Have You Noticed A Decline In Quality Of Products You Regularly Buy?

OneEyedDiva

SF VIP
Location
New Jersey
I don't think my Kirkland (Costco brand) paper towels are quite as sturdy as they used to be...still good though. I was using Crystal deodorant for years. It stopped working as well as it used to. I had read reviews on Amazon that said as much, but at first didn't believe them. The last order (a couple of years ago) was a pack of three. I already had more here. I noticed when I started using the 2nd one of the new pack that it did indeed disappoint. So my son hipped me to Native deodorant and that's what I'm using now.

For a couple of years I've noticed that bananas don't taste as good as they used to (apples, oranges and melons before that). A couple of weeks ago, my son bought organic bananas. He thinks they taste much better. To me they taste better but still not nearly as good as bananas used to taste.
 

Orange juice to me isn't as sweet. The bottle has shrunk and so has the flavor. Price went up tho.
i wear Skechers brand shoes for work. The rubber soles are now plastic which are impossible to break in. The material they use doesn't stretch. Increased price.
 

Yes, for example, Tupperwear is out of business. Now, Rubbermaid and McCormick are selling most of the plastic containers on the market, but they make thinner, less durable plastic.
As far as food is concerned, I noticed smaller packages, higher price, and lower quality packaging material.
 
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I remember when I was young my mother always bought quite some fruit at the street markets. That fruit was delicious. It was not totally ripe but almost and you could leave it lying on a cupboard for a few days, it ripened so nicely. It was very tasty and juicy. And when the fruit was getting very ripe they sold it at a lesser price and a lot of people bought them, my mother too to make jam!
Now I don't buy any fruit anymore, was just getting some apples but those ones I quit too. They are completely green and if you leave them for a few days they don't ripen rather get brown and mushy. I buy bananas to use for baking instead of sugar. Well I leave them lying until they turn almost black, they turn bitter not sweet!!!.

This is not only happening with food, I noticed everything that you buy now is of much lesser quality but much higher price.
 
Only 2 months ago, I could buy a large bag of Walmart's generic brand Cheese Puffs for $2.86. They stopped carrying those and now sell only the Cheetos brand for about $6.00. I found a bag half the size of the Walmart bag at Dollar Tree for $1.25, so I get 2 bags of those now = $2.50.

Room spray, wax paper, ammonia, masking tape, batteries, bar type hand soaps, ball point pens, sunglasses, bags of popcorn, canned pie fillings, some cake mixes and frostings: All those are cheaper at Dollar Tree than Walmart.
 
I haven't purchased anything not necessary for months because I don't feel secure doing so. My food tastes great but I eat and have eaten mostly organic everything for years. I don't notice anything wrong with any of it. I CAN taste the diff if I would try to cheat.
I do buy some cosmetic items that are expensive, bu,t I feel, necessary. I will not be buying a car as I had planned to. That one is out, but I'm still considering a new couch. BF and I may be spending more time inside in the future.
 
Fruit doesn’t taste anything like it used to.
We grew strawberries last summer and they tasted great. We bought strawberries from Mexico and they tasted really blah.
Most food doesn’t taste like it used to.
Cheese isn’t nearly what it used to be
The Very reason I grow and preserve my own chemical free fruit @PeppermintPatty think I mentioned I lived in a huge stone and citrus growing area prior to meeting my DH in 1986 and most fruit is sprayed with chemicals at least
6 times before being harvested, as well as most fruits are picked green .,then stored sometimes for months in controlled conditions until needed .
Apples can be stored for months under such conditions so that’s why fruit 🍇 tastes bland
 
The Very reason I grow and preserve my own chemical free fruit @PeppermintPatty think I mentioned I lived in a huge stone and citrus growing area prior to meeting my DH in 1986 and most fruit is sprayed with chemicals at least
6 times before being harvested, as well as most fruits are picked green .,then stored sometimes for months in controlled conditions until needed .
Apples can be stored for years under such conditions so that’s why fruit 🍇 tastes bland
We’d love to grow our own fruits but we don’t have the weather for that. Last summer we grew strawberries but didn’t get enough to can. We planted most of our strawberries in the garden and have raspberry and blackberry bushes planted around our property. The only fruit we bottled was apple to make apple butter and it was really good. We made 14 or 15 bottles. We shipped out some to my husbands sister cause she loves it. She also loves the green tomato chow chow so we sent out 4 bottles of that too. We are happy that there’s something yummy that we can make from our under riped fruit.
 
Fruit doesn’t taste anything like it used to.
We grew strawberries last summer and they tasted great. We bought strawberries from Mexico and they tasted really blah.
Most food doesn’t taste like it used to.
Cheese isn’t nearly what it used to be
I've been involved with growing strawberry plants, and at times with acquisition & distribution of strawberries. The varieties that are generally (though not always) transported over distance and sold retail tend to be different from home grown. They're selected for keeping qualities, as the transportation, retail display, and sales aspects extend the time after picking.

@PeppermintPatty, the varieties selected for home-patch plantings are suited to specific climates and to flavor. My daughter is a shrewd shopper who buys at various urban markets. But when she comes out here from Vancouver, she always comments on how much better the juiciness & flavor our strawberries are.
 
I've read that our sense of taste deteriorates with age, but I think apples still taste real good (most of them, in the right season, not the ones that were stored for months), as a kid my parents would buy a whole bushel of apples and although they were VERY tasty they were a bit mealy which I guess was them getting overripe maybe.

The most disappointing modern product to me is elastic in clothes, I had a soft stretchy skort from college age that I only threw away a couple years ago, and the stretch was still good (whereas the fabric was in shreds), and I have a couple jockey athletic undershirts that were my mom's (she liked them in her 80s to use instead of bras because they have real good stretch/hold) that are still perfect, but the clothes I've purchased the past half dozen years the elastic doesn't have good hold and completely gives up being elastic after a few years.
 


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