Why is it so hard to get good quality stuff any more?

We’ve been told for years that we’re now living in a throw-away society, yet at the same time we’re told to cut down on packaging, cut down on purchases, recycle more…

How?

You buy an expensive piece of equipment, it breaks 2 days after the warranty runs out, but you can’t get it replaced because (according to the manufacturer) it isn’t cost effective, it would cost more to repair than it does to buy a new one.

Although you have to love how they don’t give you the option of repair to judge the cost for yourself.

And then we have food and services, doesn’t anyone take pride in their work any more?

When I used to work at the restaurant a few years ago, they were fairly expensive if you went in for a meal, although apparently they’re no more expensive than anywhere else in the city centre.

Yet the difference in the quality of the food was incredible.

Most places buy the cheapest ingredients possible, simply to maximise their profit margins. Yet the place I worked at bought nothing but the best ingredients they could find, and when you ate anything there, you sure could tell!

I don’t really drink anything other than plain water, but I do have a weakness for hot chocolate.

The place I worked at used to make them the old fashioned way…

Thick, frothy…

I’m talking made with full milk, enough chocolate powder to make it so think you could almost stand a spoon up in it. Then topped with thick double cream, and a handful of marshmallows… *drools*

Hardly anywhere seems to do them that way any more.

I was at a cafe last week (yes it’s true, I actually left the house!) that always used to do really nice hot chocolates.

But now they’ve gone the way of everyone else…

Everyone wants to maximise their profits, which is fair enough, it’s a business after all, but they don’t seem to have any interest in the quality of their stuff. No interest in whether their product is good enough to have people coming back for repeat business, just so long as it’s cheap…

And by cheap I mean cheap to make, not cheap to buy.

I had a hot chocolate at this cafe on Friday, it was made with water instead of milk, so was very thin and far too hot, had hardly any chocolate powder so was pretty tasteless, and was topped with squirty cream.

I should mention here that I would like to find the person who invented squirty cream, tie them down and squirt cream down their throats until they implode… Ok so I guess technically it would be explode…

I loath that stuff with a passion, I’m convinced that the nearest it’s come to a cow is if it happened to pass one on the road on the way to the store.

It tastes nothing like cream, or any other dairy product, is full of sugar and turns to water the second it comes into contact with anything warm.

I bought this hot chocolate, which was described as “Luxury thick, creamy hot chocolate” and even went for the slightly more expensive version that was served “with cream”.

Hell they can’t even get the descriptions right, because the description given was the furthest thing from the runny, tasteless slop they served me with!

But then we have cakes too, you buy a cake of any kind and they’re so artificial they all taste pretty much the same…

And don’t even get me started on the use of those “cake topping” rubbish…

I find it quite frightening this trend to go for cheaper and cheaper materials and ingredients in all products, especially since it doesn’t mean they reduce their prices any!

I find it equally frightening in this day and age that there is a whole generation brought up on this artificial junk who don’t know what real food actually tastes like. They don’t even know what a real cake or desert tastes like, just this bland pre-packaged rubbish you buy in the shops.

Blah… I need to go stab someone now…