This Nostalgic Snack Food Just Doesn't Taste The Same As It Used To

In a world where the most popular movies are attached to familiar properties, where pop culture has been consumed by pastiche, and where reactionary forces seek to bring us back to nonexistent glory days, it's easy to be skeptical of nostalgia — especially when it comes to something like food, which has so many subjective memories attached. If ice pops, for instance, don't taste as good as they did when you were younger, it's probably because you are no longer a carefree 10-year-old enjoying a Bomb Pop by the pool on the Fourth of July. You can either spend your life longing to go back in time, or you can make the best of the present. With that said, there are some foods from our youth that have objectively, concretely changed over the years, and not necessarily for the better. Case in point: Smartfood white cheddar popcorn, which really is less cheesy than it was when you were a kid.

Smartfood, created in 1985 by a braintrust including Annie Withey of Annie's Mac and Cheese fame, used to be seriously cheesy. It was made from real white cheddar, and you could taste it in every kernel. Sure, plenty of the flavoring would stick to your fingers, but that's not such a terrible thing — we still have Cheetos, don't we? But a recipe change that occurred in 2021 cut down on all of that cheese, sparing your fingers but disappointing your tongue.

Here's something important to note: Ingredient lists on food packages are ordered from most to least prevalent. This is a good way to tell if you're getting a quality product; if your hot sauce, for instance, has vinegar as its first ingredient, it will probably be a little less spicy than if peppers are its first ingredient. With that in mind, comparing Smartfood's original ingredient list to its current list will tell you everything you need to know. In 1987, cheddar cheese was the third-most prominent ingredient, resulting in plenty of cheesy flavor. Today, however, cheddar cheese is just the seventh-most prominent ingredient, behind "natural flavors," "whey," and "maltodextrin." This results in something a little less messy, but also less rewarding.

If you're bothered by this, there is still hope. There are other brands of cheddar popcorn out there, from Cretor's to Bjorn Qorn's, with a more robust flavor, and if you want to have some control over the taste, you can always make some at home without too much difficulty. It's not exactly the same as when you were a kid, but it's better than nothing. And hey, taste testers at The Takeout have said Smartfood remains their favorite cheddar popcorn brand, despite the ingredient change (and tastes better that SkinnyPop White Cheddar popcorn, which we prefer to leave on the shelf). So things can't be that dire, can they?