To think food tastes very different now ie. worse

[JeffsanArsehole]

I'm sure there are dozens/hundreds of reasons but to me food doesn't taste the same. Even high quality food, even home grown veg and fruit (which I grow a lot of)

It's weird, but to me it seems like the earth is exhausted or summat and things just don't taste as good/fresh/unpolluted

Does anyone agree with me or am I barking?

Barking

Sorry but I think you're barking.

It's more likely that your taste buds are changing as you get older.

I agree re: tomatoes.

Yes, I do have to season more now I'm older (tastebuds probably crapper now) but I'm not convinced that's the whole thing

Could you be depressed - that can change how things taste. Or pregnant?

Or there are other illnesses that can give you a funny taste in your mouth. Can't remember what they are right now but I have heard of it.

Or I agree it could be getting older. Very elderly people (not saying that's what you are!) often have a very reduced sense of taste. I used to help in a care home kitchen/serve up the food and they were always wanting loads of extra salt and complaining that it "tastes o' nowt!"

Chicken is different, otherwise yabu

I get you to a certain extent. But I think its more down to me than the food. If Ive had a few nights on the lash, smoking and drinking to the max then I can't taste a thing, takes a few days for taste buds to revivie.

No, not ill or depressed at all.

Tomatoes are one of the worst, I also find my raspberries taste a bit soapy (!)

Ready meals, even the expensive done in a kitchen with posh ingredients and sold in fancy delis taste slimy/weird

I think it's tastebuds changing, rather than anything else.

I agree. I walk round food places just not sure what to buy or cook as its all so boring and samey and fruit and veg do not taste like they used to.
Even the 'on the vine' expensive toms are a let down. Just fed up with shopping, cooking and clearing it up.

Food tastes too damn good to me.
I agree about tomatoes though, at least the ones sold in supermarkets. They do tend to be a bit bland and tasteless.

Ready meals have always tasted shit, on everything else you're barking-sorry.

If you're basing your opinion on ready meals, you have forfeited all credibility.
Barking.

Don't want to wind you up, but there could be an underlying medical condition that's making food taste different.

Tomatoes I will give you. That's to do with refrigeration though - the minute a tomato touches a fridge it's done.

Anything else, no. Not really. In fact, I'd go as far as to say ready meals are significantly better now than when I was a students, although that's probably because I'm buying premium range rather than cheap on the few ocasions I do buy a ready meal.

I really only mean expensive ready meals, not 99p lasagne.

In general, anything made by someone else is just not as good as I expect/remember

I'm including expensive restaurants

The only things that taste like I remember is when I visit rural Italy and eat local food, grown in local (possibly more unspoilt?) soil.

Genuinely tastes different

I agree with you. When I was little, eggs tasted wonderful and so did chicken which was a luxury we only had at Christmas because it wasn't mass produced. It was also eaten extremely fresh.

And I think if the animal is not fed good food then it and its produce will be tasteless.

James Wong gives lots of good advice for growing fruit & veg for flavour, rather than appearance.

UK supermarket fruit & veg tastes less than the veg in NZ shops which is mostly grown locally and is seasonal. So YANBU re fruit & veg.

I think you're right OP. I noticed that supermarket basil tastes AWFUL recently. So do raspberries I agree. I think they're full of pesticides etc.

YANBU.

The soil is depleted. And we're all suffering.

I agree op, perhaps our soil is depleted by mass farming and pesticides. Factory farming meat is hideously cruel and unnatural, Lord knows what's Chemicals are fed to the animals.

My wife and I have been complaining for years that our home-grown tomatoes don't have much flavour. I think it is because the plants are bred for disease resistance, uniformity of size and colour, and similar characteristics. Flavour takes a back seat.

Interestingly I saw a docu about old apple trees in the UK. These were trees on common land which had once been part of someone's garden or orchard....in some cases there were one tree in others, a few. The point of it was that they were the very old breeds...so breeds which had not been messed with.

I wonder if it's possible to find other old, "pure" breeds of fruit and veg and then grow them in natural home-made compost? Would taste better.

Do you not think that how food tastes is largely driven by expectation?
Everybody has a wine buff fooled by an expensive lable type story...

I wonder if the less chemically induced more muted colours of foods make them taste less vivid too
Oh and less added salt
And our old friend msg is largely gone
And all the added fats are now the blander vegetable ones...chips fried in dripping are artery closingly epic...but who..in our obese society eats such unreasonable loveliness...? Everything is more processed..its like eating baby food really.more bland..and a bit..pre chewed...with added sugar to make it palatable..bit depressing really

I wonder if the home grown is less interesting (I grow my own too) because I'm never really hungry , not properly hungry like I was when I was kid and you used more calories staying warm and getting around without a car, and there was no easy between meal high calorie snacking.