The price must be lower, right?! right?!

It's a good thing tbh. The world used to laugh at America for our portion sizes

It still does. Except now because the portions are tiny, for a price higher than ever. And they somehow maintain the calorie count!

Yeah, well who's laughing at us now! 🥲

It still does. Except now because the portions are tiny, for a price higher than ever. And they somehow maintain the calorie count!

Maximum stakeholder value!

Stop going.

They're still ridiculous compared to the rest of the world.

Literally the entire world?!?

Don't you love how not only is everything so expensive, but they're also all worse quality 😁

I live in Taiwan and the food market here is INTENSE.

My kid loves chicken nuggets from McDonald's. So when I was visiting America, I noticed that the size of the nuggets are about 20% thinner and noticeably shorter than what we have locally. It wasn't always like this. I still lived in the US during early pandemic.

In Taiwan, there are so many restaurants and food stalls and online delivery and Line messaging app group buys that everyone is trying to get a tiny slice of the consumers food budget. It's because the barrier to entry is so low. Less than 1500USD, you can get a food stall and materials to start a food cart.

What that means is that restaurants who pull this shit gets quickly found out and the restaurant is gone pretty quickly.

If you dig through archive.org and retireve the nutritional information PDFs over time, you can see the kj levels dropping.

Have you considered that your hand has just grown larger?

aka 'ability to kill self with unhealthy food getting harder'

Funnily enough, the "small" fries you get at McDonald's in Germany are the same size as the US medium ones.

Actually...

this could be two different angles of the same sandwich for all we know. if you pull everything halfway off the bun, from one side it looks big and from the other side it looks small

Is this homophobic Chick-fil-A?

ordinary fast food tacos are probably the worst. 'crispy' by name, hardly so once you open the bag and take a bite.

the shells are so thin now, they get soggy in mere seconds. the sad thing is, part of you is actually hoping for that outcome because the alternative is a shell that's already splintered into numerous pieces just from being wrapped-up and put into the bag.

Is this the kind of person posting about shrinkflation in 2026 likes it some radical new discovery?

Wendy's and Arby's know what stop going means. Here's hoping McDonalds enjoys it just as much next year.

I paid for meat mountain, I damn well want meat mountain.

That's normal Chik-fil-A.

Like saying 'fascist America'.

So then you know why I said it.

Omg why won't anyone think of the poor billionaires?!

Actually it's all about the angle of the dangle which is inversely proportional to the heat of the meat. If you want to get even more technical the heat of the meat is directly proportional to the mass of the ass.

Hard shell tacos from most places suck eggs. Especially with how greasy the low quality meat they use turns it into dust. I try for soft shells now when I do buy. Or those weird combination ones with an inner hard shell and outer burrito tortilla.

So many reasons to not eat out and especially where that sandwich is likely from. Better to make a good meal with chicken, rice, and veggies for pennies compared.

Yeah the Taiwan food scene is incredibly competitive and everything tastes so amazing. If the good is not good, then you get priced out. There are even Michelin Stared street vendors, although it may not be indicative of the quality.

I had a full meal at a night market for 6 USD including desert.

A fool and their money

I can't get crunchy tacos anymore the shells are so thin now they're always split.

Did the size decrease? Or did you get bigger?

Okay but what if you don't have the time/energy to do that? Still need to eat every day

Or go to a local shop and get a decent sandwich.

Then acknowledge you're making a conscious choice to accept the sandwich someone else made

The quality is still the same. Its always been shit.

Eh.... I would be more concerned than anything. America is just the proving ground for corporations. We get to be the lab rats before the corporations export their practices to the rest of the world. There's a reason why most liberal democracies been sliding further and further right.

The Hy-Vee near me, used to make the best fried chicken sandwich in town. Possibly some of the best fried chicken I've had from anywhere. I would regularly get a fried chicken sandwich. It was good because it was a fresh chicken breast, coated and deep fried right there. It wasn't some Sysco frozen patty. And it was priced pretty well too to be honest.

New Management (I think at the corporate level) from my understanding, it's not fresh chicken anymore. I would guess it's maybe a third the weight it was, the price has gone up, and it is most definitely a frozen patty.

The one section that used to do like Cafe options, stop doing spicy tenders. And no longer lets you get anything from the cold section.

So I've stopped going. And I'm not the only one. Because the Hy-Vee also did burgers. But the burgers are also smaller and when I swing by and I see that there's a lot of burgers both chicken and beef just sitting there no one touching them. Quantity and quality went down price went up.

I don’t get Chick-fil-A.

It’s as expensive as takeout from a real restaurant, for a sandwich with plain dry bread.

The chicken is… fine. Consistent, other than shrinking over the years. Tomato and lettuce are fresh; that’s the highest praise I have.

Shakes are runny. But fine.

Yet people queue like it’s Disney World. Why?

I just don’t get it. Why wouldn’t I go to, like, Raising Cane’s or Chicken Express or Steak and Shake for a better sandwich for less? Or some other place (or my own homemade sandwich) for something actually healthy?

Fast food sales have plummeted since covid.

We have stopped going.

Its weird to have a look back at shit food and say, it was a bigger shit food back then.

Fast food is always the worst choice, given that its mostly salt, sugar, and fat, plus preservatives. They are doing you a favor.

Kj levels?

Maaaaaaaan, you don't want a meat mountain. I got one once at arbys in 2014. I'm 6'0, and the meat mountain was the same length as my wrist to my elbow. I was like "Well, I've made a huge mistake...."

I do though... Doesn't mean I have to be happy about the fact that portion sizes are shrinking, the cost per sandwich is growing, and the contents of my paychecks remain... let's call it "aggressively stagnant". Still, I'd rather spend 5 minutes and $10 on food that's ready right now as opposed to several hours buying, prepping, cooking, cleaning, etc for myself in most situations.

Edit: I just realized you're not the guy I first replied to, buuut I think I'll keep my comment as-is

I agree with you but that first pic is a bit deceiving. Like it's pushing the meat towards the camera more while squeezing the back to make it look bigger. Trust me, I'm an expert and making meat look bigger in a picture than it actually is!

So why did you take a random photo of your sandwich 5 years ago. And why did you keep it?

It's basically a synonym for "calories"

I don't get it either. You can either pay $12 for a sandwich that's continuing to shrink and taste funny, or hit up a bar that suddenly has the best chicken sandwich you have ever eaten.