno. The thing about the Big Mac is the convenience. It doesn’t really compare to actual burgers, but it’s got a distinctive taste, a handy size and no waiting time. On the other side of the burger spectrum are the restaurant café burgers that are difficult to eat even with utensils and still taste like something you could do better yourself. The best burgers are from some shady unknown local grill, but those are hit or miss. Anyway my point is that the Bic Mac is a fair product, but it’s not really comparable to actual food. I’m not disappointed with it because I didn’t expect it to be different from whatever it is and sometimes that is good enough. Like, I wouldn’t want to eat a gourmet restaurant every day even if I could afford it and had the time to wait for the bill.

      Tl;dr: fast food sucks because it’s not food, but fast food rules because it’s fast.