EnMasse

[Cartman]

I usually eat well and I like cooking, but I do buy some pre-packaged stuff like KD from time to time when really busy. Anyways, I came across Pizza Pops and purchased some since my brother says they are quite tasty. They are, however, the worst shit Dow Chemical has ever made. The main ingredient must be salt, and I am not sure what that fake tomato sauce really is. Please don't tell me. Anyways, they are horrible and I couldn't even bring myself to feed them to my dogs.

What is the worst fast or pre-packaged food you have eaten? What should people avoid at all costs?

[Feral]

Beware of cheese.

Not so much "cheese" as "cheese food product."

Cheese food product.

Here's a rule of thumb for you: if someone has thought it wise to label something as "food"... it isn't.

You will survive eating "cheese food product." It's not as good as real cheese, but then it doesn't cost as much as real cheese and that can be a good thing.

But then there would be "sandwich slices."

This is not cheese. This is not cheese food product. I don't know what it is. I bought some once... it was entirely by accident. It was one of those times where price really was an issue and the price was the lowest. I was looking for the lowest price, so I shouldn't complain at all that I found it. Alas... I was not looking at what it was. I was under no illusions that it was "cheese." I did not see that it was "sandwich slices."

Perhaps (just perhaps) someone might well put such a thing on a sandwich and be satisfied. Perhaps.

That's not what I had in mind then, though. No. Back then, my idea of "what to do to cheese" was to melt it into a basic white sauce and claim that it's "cheese sauce." It's good. Add just a hint of nutmeg and *POOF* you have macaroni and cheese (providing you also produce some macaroni).

So I'm making this white sauce. When I was a wee thing they made boys take Home Ec in Junior High. I make a wicked white sauce. My mom has often remarked on it. She, it happens, just can't make it without it being full of lumps and scorched to boot. I don't get that. It doesn't have anything to do with me having gotten an 'A' in Home Ec. She's just not doing it right and she couldn't possibly even be trying to do it right because... really... it's just white sauce.

Once the sauce is done, you toss two or three slices of cheese in it, stir until melted, and then use it to transform any number of things that are supposed to be good for you into something that's actually tasty and probably not at all good for you (and really... all the best food just isn't all that good for you).

And the cheese isn't melting.

No worries. I can be patient.

Twenty minutes later, the cheese still isn't melting. The sauce is boiling, it's well passed ruined (because white sauce cooks for three minutes or so... not twenty), and it's still not melted. It's not even especially soft. It's just sort of limp.

So... there I was, wondering "what the fuck kind of cheese boils for twenty minutes and doesn't melt?"

I look at the package. It's not cheese. Nowhere on the package does the word "cheese" appear. Nowhere. Casein really is one of the ingredients, but... no cheese. I do believe that some varieties of paint and some sorts of glue would be possessed of similar ingredient lists (were they labeled as food must be labeled).

These "sandwich slices"... they vaguely resemble cheese and they look a whole lot like cheese food product. Cheese food product, however, melts.

Do not ingest "sandwich slices." It's not food. It may technically be edible, but then so are a lot of things... technically.

[Hephaestion]

There is a reason that Kraft labels it "Cheeze Whiz"... it AIN'T cheese.
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[Senor Magoo]

A lot of years ago, when I was a poor student who couldn't afford a three finger handjob, I was "grocery shopping" in some kind of convenience store that sold meat (first clue) and found, for something like $1.75 (second clue), a tray of chicken nuggets. "Nice, tender, white meat chicken nuggets" thought I, and brought them home to devour.

Well, I suppose that was my first time ever eating "grey" meat. Not white meat (!) and not exactly dark meat. Just greasy, grey, pasty crap covered in crumbs. It was the dawn of my awareness of the concept of "mechanically deboned", which is really less about machinery than the name suggests, and more about high pressure water that blasts any remaining connective tissue, fat, gristle, and a few micrograms of meat off of a carcass, to be filtered, seasoned, ground and formed. Yum.

I'm not against crap food, per se (example: I totally love Cheez Whiz, whatever it is) but you have to be careful.
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ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,

[Crippled_Newsie]

First there are the standard OMG-Im-Gonna-Barf fast foods. Like White Castle-- that's easy.

But gather ye mates and listen here to the tale of McD's Filet O'Fish sandwich. Employees are required to enunciate the O when speaking of it, lest they commit retail fraud. And when the O'fish thaws without being fried, its like a wad of soaked paper towels.

Ewww!
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"You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference?" --Larry Kramer

[thwap]

I've never had any, but "Hot Pockets" don't sound so hot.
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I thought she was going to marry that snooty rich guy!

[Tehanu]

Anything that refers to an "edible oil product" on the label is a dead giveaway. That includes coffee "creamers."

[Cartman]

[Legless_Marine]

[lagatta]

What is Ichiban? I don't get the mayo thing; obviously one doesn't want to eat a lot of it as it is basically fat and high in cholesterol (egg yolk) but it is a classic French sauce and grandma would definitely recognise it as food.

[rinne]

Basically anything labeled gluten-free is suspect, the products I have tried have ranged from barely edible, if you suspend all memories of what tastes good, to absolutely horrible as in eating the box would provide as much satisfaction. My top pick for that is the Enjoy Life bars.

[Legless_Marine]

[Legless_Marine]

[Chester]

a three finger hand job, magoo? laughed...i thought i'd die.

[rinne]

[sparqui]

Speaking of cardboard, McCain's frozen pizzas always tasted liked soggy "veggies" soaking on cardboard.
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“If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a tractor.”

-- Gilles Duceppe

[Chester]

some of you are old enough to remember the old Kraft pizza kits. they came in a box with flour, a can of pizza sauce, package of dried herbs and a package of parmesan "cheese". remember? actually though, they could be quite good. a friend once gave me advice on making these which was: add more cheese, load on the toppings and cook it twice as long as recommended...low and behold not a bad tasting home made pizza.

[Tehanu]

Some kids' candy used to be a bit on the plastic side, too. I vaguely remember some kinds of three-colour "taffy" that had the consistency of silly putty. Lots of sugar, though, so we all ate it.

And those "sherbet" packets of three different "flavours" of fizzy crystals, that you scooped out with a candy stick. Undoubtedly highly toxic.

[Legless_Marine]

[Chester]

[Senor Magoo]

I was always maddened by the fact that the parmesan cheese was just dry dust. It didn't exactly stretch as you bit into a slice.

I do believe they still exist. If not, you can buy ready-to-bake pizza dough, the same kind of sauce, and dry, dusty parmesan pretty easily. Slice up a Slim Jim and off you go.

So now that this is a thread about crap food we liked, I still totally dig Hamburger Helper, and also any kind of Salisbury Steak. Total nostalgia.
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ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,

[Chester]

[Reverend Blair]

[Feral]

[Rufus Polson]

[Cartman]

[Raos]

[Tehanu]

Reminds me of when I was in a really dive-ey bar once and ordered "nachos." They scooped some rather stale chips from a 6-foot bag, poured some Cheez Whiz on it, then stuck the plate in the microwave. Quite memorable.

[Cartman]

[Maestro]

I have made (by hand - without the benefit of electric appliances) mayonnaise. It takes a lot of work, but yields a beautiful sauce/dressing, whatever you want to call it.

It is true that it is nothing like the standard Miracle Whip stuff. It has a wonderful creamy texture, and a flavour to match.

Some instinct has kept me away from Pizza Pops and other culinary disasters, although I think I once bought some canned pasta. That was a mistake. I'm sure I've made other mistakes, but fortunately I've blocked them from my mind.

I do remember the Kraft Pizza package. As others did, I liked them. It was sorta fun making the dough, and adding extra ingredients, but it took me forever to figure out that what was missing was mozzarella cheese. By that time, I was eating regular pizza so it didn't really matter.

I still eat the Ichiban noodles from time to time, adding some peas, some meat bits if I have some, and a good dollop of soy sauce. Very salty, but edible.

Hmmm, all this talk about food is making me hungry...think I'll saunter on over to the fridge to see what's not green yet...
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On the wilds of the Drive

[Chester]

[rinne]

I remember ordering asparagus in Brandon's Red Oak Inn about thirty some years, when it came and tasted foul I sent it back. The waitress came back and said the chef had said there was nothing wrong with it, all they had done was open the can and heat it....

I do remember liking Cheez Whiz though I can't imagine ever wanting or liking it again.

[Feral]

[Hephaestion]

[rinne]

[Rufus Polson]

[Feral]

He does. He does say that as if it were a bad thing.

My little brother (he's a piece of work) once subsisted on Ramen and peanut butter for a year and a half.

Those freakish blocks? (I just love stuff that comes in freakish blocks) You can... like... just snap them in half. The brother picked the habit up from me (because I can't abide the length those noodles come in... half is much more seemly). Having snapped the block of Ramen in half, it's no great leap for the teen-aged mind to hit upon the diabolically clever idea of spreading peanut butter on each half and eating them as open-face sandwiches.

I don't recommend the practice. No. However, the little brother survived it without obvious consequences.

[bagkitty]

Ichiban/Ramen noodles are not junk food, they are a STAPLE. The best flavour is Kimchi!!! Of course each package contains your weekly dietary allotment of sodium... but hey, who wants to live forever.
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Whom the hive does not cherish, it eats.

[TS.]

The only Ramen I can stomach is Ichiban. The Mr. Noodles crap is far too salty.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Reverend Blair]

[Hephaestion]

Instant. Mashed. Potatoes.

Ugh. Run, RUN away from these things.

One year, while I was in university, I worked a summer job at the Carnation Potato Plant in Carberry, MB (supplier of potato products to Macdonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and a gazillion other companies, such as Sheriff, which makes said "instant mashed potato" travesty.)

Listen, I've seen the stuff that goes into making that shit -- it's all the blemished, moldy, half-rotten crud that gets weeded OUT of the potato chip line, the french fry line, the hash brown line, and the main "intake" tables where various other detritus such as rocks, dead birds and so on are also removed. The disgusting and almost unusable potato bits go into this separate channel, where they are bleached -- yes, bleached -- to bleed out/cover up any black bits or other identifying signifiers of rot and pestilence, then blasted with heat to dehydrate them, and are thence turned into the powder/flakes that are put into the instant mashed potato boxes that you "just add water" to, in order to get that "creamy" glop that institutions like hospitals, school kitchens, old-age homes and the like try to pass off as "mashed potatoes".

TRUST ME. AVOID THAT SHIT. I have no proof, but I remain convinced that it is unhealthy, and you would NEVER catch me eating any.
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"The dignity of an animal is measured by his capacity to revolt in the face of oppression." -- Mikhail Bakunin

[anne cameron]

Easy on, Hephy, my dear, let us not scorn Carnation instant mashed potatoes!!! On a farm there is always more work than there is time or energy to do it and a major problem is rats. Rats make nests in the hay, then they and their babies crap and pee in it and the cows won't eat it, and you wind up with waste. Rats get into the feed sacks, same thing, what they don't eat they foul. And I didn't want to put out poison, too many other things might eat it and die. So I got boxes of Carnation instant mashed potatoes, opened them, left them wherever I thought a rat might dwell.

They eat the stuff. They LOVE the stuff. And the stuff is full of salt so they get thirsty. As soon as it's wet the stuff swells up thirty times it's original size. Pop goes the rat!

Goddam stuff is almost magical in it's ability to wipe out rats.

[Cartman]

[Feral]

[bshmr]

Some folks don't think twice about feeding 'chicken digest' to their pets, or nibbling on a dry food pellet with that as the primary ingredient. As for ANY factory food (meat, grain, vegetable, fruit, or filler) processing is supposed to make the stuff safe to ingest -- for humans and other mammals. With rare exceptions, it does.

[rinne]

That is a beyond brilliant use of mashed potatoes.

I don't know that this serves as fast food but I suppose it is for those unfortunate enough to reside in a public institution, I was served pureed liver, beets and potatoes, no doubt instant, in the hospital. It was a pink grey sludge available for all with chewing challenges, it was beyond gross. A hunger strike worked and I never saw it again although I am sure it is still served regularly.

[Chester]

[lagatta]

I'm old enough to remember when crap such as "instant" mashed potatoes was seen as modern and with-it, not indicative of poverty and indolence. Not sure whether I asked for instant mash, but there were other such industrial foods which we NEVER ate and which I saw friends in more affluent families ingesting with great gusto.

After all, boiling some potatoes and mashing them is not rocket science. At worst, you get gluey stuff if you whip them or something like that. At home, I just scrub them carefully and remove any "eyes" or greenish patches (they are mildly toxic, I believe) but I just mash them, skins and all. Not very pretty, perhaps, but I like the skins and most of the nutrients are just beneath them.

Isn't cola (as in CocaCola) also used as a cleaning product, to shine brass?

[Maestro]

All this 'instant' talk makes me think of something which has not been mentioned, although I suppose it's not really food...instant coffee.

It must be the most gawdoffal stuff on the planet. And yet there were those who picked one brand over another. Unbelievable.
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On the wilds of the Drive

[Cartman]

Ever notice how "instant" products save so little time?