It’s probably happened to most of you at some point in your eating experience. You go to bite into — or take a sip of — an item you’ve come to really enjoy, only to find there is, say, more salt, or less chocolate, or just some new ingredient. And with that, the relationship is over…
Take, for example, the diners who are upset at Nathan’s world-famous hot dog eatery in Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Its usual potato supply has run dry, meaning it had to look elsewhere for tubers to turn into its signature crinkle-cut fries.
“I don’t like this and refuse to buy those fries again,” writes one former fan of Nathan’s. “They aren’t the fries I’ve been going there for all my life.”
Now, the Nathan’s recipe change is alleged to only be a temporary measure, but the food biz has a long history of tinkering with recipes — whether out of cost-cutting or out of attempts to innovate — with wildly varying degrees of success.
Anyone who lived through the brief New Coke debacle of the ’80s knows what we mean. Of course, some will say that both Coke and Pepsi’s decision to replace sugar with high fructose corn syrup is what drove them away.
So we wanted to know about the recipe changes that had you looking for new options. Maybe your favorite ice cream suddenly had fewer chocolate chips, or your favorite hot dog suddenly had a bizarre tangy flavor, or that pizza place you liked started putting things into the crust that had you raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
Whatever it was, tell us about it in the comments!
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Purely O’s from Cascadian Farms. It was awesome, it was a less sugar, organic version of Cheerios. Then one day they change the ingredients to have MORE sugar than Cheerios (like twice the sugar IIRC) with nothing like “new recipe” or anything on the box. People just had to notice on their own. Usually once you vet a food you don’t have to worry about going back to recheck the ingredients over and over.
Very shady change and there is huge uproar over it in the groups of people who have noticed.
Burger King and their new fries a few years ago. Although a friend dragged me their earlier this year and the new new fried are better.
Taco Bell and their switch from cheddar to American cheese quite some time back. Plus they started skimping on cheese, you get less cheese now when you order extra cheese than before when you got regular cheese. I used to eat there weekly, now it every couple of years when a friend insists.
A few yours ago Nestle ice cream added Toll House brownie chunks to their chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, it tastes like a burnt instant cake mix, haven’t bought any since
Chick-fil-A, after they added homophobia to the recipe…
+1
Homophobia was never NOT in the recipe. Just no one bothered to pay any attention before Dan Cathy said his beliefs to the media. I haven’t eaten there for over two years, which is when I found out about where they were sending money.
I was just being snarky. I’m a vegetarian so I wouldn’t set foot in the place regardless of whether the owner was a grade-A dick or not…
I haven’t eaten there since I found out I couldn’t eat there on a Sunday.
Ha!
I don’t think their chicken is all that good. People are like “OOHHHHHYEAAAAAH” but it just tastes like deep-fat fried regular junk to me. Tried it, won’t go back.
I make it a point to visit at least once a week.
It’s been years and years, but when they took the peanuts out of Cheddar Chex Mix and replaced them with terrible orange crackers, I stopped buying. Do any of the chex mix products have real nuts anymore? I think Peanut is the only one.
Agreed! The Honey Nut Chex Mix used to have honey roasted peanuts in it, and it was sooo good. Now it’s meh.
I want my scallions back in my Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes!!! I also want my Black Jack taco! One time a couple years ago I was told that they were out of the black shells and asked if I still wanted one. Of course! The secret was in the sauce! It was the KFC twister wrap sauce…which also is no longer with us.
As far as beverages, I avoid the cancer inducing caramel coloring like the plague, so I also miss my Crystal Pepsi.
The last time I had KFC Cole slaw the sauce had been thickened. I was not impressed. It could have been a fluke and since I don’t eat there very often I might not notice…until I go back. If it’s not runny and juicy like it used to be my love affair with KFC slaw is over. OVER!
The steak seasoning at Moe’s was freaking awesome when I first started going there about 8 years ago, but over the years it started to become kind of bland. I’d love to know why they would change such deliciousness.
New Coke was not a marketing debacle, it was an intentional decepticon to mask the change in formula and flavor when they switched to HFCS.
No it wasn’t, which was reported on this site.
http://consumerist.com/2007/03/top-10-worst-marketing-gaffes-flops-and-disasters.html
I worked at the Nathan’s flagship store in Coney Island for years as a kid. Here’s a secret – the hotdogs weren’t always “Nathan’s hotdogs”. When supply was short they’d buy from some other vendor and to my knowledge no one ever complained. 99% of the customers were tourists, what did they know. Apparently in this case they tried the same thing with the french fries only this time some potato connoisseur caught them in the act. So lesson to you consumerists – restaurants will change their suppliers if availability and costs become an issue. And no, they won’t tell you.
I thought Nathan’s dogs were really different until somebody told me they hadn’t cleaned the grill since 1917.
Starbucks Pumpkin Spice lattes. Last year they futzed with the pumpkin flavor – it’s less intense & sweeter. Blecchh.
Corn Nuts changed their flavorings years ago. I don’t even remember what they used to taste like (single tear) they are still nice and crunchy though.
I used to love pepperoni pizza Hot Pockets until they started sticking crap all over their crust
This will sound silly but Panera’s mac n cheese was absolutely perfect until recently, but I can’t quite put my finger on what’s changed. All I know is I’ve ordered it a handful of times in the past few months and something’s just … off.
Baskin-Robbins’ Gold Medal Ribbon ice cream. It used to be vanilla ice cream with “ribbons” of chocolate and caramel. Now it’s chocolate and vanilla ice cream with caramel ribbons. Not the same!
K F C – was greasy finger licking goodness. Now trans fat free and whatever else they have done over the years, it is just a shadow of its former 11 herbs and spices glory.
Same goes for McD’s apple pies.
I don’t want my fried food to be healthy gaddamit!
OLD STYLE LARD WORKS, and isnt a bad thing..
I hear you on that one. Not to mention whatever they did to their fries over the years–it’s just a soggy pile of greasy potatoes. Blah! Hence why I’ve not eaten the Colonel’s crap in years, and curiously why I’ve seen quite a few KFCs shut down in and around here.
I hear you on that one. Not to mention whatever they did to their fries over the years–it’s just a soggy pile of greasy potatoes. Blah! Hence why I’ve not eaten the Colonel’s crap in years, and curiously why I’ve seen quite a few KFCs shut down in and around here.
I thought the switch to WordPress would stop these double-postings. Whoops. My bad or it bad–take your pick.
I totally agree with everything you said, especially the McD’s Apple Pies.
A few years ago Taco Bell changed cheeses. I don’t like the new cheese. But it doesn’t matter now. I haven’t been able to eat a bean burrito there since someone told me the beans are made from powdered beans, similar to powdered mashed potatoes. I don’t know why, but I just can’t eat them.
MOST candy bars..To small, to much sugar, Chocolate FLAVORING..
Jerky..loved to nah on a chunk..now its paper thin, to brittle, and the dog wont even eat it..
BACON..I have to wash off the SUGAR, SMOKE/MAPLE FLAVORING just to find the bacon..
i grade restaurants on HOW A simple breakfast is..Eggs, bacon, hash browns.
HOW many places give you LIMP hash browns, SKINNY BACON(32-64 slices per pound), and Eggs that dont have any taste.
TONS of sugar in everything..how many people know what FOOD tastes like?
What is so Canadian about canadian bacon..
PIZZA
ITS SUPPOSED to be a Dried/aged meat…
Sausage?? it dont taste like it..
CHEESE..is so OVER processed, and SANITIZED, you might as well Drink milk. Milk, that stuff thats 1/2 water.
You NEED some
SPELLING and grammar
LESSONS.
Springs1, is that you? How do you feel about the service at your favourite breakfast place?
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about … Google Springs1. SO much fun.)
I’m gonna nah on your suggestion for a while.
The horror!
In the early 90s KFC served extra crispy nuggets. Those were awesome late night driving food.
Baskin and Robbins Daiquiri Ice. Discontinued in 2010 I believe.
Gerber Blueberry Buckle. Even as an adult. Discontinued 2012
I still love Gerber apricots to this day!
Iced Mocha from Starbucks. They stopped using Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup years ago and started using some dusty microwaved semi-sweet dreck. I stopped drinking iced Mocha from Starbucks then.
I used to love Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups. But they must have changed an ingredient, because whenever I eat them now, I either have to have some Pepto Bismal near by, or I’m worshipping the porcelain thrones *while* using the throne for 4 hours….
Now I can’t eat the damned things anymore.
reeses changed something with the peanut butter a while back. they’re greasier, and they just don’t have the same ‘peanutty’ flavor they used to. Reeses pieces taste better than the cups do, and that says a LOT… because it used to be the other way around…
BUT….M&Ms Peanut Butter has totally killed Reeses for that chocolate/peanut butter combo… they cost more, but TASTE so much better, even with the candy shell.
Totally agree about the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Used to be if I opened a fun pack of them for Halloween I’d work my way through half of the bag before I could stop. Last year I had one and one was a bit too much. Yuck.
Peanut Butter M&M’s rock! I’ll never understand why Reese’s missed the boat when they made Reese’s Pieces and LEFT OUT 50% of the game-winning formula that put them on the map (no chocolate?…seriously?!?).
Honey Nut & regular Cheerios-ruined by the addition of corn starch, the removal of actual almond pieces/reducing the amount of honey in the former. While most cereal quality has eroded, this is the worst offender.
Best Foods mayo-watered down 10+ years ago after Unilever bought the brand.
Burger King-they have just given up. They’re always dirty, serve old food and HORRIBLY watered down & overcarbonated soda.
I can’t prove it, but I think what was my favorite ketchup — Heinz — is not as good as it used to be. In the 1970s, Heinz ran a legendary TV commercial (to the tune of Carly Simon’s hit, “Anticipation,”) bragging about how slowly its ketchup emerged from the bottle. I’m not sure they could get away with that commercial today. I suspect the formula may have changed (it seems not only less thick, but sweeter — corn syrup instead of sugar?). In addition, for ketchup and other condiments, the squeeze bottle has largely replaced the glass bottle of old, which compounds the problem. The plastic bottle has an even worse effect on mustard — inevitably, the first squeeze produces a watery, disgusting puddle.
You have to shake those squeeze bottles first. But yeah, I know what you mean.
Heinz has been campaigning their organic ketchup for a few years now. Give that a try.
True. The Simply Heinz or whatever they call it is actually pretty legit. I miss their old Ketchup with Onion though, that used to be great as a kid.
you gotta watch these ketchup brands… Heinz and a couple of the other big brands have been waffling back and forth with HFCS in their ketchup. Also, if you read, you’ll note that all these new snazzy “peel or squeeze” ketchup packages are reformulated to use HFCS where the old packets didn’t!! I noticed this when the stores like Chickfila had both available in the changeover. I would rather even use mayo on my fries than use ketchup with HFCS. When I go to chickfila, I’ll get sauce packs like honey mustard that don’t have HFCS vs use those ketchup packs.
Taco Bell has burned me twice.
First they got rid of the (superior) Santa Fe Gordita years ago, which was like the Baja but with corn salsa instead of pico.
When they dumped it, I swapped to the Baja even though the pico is gross. Then they got rid of the Baja, for no apparent reason, leaving only Supreme and Nacho Cheese (????) options.
Screw them.
Don’t forget they shrunk the size of the Gorditas as well some years back.
At the Taco bells around (NorCal) here you can still order a gordita and add the baja sauce.
Yeah, the Baja Gordita is not on the menu, but they will still make it if you order it. I typically get a 39 cent charge for the Baja sauce, though.
We don’t have many dining out options, but the Outback, Longhorn and Ruby Tuesday have all managed to add signature spice blends we’re not the least interested in …
These are pretty old:
Fig Newtons and the others with different fruits used to have a fraction of a gram of fat. They took it out of all flavors except the fig ones and not the cookie part tastes like cardboard. And at some point they took the flavor out of the Girl Scout peanut butter sandwich cookies.
You’re right about the Fig Newtons!
I’ve also found that what’s now called “French bread” at most restaurants, even pricier ones, is not worth eating. There’s an Italian place down the street that used to serve a wonderful basket of real French bread; then management cheaped-out, and replaced the real thing with something that’s the same shape, but has the taste (if you can call it that) and texture of squishy “wonder bread.” But this is Minnesota, and culinary standards are not high — you might as well serve crap, if nobody cares or notices. I can’t recall the last time I had decent bread in any restaurant — Poppin’ Fresh seems to rule the day.
Taco Bell’s recent chicken change, lemon herb flavor. It takes a lot more of their sauce packs to drown this awful flavor. Their chicken soft taco looks smaller than before. When they first introduced steak gorditos a while back, the steak had a real good grilled flavor. A year or two later, changed to something with no flavor. They just can’t stop screwing things up.
There was time in the 90′s when the KFC restaurants in St. Louis started soaking their chicken in lemon juice or something. It was awful and I stopped eating KFC for about 10 years. Which probably will lead to an additional 2 years of life, but still.
Nothing tastes good anymore.
The Ultimate Whine of the Young.
Burger king used to have the best fries when I was a kid. Then they changed them to be more like McDonalds.
I am the one person in the world who hates McDonalds fries, apparently. So I just stuck with Wendy’s when I could.
Burger King here in the southeast went to these thicker fries, they’re actually better than those scrawny McDonalds fries, and don’t seem to turn into grease logs like the McD fries do. I’ve also stopped getting McDs fries because EVERY store seems to think that every single person who goes to the fry hopper has to re-salt the fries, and the ones I get have so much salt on them that they’re inedible. Burger King here isn’t doing this.
I don’t care for the way they put so much condiments on their burgers, so I’ve started ordering my BK burgers without ketchup, mayo, mustard, sauce or anything of the liquidy kind, as every store seems to think they have to put a half gallon on the sandwich so it oozes everywhere with the first bite… Nasty! I want to taste what’s in my sandwich, not a gallon of mayo,ketchup,mustard mix! If I wanted to do that, I’d just make up thousand island dressing at home, forget the pickle, add mustard, and spoon it up… eewww~!
McDonald’s vanilla shakes are horrible and forever ruined. They have a sickening syrup taste.
Anything that switched from real sugar to HFCS. I could care less about whether sugar is healthier than HFCS. HFCS just tastes like shit.
Totally agree… try a box of ice cream without HFCS in it, REALLY taste it, then try that el-cheapo stuff with HFCS as the #2 ingredient… I couldn’t take a second bite!
Crosse & Blackwell Branston Pickle. I grew up with this stuff in the UK, so I was over the moon when I discovered it being sold in the US. Turns out that they have completely reworked the recipe for the US market. I can’t *believe* that anyone on earth would like this bitter, disgusting taste. In the UK, the taste is strong but fruity and spicy. The US version is just bitter and strong. What were they thinking?
McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets.
I *liked* the dark meat. Or whatever it was called. They were JUICY and DELICIOUS.
Now they’re dry and no amount of BBQ sauce helps.
I’ve only had them maybe 5 times since they changed them back in 2004/2005.
Most pizza places have horrible cheese and the pie is nothing but a sea bed for an ocean of grease. Granted I moved to the North Eastern part of the USA where they prefer their pizza to be floppy, but in my recent travels I’ve yet to find a pizza chain that makes pies as good as they were in the 80s or 90s. How I’d kill for a good pizza.
I’ve also abandoned the cookie aisles of the grocery store. Yea, it’s partly for health reasons but none of those cookies taste the way the once did.
I gave up on those kinds of cookies after they all started tasting like coconut. Apparently they switched to using coconut oil for some reason some years ago. UGH.
What about recipes that I think changed for the better? Several years ago, Weight Watchers introduced chocolate snack cakes designed to fit in their program of sensible eating. They were great even then. A few years later, they were reformulated with a chocolate creme filling. While this took some getting used to, I eventually came to love them even more.
I used to purchase Hungry Man dinners back when cheese fries were part of the one I liked.
Since they no longer offer that, I no longer purchase said dinners.
I stopped buying those when they put in the brownies as the dessert. They complicated the cooking cycle by making you do something to the brownie in mid-bake, and nothing I do can produce a brownie that tastes good or looks anything like the one on the package. If I have a Hungry Man dinner at all these days that has that stupid brownie mix now, I scrape it out while it’s still frozen and cook the dinner without it.
Hickory Farms used to make cheese balls that were covered in almonds. I LOVED these (particularly the Garden Vegetable one) – about 5 years ago give or take, they stopped covering them in almonds and just covered them in vegetable flakes. Not near as good, I stopped buying them.
Sugar IS needed in ANY yeast dough. I’m not saying a lot is needed, just some. Yeast “feeds” on te sugar to rise.
The yeast can feed off the starches in the flour. It takes longer to proof, but the yeast will do their thing without adding flour.
burger king. they changed the recipes from 2 sesame seed buns with some beef in the middle, to 2 slices of a bread like material with 1 dimensional sheet of some dark colored material and now cost more.
KFC: replacing their seasoning with an injection of cooking oil to make the chicken extra greasy in the hopes of masking the lack of seasoning.
Domino’s Pizza: From what I remember, pizza is suppose to have cheese, not trace amounts which require an electron microscope to find, but an actual layer of cheese.
Pizza hut: they used to have really good crust and cheese on their pizza, but now it is cheap/ really stretchy stuff and a crust that is almost as bad as the pizza bread that they give at some schools.
McDonalds: They taste okay but their insane amount of downsizing is just insane. I am better off buying a block of gold and then hiring some researchers to figure out a way to rearrange the electrons, protons, and neutrons in order to create the proper compounds needed to make a hamburger, than to buy their tiny overpriced hamburgers.
All brands of ice cream: Many companies cant seem to tell the difference between a bucket of ice cream and the large hadron collider, and thus cant get their pricing right.
Cocoa Pebbles, they started using artificial sweetener and took away most of the chocolate.. I used to eat it all the time, now I haven’t touch the stuff in years.
I’ve got two. First off, I used to LOVE Taco Bell’s Grilled Stuffed Burritos with steak. But, then they changed their steak. I can’t explain it. It’s different now, but I don’t like it.
Also, I pretty much stopped going to Burger King back when they changed their fries that first time. Now that they have the fries that Wendy’s /used/ to have, I’ve been going there once a week just about.
Speaking of, I don’t go to Wendy’s as much anymore now that they have smaller “natural cut” fries. I don’t like them.
Cauldron changed their tofu last year – it’s supposedly ‘new and improved’ but the texture’s awful, it crumbles before you can even take it out of the packet!
Nando’s have decided to add milk to their rolls so I can’t eat them now. Sucks!
It used to be that most kinds of poptarts came in unfrosted as well as frosted, and you just plain can’t get raspberry unfrosted anymore. Frosted poptarts are a lot like eating sugar cubes with honey.
Hagen Dazs used to make a mango sorbet that was marvelous. The they did something to the recipe (and I’m afraid it was probably to use real mangos instead of mango-flavoring) and now it tastes to me like it has orange-juice in it.
Once upon a time the New England district of Pepperidge Farms made a Corn-and-moasses bread. It was heavenly, toasted with a little butter. Despite numerous tries, I have never managed a home-baked loaf that had the right texture.
Lastly; ,my two favorite Baskin-Robins flavors were Mandarin-Chocolare Sherbet and Licorice Ice Cream. They were seasonals, so I couldn’t get them year-round, and then one year they just didn’t come back. In addition to being delicious (to me, anyway) Licorice was grey, which was always good for some double-takes.
Kraft Thousand Island dressing. They switched to some sort of “new & improved” formula and (IMO) totally wrecked the flavor. I stopped purchasing it after that (they probably did me a favor…I shouldn’t be buying that giant-factory-processed junk anyway).
I agree… Kraft has changed many of their foods and there is nothing about them that is “Improved”.
Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs.
They used to have yummie soft goo in them, and then they switched to some kind of horrible semi-crystalized frosting nastiness.
I used to love the MCDonalds dark meat nuggets. The new ones are just not the same.
Yes! The dark meat nuggets. I still remember the commercials with different kids exclaiming, “Change is good”. It wasn’t.
Subway changed their mix for Tuna about 8 – 10 years ago, it’s now drier and tasteless.
My favorite bakery in the Falls Church/Arlington area of Virginia, Heidleburg Bakery, used to make these giant cupcakes that were awesome. The carmel ones in particular were worth a 20-minute drive to acquire. However, they both reduced the size to the more trendy small ones (same price) and now the proportions of the carmel filling and topping is screwed up, and I won’t buy it again. This makes me incredibly sad.