Old folks: Remember how good steaks and hamburgers used to taste in the 60s?

all food was better then, especially local

I wasn't even born then but my free-range grass fed beef if the best.

Things tasted WAY better back then. I always wondered if the food became more bland or if my taste buds were fading as I age. I'm betting that the food became more bland.

Honestly I don't notice any difference. If you smoke, quit smoking.

What would cause the change in taste? More hormones and vaccines pumped into cattle?

This was before the proliferation of chain burger joints...they were slowly coming on scene but not in the numbers seen today. At the time, there were many smaller, regional or even local chains of maybe a dozen or fewer locations.

Many Mom and Pop operations, too. Pretty much, everything was sourced locally. Not too much attention was paid to actual nutrition but MUCH attention was paid to taste. Two of my favorite small local chains of the time were Milligans Hamburgers in NE Florida and Jack's Hamburgers in the north central area of Alabama around Birmingham.

:this1:

Every mom and pop diner served great steaks then. Even truck stop diners.

The water, soil was not as contaminated.

Farmers cared for their livestock. Animals lived longer, healthier before slaughter.

People were clean, facilities were clean.

Processing was simple, and first class.

Meal portions smaller, simple, healthy. Not processed, not 'chemicalized', adulterated, altered.

My neighbor (80) and I (72) were just talking about this yesterday. Unless you season the hell out of it, most meat today is almost tasteless.

I also think WHO was preparing the food had a lot to do with it.

And fried chicken tasted like fried chicken. Today, it tastes like breaded cardboard. They had great fried chicken at Woolworth's back in the day.

Totally agree, everything is bland. Our tastebuds aren’t the same, but food is not the same either.

Oh my gosh!! What I'd give for a Woolworth's lunch counter grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate milkshake!!!

Never had their fried chicken but I do have vivid memories to this day of the sandwich and shake as a very young child....yummmmm!!!

Shame that world couldn't be saved. It sucks to have it only live in memory that will be lost soon.

back then the USDA used to actually have inspectors to check the process ... in the early 70s they changed to allow the meat industry to inspect itself

Yep they were delicious! They were also smaller and fattier

My husband and I are retired now no kids at home we live in the country so we grow our own now. Sooo so much better! I don’t live in the world today I live in my own little bubble on my own little acreage, I make my own rules and love it!

We're lucky, we have a meat locker in town, they use tri-state local beef and other meats, and they make and smoke their own bacon, which is the best I've had anywhere.

So we still get good, flavorful food. They do a booming business, and their prices are actually lower than the grocery for some things. Other things are priced comparable to the grocery.

The owners are very nice people, too.

I can still find decent meats, but the Big thing I've noticed is the flavor of Watermelons, especially the hybrid seedless strains! They've genetically-altered them to be insect and frost resistant and pale in comparison to those we picked as kids in the fields. Back then a Big Texas Striped or Black Diamond was like nothing else on this planet! Now Watermelons actually taste like flavored cardboard.

We had four big local orchards back in the late 50's, with large stands next to a major street south of town where the soil was sandy. They hauled flatbeds of mothers/kids out to endless rows of trees with bushel-baskets you bought for 75-cents to fill and sweat while climbing ladders, eating fresh Peaches/Apples/Pears and getting really sticky in the process. The orchard thoughtfully provided a big garden hose we kids used to hose down a bit before piliing into the car for the trip home. The whole operation was family-owned for several generations and you could really tell!

Vegetables could be picked the same way but there were only a couple of farms: Beans, Peas, Carrots & Corn; Cantaloupes, Melons, Zucchini likewise.

Kids nowadays have NO IDEA how much fun we used to have.

Last Edited by GSB/LTD on 07/25/2019 04:37 PM

I'm really glad to read the postings in this thread. Why? For years I've been wondering "Is it me? Have my taste buds stopped working properly?" or is the food today, especially our meat, almost tasteless?

I recall how years ago after browning up some ground meat to make a pot of chili I added a bit of salt and pepper to it and then decided to give it a taste test. That browned ground meat was so delicious I had to force myself to stop eating all of it. Today when I do the same thing my usual reaction is "What the hell is this stuff? It has almost no taste to it.". Same with ice cream. Potato chips used to be delicious,,, today they taste like crap. Bread? Used to be that some buttered rye bread and a hot cup of coffee was a real treat. Today you can't even find rye bread at the store and the other breads there are almost tasteless.

At the age of 73 I can say with confidence that almost everything "back in the day", including food, was better,,, MUCH BETTER,,, than it is today.

thank god for video games and stuff thats not boring or lame and stuff that i dont like.

That’s easy, ...venison.

You are a douche.

nope i just like different things that are more 21st century not the 19th century.

Taste about the same but we raise our own bovine along with the grass and grain they eat.

Grass and grain aged 30+ days before being cut and packaged.

Nice buck!

Sure I was in high school and early college then... It was not hard for me to stop eating modern meat..

I remember five cent bags of local potato chips that were packaged in printed waxed paper. Fried in lard.

I buy meat at the butcher, I buy veggies from the Amish.
I hunt deer. My food tastes fine. When I visit people who shop at the regular market everything is tough and bland.