What products that your family regularly bought growing up would you never buy today?

[crystal ball]

Fish & meat paste

 

[JohnD]

Fray and bentos pies in a tin

I used to like them, and usually had a couple at the back of a cupboard for emergencies.

I tried some more recently and found them awful. Greasy pastry, not bad gravy, but next to no meat content.

I happened to have a few old empty tins in the garage for cleaning small parts, turned them over, and checked the ingredients list. The meat content has been drastically reduced. On investigation it happened after the brand name was sold to Baxters. You will find heaps of customer complaints online.

The same brand name is licenced in Australia to a local firm, and they make a very good, meaty pie.

 

[big-all]

toilet paper izal tracing paper

izal toilet paper history at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[crystal ball]

Camera film, lemonade in returnable bottles

 

[Deleted member 18243]

Vim

I still use Vim (which was previously known as Ajax). It's hard to get now, but it can sometimes be found on market stalls or in small town hardware shops.

Tongue

I love tongue on my sandwiches. It is widely available, in tins, though quite expensive now.

Bars of soap. I just buy the liquid stuff in a pump dispenser these days.

Very wasteful.

 

[securespark]

I still use Vim (which was previously known as Ajax). It's hard to get now, but it can sometimes be found on market stalls or in small town hardware shops.

Ajax and Vim are two different products produced by two separate companies.

Vim came first in the early 1900s and was made by William Lever.

Ajax made by Colgate Palmolive was introduced after the second war.

Can't remember the exact dates. I learnt all about stuff like that at college and some of it stuck!

 

[ReganAndCarter]

I still buy it, for when I grill gammon.

I put it on ham and mushroom pizza to make a Hawaiian. Dead exotic.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

Shippams sandwich spread in a jar.

Light ale.

Radio Times.

 

[Odds]

I used to like them, and usually had a couple at the back of a cupboard for emergencies.

I tried some more recently and found them awful. Greasy pastry, not bad gravy, but next to no meat content.

I happened to have a few old empty tins in the garage for cleaning small parts, turned them over, and checked the ingredients list. The meat content has been drastically reduced. On investigation it happened after the brand name was sold to Baxters. You will find heaps of customer complaints online.

The same brand name is licenced in Australia to a local firm, and they make a very good, meaty pie.

Baxters should be inspected by a Health and Safety inspector: that meat can't be right, it's like something from Friday Night Dinners' ("lovely bit o' squirrel"). I once tried their veg soup and found more water than anything else. Terrible stuff.

Shippams sandwich spread in a jar.

I had that for lunch throughout 1976. Can't eat it now.
Our cat wouldn't touch the salmon paste.

 

[conny]

If you saw how meat/fish paste was produced you wouldn't touch it with a barge pole!
Basically, it all the bits of waste that can't be removed by hand, blasted off with high pressure hoses into a slurry tank. It includes fat, gristle and even tiny bits of bone. It's then run through filters to drain off the water before being heated, to 'kill off' any bacteria, before liquid and additives are added to make a thick paste.
Disgusting stuff.

Mind you, if you saw how a lot of other food is produced you may not eat that either!

 

[securespark]

The resulting meat from the process you describe is called MRM.
Mechanically Recovered Meat.

And it has appeared in a great deal more products than just sandwich pastes.
Burgers, sausages, pies and hot dogs.

 

[Brigadier]

I used to love the smell of coal tar soap.

Might but some later

 

[securespark]

"Pink slime" can be added to beef products as a filler.

In the US, they are able to call it ground beef, which sounds a lot more wholesome than it actually is.

 

[securespark]

I used to love the smell of coal tar soap.

Might but some later

Me too. Used to buy Wrights coal tar soap.

 

[Brigadier]

Me too. Used to buy Wrights coal tar soap.

That's the one!