'I Swear The Food Tasted Better' — Why McDonald's Fans Miss The Old-School Foam Containers

November 1, 1990, was the day that McDonald's phased out polystyrene containers in its stores. Although most people refer to it by the brand name Styrofoam, polystyrene was a spongy foam material that used to be pretty much everywhere. All McDonald's burgers came in polystyrene clamshell boxes. It was also incredibly bad for the environment as it's not biodegradable, takes 500 years to break down, and leaches dangerous chemicals that can seep into food if a Styrofoam container is microwaved. Despite that, some people still miss it.

There are fans on Reddit who are nostalgic for the days of polystyrene food containers at McDonald's. They are convinced that the food tasted better inside them. Others suggest that the food may well have tasted better from those polystyrene containers, but not because of the packaging itself.

Old-school McDonald's was prepared differently. "Part of the reason you may believe it to taste better is trans-fat makes things taste way better," one Redditor pointed out. The chain began cutting back on trans fats in 2003. They also stopped deep-frying apple pies in 1992. In 1990, McDonald's switched from beef tallow to vegetable oil in its fryers. All of these decisions made for a healthier product, but arguably one that didn't taste the same. That means when people think back to a time when polystyrene containers were in use, they're not wrong to remember the food tasting different. The packaging had little to do with it, but it may have had some effect.

When McDonald's switched from polystyrene, it moved to the paper containers in use today. While polystyrene didn't affect the ingredients in a McDonald's burger, it did affect the temperature. Polystyrene clamshell containers prevented food from leaking, and they kept it fresher longer by preserving warmth better than paper or cardboard packaging. Cardboard and paper both offer fairly poor heat retention. They also hold moisture and get soggy. So those are other reasons that someone might remember food packaged in polystyrene as tasting better.

Nostalgia tends to be clouded with misinformation and misremembered details. In one Facebook thread about food tasting better in old containers, numerous comments discuss how the food was made differently in the past. One poster said, "It was real food, they changed all their recipes. Beef is not 100% beef. Nuggets are saw dust." This is not true, of course, and you can check out the beef suppliers behind McDonald's burgers. There are a lot of ingredients in Chicken McNuggets, but we can assure you that sawdust is not one of them.

There are valid reasons to believe McDonald's may have tasted better in the past. Mostly this is due to changes in how the food was prepared, and to some degree, it may have even been related to the packaging. However, all the changes were meant to make the food healthier and the packaging more environmentally safe. Is a slightly warmer Big Mac worth a container that leeches dangerous chemicals into the ground and won't disappear for 500 years? Most of us probably wouldn't think so.